(February 12, 2019 at 12:49 am)bennyboy Wrote: He shed valuable insight on racism-- anger and a tribal instinct led him to do something wrong. He's said he doesn't hold those feelings now, and regrets them.
I think people have to be able to talk about their dark moments-- then we can understand how they are arrived at, and better understand how to prevent them.
Correct. Instead of taking the opportunity to morally grandstand over someone about how you've never had racist thoughts and never will because you're so much purer than the dreaded racist you should applaud this man, not for his thoughts or actions during those dark times, but for his willingness to be honest about such a terrible moment in his life and about the way he was thinking. The more we are transparent in these discussions, when we have said discussions, the more progress we will actually make as a society.
Of course, it's terrible to think that Neeson almost killed an innocent black man out of anger or out of some strange sense of having to "defend" his friend who was raped. But, that's the entire point of Neeson telling the story... that it was terrible that he, at one point in life, thought that way. Now, even though he says he no longer thinks that way and understands how terrible it was that he ever thought that way, you STILL have people wanting to label him as a racist, boycott his movies, attempt to keep him out Hollywood, so on and so forth.
Neeson OPENLY says he no longer thinks that way, but the people who want him crucified refuse to take his word for it, ignoring the fact that if he truly wanted to hide the fact that he was a racist, he never would've told the fucking story in the first place. To them, he must've "slipped up" and is now just lying after the fact to cover his ass. This is nonsense because he was doing a recorded interview with a journalist, not spouting off an old story at the bar with friends.
People should be allowed to redeem themselves and today's outrage culture refuses to allow that, though I think they fail in most cases because any person with an ounce of critical thinking can denounce their nonsense. There is no way you can honestly believe that one mistake in someone's past should dictate a lifelong punishment, save for crimes like rape, murder, terrorism, etc. In this case, Neeson was the one willingly telling us about his mistake. He wasn't "caught," it wasn't a "gotcha" moment, it was a conscious decision to tell a story to illustrate the dark side of what revenge and racism really is.
But the professional "I'm offended" crowd doesn't want to hear that. They want the man's head on a stake and his body burned in the fire pit.
It's ridiculous.
If you're frightened of dying, and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the Earth.
