Liam Neeson: Rape, Revenge, and Race Relations

[GrandizerII]

It's a poor judgment call in all sorts of ways. The most important thing he should've done is he should've picked up a different inspiring story to recount instead, one that wouldn't have negatively affected a significant subgroup of people with a history of oppression and violence afflicted upon them by white people. But even with the initial damage done, he could at least have not tried to insult the intelligence of those people in the second interview by saying such things as him not being [presently] racist (even if that was so) and saying he considered height as well and not just skin color ...

Eh?

He picked the story to illustrate a fork in the road involving racism, hatred, shame, and recovery.  It's a story that we should hope more people could tell.

He didn't mention the word "race" or "racism" at all in the initial interview. His story had little to do with race and more to do with revenge, which is supposedly the focus of the movie he was promoting. There were better ways he could've made his message clear on the idea of revenge without describing to the interviewer how murderously racist he was being at the time. I mean, did he really have to say he asked his friend what color the person's skin was? At the same time, he didn't even say that the racist aspect was wrong, only that the need for revenge was wrong.

Why would he white-wash a story which was exactly about the things you say he shouldn't be talking about?  Then there'd have been no point telling the story.  Not sure you're getting the context, here.

Do you?

I've listened to the audio and have access to the transcript. It was, at best, way too awkward what he was saying. And many black people remarked that they were disturbed by what he had to say.

At best, he's a good guy whose poor judgement and lack of empathy led him to fuck up big time.