Solange Knowles Finally Gets A Hit...Is That Funny?

I wrote this post title and flinched a little, because it make me guilty of the same thing I'm about to talk about. As of yesterday I've seen headline after headline about the alleged physical altercation in the elevator at the Met, wherein Solange Knowles looks like she's kicking the shit out of Jay-Z while Beyonce stands idly by. Most of the stories address the story with humor. There are already a ton of memes out there. Perhaps you've seen this

Beyonce was in the elevator like... pic.twitter.com/1eLVNhhury
— Chubby Theo Huxtable (@SouthShotYa) May 12, 2014

or this

They are legion, and most at his expense. Here's the thing: the internet is full of trolls and folks who will find humor in some pretty unsavory things. People are finding it hilarious that this woman (a little woman it seems) wailed on this big hip-hop star. The big question on everyone's mind is: What did he do/say? Even major news outlets are asking this.

Come one now. Let's play the ol' "Situation Reversed" game. Let's say those elevator doors closed and Jay went HAM on Solange. Yeah, you'd still have your idiots out there laughing and talking about "What did she do to him?", as if there's something she (or he) could have done to warrant that kind of behavior, but you'd have a very loud majority screaming for his head. "Put him in jail!" "You don't put your hands on a woman!" Anyone asking what she did to provoke him would have been the victim of an online tongue-lashing. Your friends on Facebook would never share a meme that joked about the incident.

But it's a dude. It's Jay-Z. So, you know, it's okay. Instead we can talk about her behavior in tones that border on impressed ("Man, did you see how she went hard on him?") and talk about his misfortune in a manner that's almost gleeful. Instead of shaking our head in wonder and being proud of his ability to stand there and not physically retaliate (because many of us wonder if we could have done that), we're mocking him and calling into question his manhood. Really? What a double standard we have. I mean, I know that we know about the double standard, that this isn't the first or last thing to ever happen that will be subject to it, but it's just so blatant. I was reading this "article" on The Daily Beast about the incident. It I quote:

(There is nothing more insufferable, in this writer’s opinion, than the vaunting of Jay Z as some sort of celebrity god. How quickly we forget that Jay Z stabbed someone! In 1999 he pleaded guilty to stabbing a record producer outside a Manhattan nightclub. He pleaded guilty to literally driving a knife into a human. Ugh, and then there was that pompous “I’m retired…just kidding! I’m not retired.” nonsense. Slap away, Solange!)

Are you kidding me? Do we really think this author would have been bold enough to make this kind of statement not only condoning but calling for violence if this had been a man attacking a woman? If it had been, say, some dude smacking Miley Cyrus (who is arguably just as polarizing)? I get that Jay-Z isn't a saint, but dude!

And for the record, when I see the photo of the the three of them leaving afterwards, I don't get "Stepford Wives" from Beyonce's expression as many have said. I get a woman seething inside and tired of her sister's antics but trying to hold it together and not act a fool in front of a crowd that would love nothing better than to start slinging dirt. I'm not a Beyonce fan in particular, not a Jay-Z fan in particular, but Solange has problems. Clearly.

Good luck to Bey and her family as they try and work through whatever this nonsense is.