(February 5, 2019 at 11:43 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: Looking through the controversy about Liam Neeson's recent interview... wow.
Just so we're absolutely clear, the scenario he described of what he was thinking for about a week was nothing short of monstrous, and if he actually went through with his murderous fantasies on some unsuspecting black person, it would be utterly indefensible even if he actually found the guy who raped his friend. And yet, as he described it, he made abundantly clear that he was ashamed he ever thought like that. He's describing how he briefly gave in to the racism that most white people end up struggling with, whether consciously or unconsciously, and at least made the attempt at trying to overcome it.
And, of course, there's a lot of outrage about the whole thing. On the one hand, of course what he admitted to was horrible. But to find that for so many his remorse about the whole ordeal means nothing (the fact that he framed his realisation in terms of revenge and not race relations probably has something to do with it, but given that Northern Ireland, where this appears to have happened, is the whitest nation on Earth might explain why his immediate thoughts were on the futility of revenge in general than on the specific racial dimension) concerns me if only because, well, if you want to actually stem the tide of racism, maybe giving people some incentive to change (as opposed to decrying them even as they apologise and express remorse) might actually help with that.
The more I look at it, the more obvious it becomes that the zero-tolerance approach that many take to situations like this seems counterproductive. And now, we keep running the risk of becoming Chuck McGill, sabotaging a former crook's attempt at reforming because of that past, and inadvertently making sure he no longer sees a point in becoming a better person.
Accountability for horrible deeds done by unrepentant assholes is one thing, but what will punishing someone for thoughts decades ago they knew were wrong before they acted upon them accomplish?
I remember when I was a kid, my friends were beat up by some racist white kids on the basketball court, and I remember I wanted to go around trying to find kids that looked like them ( white kids) , who even looked at me the wrong way.
It was a terrible reaction, but a pretty human one I think, so I don’t fault Liam for feeling the same way, particularly when reflecting on it, he recognizes it was a horrible reaction, and wasn’t justifying it.
It seems like in this day age, even being honest about things you regret can be held against you, that we all need to present and give the impression of being these perfectly decent creatures, void of any of the ugliness of being people.
