Kevin Hart Is Not in Prison, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Is Wrong

I’ve written about this before. Specifically, many years ago when I was a teacher, this Jew bonded with a particular new-Nazi student.

As a (then-)special education teacher, there was simply no way to get around having students such as this in your classroom. You kept your job and complied, or you said “no” and they found someone else.

Bye bye, job.

For the record, this particular classroom was in Southern California. The school was “non-public,” abiding by the general rules of LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District) while receiving its funding in large part through private donors.

Regarding the student in my classroom, I complied. I questioned the decision of the administrators; after all, there were four other high school teachers present and any one of them could have taken on this challenge.

I needed the job, and I thought in my desperation I was stepping into a cesspool.

Life, though, had other plans. As time went on, the student and I formed, surprisingly, a mutual understanding.

He had no parents to speak of, and he was not that close to his living grandparents. After high school, he went to the military to straighten out. I left teaching and followed my first passion as a screenwriter. I gave him a chance as an intern for my production company the following year and he did great.

It got to the point where he continually asked my wife and me to adopt him. We didn’t, and we had our reasons. Ultimately, he fell back into meth and other drugs and started lying to us both.

Earlier this year, after spending several years in prison for armed robbery, he was shot and killed by two cops after he shot at them first.

Why bring this up here, and how in the world does this relate to Kevin Hart?

Here’s your answer: this represents, for the purposes of this article, several personal and egregious weeks of anti-Semitism targeted directly to me...until things changed.

Kevin Hart. I cannot speak of being gay because I’m not gay. I can speak of being the target of hate for being Jewish.

People DO change. And also...comics have an implied license to commentate on social concerns. And they should.

Artists and their niches...

Kevin has talked about his past many times before. He’s worked with the LGBTQ community in his films and otherwise. He’s moved on from some of his past performing routines.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences wanted him to apologize, or he was off the show as host.

He refused, but he addressed—once again—that he’s spoken about all this over the years.

He is not under a lifetime sentence, and should not be treated as such. Watch old vids of Bob Hope and Johnny Carson when they hosted the Oscars. PC did not exist back then. I remember one year when Johnny Carson implied he was being hypnotized by Dolly Parton’s breasts.

The audience laughed. I laughed.

I think the Academy is wrong when it comes to Hart. The message to me is a forced apology solves all past wrongdoing, as opposed to actions.

The real world does not spin that way. AMPAS hired him, they knew of his past risqué material, and they should have left well enough alone.

If any of my friends here in the LGBTQ community believe otherwise, I’d love to hear it. Maybe my equating the story of my former student above is not the best or most sensitive equivalency. But as the past victim of hatred for who I am, I hope it shows an effort to understand.

P.S. I forgave the kid. A little education there went a long way, until life’s share of tsuris got in the way.