From a historical perspective racist indoctrination is relevant in maybe explaining why Liam Neeson was the way he was. However it wouldn't excuse his actions and its up to individual black people to decide if they want to forgive him. Without expanding on the story theres little reason to expect forgiveness. Accepting reformed people into society is good but going I almost killed some one for being black watch my movie isnt how you show your reformed.
Nothing he's done suggests he's done anything to confront and remove the amount of racism you have to be indoctrinated by to try and lynch a black man. That is a lifelong process, and we're only having him gloss over it now.
In this political climate eh? I really hate what the label of politics covers these days honestly.
I'm not dismissing it. It's horrific but I think in one interview he has focussed on the violence. The racism is clearly there and is shocking but I dont want crucify him in the court of public opinion when he is trying to make a statement saying he had shocking thoughts 40 years ago is him trying to show that his mind isn't in the same place as it was then.
1. No, I'm saying the characterization of "he only thought but didn't follow through" is absolute bullshit, and many in this thread have reduced it as such, with someone even calling it "mind policing". My point is that he had a racist disposition and acted on it, for a fucking week. He wandered around town with a weapon to try and find a black person to murder. I don't know what he would or would not have done had he found someone, but the point is that he acted in a way that has actually gotten black people killed in the past. Lynchings didn't just take place between the murderer and victim.. but rather the group of racist assholes who actively hunted and contributed to the act.
This. Coming down from "wanting to kill black people" isn't a major stride. He might still be a racist bigot. He might still act in ways that diminish the lives of minorities. After all in this very topic we've seen he doesn't have much empathy for the #metoo movement and has said as such publicly. There's a lot more to racism than just wanting to kill us and Neeson in this interview doesn't show that he's actually internalized that reality. It doesn't show he's actually empathetic to minority races. Someone who thinks innocent black people should die unjustly has a lot more going on in regards to anti-blackness than just bloodlust.
It's also presumptuous to assume the opposite because you know racist people do exist. Yet the default response is to defend this guys honour from mean forum posts for what reason exactly?
And given it would be a rage-induced attack with a potential victim not seeing it coming, I'd assume the latter.
As someone who works in PR, albeit a different sector, you have no idea how hard it is for people to get out of their own way. So much of this job is protecting people from themselves.
Actually, he's using it to sell his movies. Nevermind that at no point does he address, nor does he apologize for, the actual racism of his reaction.
This is the point I have been trying to get across just not as eloquently as you. However it's understandably hard to get past the casual racism of the story. I still don't understand why he dropped in the ethnicity of the rapist without then addressing that afterwards.
It's pretty easy. He talked about how revenge is bad. He skirted past how racist his actions were. He doesn't talk about the racist part of it at all though, and how he has or hasn't grown in that particular respect. And considering how terribly racist they were, just leaving that as a huge ??? and focusing purely on the "I learned that revenge is bad" aspect is naturally going to rub some people the wrong way, to put it mildly. And I consider myself among that number. You don't get to just drop that bomb and not address the elephant in the room and pretend it doesn't exist even. And after admitting something of that nature, you can't just get benefit of the doubt when you don't even talk about about it and how you have or haven't grown in that particular respect and just leave it as a huge unknown and have other people fill in the blanks for you.
You don't get the outrage? You don't get how people could be worked up after he dropped this story in a movie interview? That doesn't sound like something pretty outrageous? Telling people about the time he played executioner for a black community? If Ryan Reynolds talked about how he almost kidnapped a little boy to use as a sex slave but changed his mind, ending with some platitude about "really makes you think about the darkness in every humans' heart" during an interview for Deadpool 3 that'd be pretty fucking outrageous.
I mean the 2 things aren't even remotely comparable. You can bet your ass if someone raped my wife I would have some serious aspirations for revenge. The casual racism of the story is the hard bit to handwave away and the interviewer should really have honed in on that.
Well, he's being confessional. The "black bastards" quotation is basically him admitting he had racist thoughts and was very close to acting on them. I think the fact that he brings it up is showing he is not trying to sugarcoat his state of mind at the time but to indicate how fucked up it was.
I don't mean casual racism of what he did. I mean casual racism of his telling of the story. I get that the act itself was incredibly fucking racist.
Both are fucking crimes committed against innocent people. Liam literally carried a bludgeon and went looking for a black person to cross him to justify beating their head in.
Is the concept that of people bring racist such a shocking concept to you. Do you read the news?
Again. He doesn't actually acknowledge the racism within the interview. He acknowledges that it was wrong to literally go out looking to commit a crime against an innocent person. He doesn't get to use that trauma to justify his impulse to go after innocent people. Lots of people have trauma and have to deal with it. Lots of people have trauma and don't suddenly decide to take it out on an unrelated entire race of people. People use past trauma to justify rape and pedophilia all the time. "You have to remember, I was traumatized" isn't a catch all.
No it's perfectly equilvalent concept. We're talking about someone going out and trying to fucking lynch an innocent bystander what on earth are you on about?
Yes, it is an entirely foreign concept to me. Please explain racism to me.
However he still openly admits he knows his actions were wrong. He has zoned in on the violence as that is what he knows people associate him with and he feels it's important to get the point out that folks shouldn't go full Taken because that's a bad choice. I think the racist elements of his story are incredibly problematic but I also feel that unless he doubles down or more evidence of him being a racist POS surface that he should be given a chance to explain that element of his story. If he continues to ignore it despite what will of course now turn into people focussing on the racial element of his story, his silence will tell me all I need to know about his current mindset.
I mean it's not suspect at all we all know what he meant, it's not like he was trying to hide that. Whether he still calls black people that is another question entirely
Again, my point is that there is no version of this conversation about his story where he and anyone else should not be acknowledging the racism. The violence and racism go hand in hand. The violence was motivated by racism. To focus on one and gloss over the other is to say that the racism did not matter.
That's your reading between the lines. He doesn't feel the need to mention any of this. The mere fact there"s not a single word he says you can use to prove this says it all. The key takeaway from that experience isn't whst he said. It isn't even remotely what he said. What he actually feels is worth verbalising is an aside point.
