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A Slap, Chris Rock, an Oscar, and a Disability Raises Audience Awareness
Chris Rock, a man with a disability, was slapped by Will Smith on live TV at the Oscars and Smith received a slap from the Oscar committee for his action.
The yearly awarding of filmdom’s highest prize, an Oscar, had something unexpected in 2022; a slap in the face of a host. Not scripted, not expected, and with no security in place, it could have been an event ending in tragedy. Instead, it raised not simply incredible surprise but an issue of disability that few knew existed.
Now we know Will Smith’s slap of Chris Rock was from a very tall, powerful man slapping a much smaller man who has a disability — and he did it in full view of a world audience.
Few knew that Chris Rock has a disability (NVLD) Nonverbal Learning Disability, a disorder where the deficits (are) in visuospatial ability/intelligence (and)…the most common criterion used, followed by a discrepancy between verbal and nonverbal intelligence…But in the entertainment community, they had ample opportunity to know about Rock’s disability.
The disorder is considered a syndrome of nonverbal learning disabilities that include weaknesses in both visual-spatial processing and perceptual abilities, cycle motor skills, and novel problem-solving. Deficits in individual disabilities lead to…
