Host Chris Rock speaks at the Oscars on Sunday, Feb. 28, 2016, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

So….I know a lot of folks boycotted the Oscars…..but I tuned in to catch Chris Rock’s monologue…(and truthfully, fast-forwarded thru everything else until he came up again). I wanted to see how the comedian handled the controversy of #OscarsSoWhite.

Chris has come a long way from the white-lipped junkie asking how many ribs he could get for a dollar. He’s a bonafide comedian that draws a line in the sand and isn’t afraid to cross it. So I expected him to make some folks uncomfortable. I just didn’t expect those folks to include me.

Yeah, I ‘oooohed’ when he blasted Jada Pinkett Smith, saying she wasn’t invited to the awards show anyway. And I laughed when he made reference to Will getting 20 mil for Wild, Wild West.

But then, the cringe-worthy moments began. The ‘our people weren’t worrying about boycotting years ago because they had bigger things to worry about’ was akin to all of the folks who were in an uproar because some folks had an opinion on whether “Sorority Sisters” shouldn’t have been cancelled. We are capable of caring about more than one issue. Okay, I still gave him a pass on that because, hey, that’s what comedians do. But when he made lynching into a joke, I stopped laughing. If I was uncomfortable, I can only imagine how some of the white people in the room felt. But I think I was more than uncomfortable. I was like, “Really, so we making jokes about lynching now.” I love to laugh as much as the next person…but for me, that just went too far.

Chris did call to light the ridiculousness of some of Hollywood’s exclusion, but missed the mark in so many other places, regulating valid concerns of many who have seen entertainment as an avenue to make a difference, as a platform to push social issues…to a “we so petty” moment.

Don’t get me wrong, there were still some funny moments….Loved the bit where the Black folks appeared in the best pictures (Whoopi was dead on when she said they’d make a major movie about a white woman inventing a mop…but we gotta find a cure for Cancer and we MIGHT get a movie on Lifetime. In February.) And the interviewing of the movie-goers, while also cringeworthy when they rolled out some of the most ghetto-fabulous folks they could find, still had some laugh-out-loud moments.

So while Chris had some hits and misses….I can tell you that Stacy Dash bit was an Epic Fail. I wonder does she even realize folks were making fun of her. But then, again, she probably doesn’t even care….

And yeah, I know, Chris did what he does….and got paid nicely for it….while I’m sitting here recapping for free:-)….I can’t imagine that his was an easy task. But for me, I’m glad the American Black Film Festival was airing a Celebration of Hollywood up against the Oscars….I’d much rather be at a party where they want me in attendance…

RTB