you can't be sure of any situation, something could change and then you won't know (part four)

(Continued from part three.)

[10:06 PM] Fermium: And see, now having taken a look at the side of the 'outraged', why do you dislike the treatment, what about it do you dislike? WHat do you think is unfair or unearned?
[10:08 PM] Platinum: the people that don't seem to think that he's any different now than he was during that time. and trying to say his work should be, or actively pushing to get his work cancelled.
[10:10 PM] Emilly Orr: ^^^
[10:10 PM] Emilly Orr: That
[10:11 PM] Emilly Orr: There is a vast difference between Harvey Weinstein and Liam Neeson, to put it another way
[10:11 PM] Iron: That he discussed a thing in the past he was clearly very apologetic for and was using it as an example of a terrible thing he did once, that was about potentially doing a much worse thing at the time, and that that has made people angry at him in the present even though he showed he no longer feels that way.
[10:12 PM] Iron: Right, and the pushing for and successful cancellation of work that followed it.
[10:13 PM] Emilly Orr: Right.
[10:13 PM] Emilly Orr: Versus Weinstein, and hey, Bill Cosby, we can drag him into this too--Weinstein is STILL insisting he did nothing wrong, and Cosby, he wanted to plead innocent to all charges, and even his own lawyers were like, "Dude..."
[10:14 PM] Iron: I watched that video you posted, [Fermium], and apparently he's fumbled over his words since then. Which is fair for people to be upset about. It was a racist action he took at the time, no doubt.

I do think it's less that he's revising the original story, or trying to downplay it, and more that it's so emotional for him he's fumbling the speaking clearly portion of things. But that's just me, I don't know if that's actually true.

[10:14 PM] Platinum: some of the sentiment seems to maybe be about him giving that admission during an interview to promote a new movie. But it came about when asked what he drew on to play out someone seeking revenge, so it was relevant to the interview.
[10:14 PM] Emilly Orr: Absolutely. I do not deny that racism in any way. And only some of that is explained by culture.
[10:15 PM] Platinum: I mean, I would say most of it is explained by culture
[10:15 PM] Emilly Orr: Well, I meant, not US culture. I meant, being born and raised in Ireland, where blacks were not exactly treated well.
[10:15 PM] Platinum: that's usually where most racism ends up coming from, in modern times. how kids end up raised with racist ideas put into their head.
[10:16 PM] Iron: But not anger to the point of getting him to cancel his shows now. Just if he's denying it was a race based action he needs it explained that it was a racist action. But that video also did rightly point out that his attempt at apologizing and atonement is being ignored by people.
[10:16 PM] Emilly Orr: Not a patch on what we did to black people--or Indians--or the Chinese--or the Japanese--but definitely not well.
[10:16 PM] Platinum: yes. and from what I'm seeing, 40 years ago in Ireland it was even worse than it is today
[10:16 PM] Emilly Orr: Yes.
[10:17 PM] Iron: I do not blame him for canceling his late night show appearance currently. Anything he says in even any sort of slight manner that could be construed as problematic will end with him being absolutely slaughtered.
[10:17 PM] Iron: And that sucks.
[10:17 PM] Emilly Orr: And the real horror of that story he told? It isn't the racism. It's that something bad happened to a friend of his, and she couldn't remember a name, all she remembered was "he was black"--what if she was lying? What if she did know the guy and was afraid of him? Invented a black guy as a plausible decoy? Now we have this man, crazed across with frustrated rage, searching to kill someone who shares one trait with this maybe guy.

To me, that's almost more horrifying. I'm not saying his friend, who obviously he cared for, faked a rape story. I'm saying, it is not at all uncommon to be raped by someone we know, who then threatens us into silence, and then for us, being scared into irrationality, naming someone entirely different from the person who actually raped us. (If we mention it at all--it goes that way, too, sadly.)

[10:18 PM] Emilly Orr: And that's what I mean. EVERYONE is one step away from torches and pitchforks.
[10:18 PM] Emilly Orr: With the right motivation, the right push at the wrong time, we all go over the cliff.
[10:19 PM] Iron: Yes.
[10:20 PM] Iron: I'm glad the majority of us don't end up doing so, at least not successfully to the point of committing crimes like that. [10:20 PM] Iron: But none of us are as far away from committing them as we'd like to think we are.
[10:20 PM] Emilly Orr: Oh, absolutely. I am very glad of that. I'm glad most of us possess at least enough empathy to take that half-step to the side and think, wait a minute....
[10:21 PM] Emilly Orr: But yes. That, that's it. And I think people are missing that in their rush to sacrifice the next man on the altar of #MeToo.
[10:21 PM] Iron: It's been an issue for a long time, with viewing criminals as no longer human and the like too. Absolutely, at some point, all of this comes back to dehumanization. And lack of empathy.
[10:22 PM] Iron: It also goes into why I'm against the common man owning a gun.
[10:22 PM] Iron: I don't trust all y'all. :p
[10:22 PM] Iron: I don't trust myself!
[10:22 PM] Iron: But that's a whole 'nother debate.
[10:22 PM] Iron: One I shouldn't be getting into when I have bookkeeping homework...
[10:23 PM] Fermium: He didn't apologize
[10:23 PM] Fermium: He was ashamed, but he never actually apologized

Didn't he apologize on Good Morning America? Though at this point, Michelle Rodriguez, his costar in Widows, has now apologized for defending him.

[10:24 PM] Fermium: An innocent man could have been beaten, killed, because he was black. That's how lynching happens. Yes, he's ashamed, that's great. But there is a larger issue.
[10:25 PM] Fermium: And it wasn't once. It was five or six times.
[10:25 PM] Iron: Yeah he did it for like a week, going out, from what I recall.
[10:25 PM] Iron: He was in that state of mind for a while.
[10:25 PM] Fermium: Yes. But not once.
[10:26 PM] Fermium: Once in his life maybe. But that's sort of trivializing it.
[10:27 PM] Fermium: Most things are only ever once in your life. All it would have taken is once for a black person to be killed wrongly to get revenge on one black person who may have raped his friend.
[10:27 PM] Emilly Orr: I'm not dismissing that, either. He could have killed someone. He's ashamed that he could have, yes, but he still, somewhere, feels that reaction was justified. That is not good.
[10:27 PM] Fermium: I don't think he feels the action is justified

This could have been me reading into things, too. Not meaning so much feeling his actions during that mad week were justified now, but that he felt his actions were justified at that time. Right?

[10:27 PM] Iron: Y'know what's weird? Like, this brings something to mind.
[10:28 PM] Iron: How did he go out multiple times and not once see a black man?
[10:28 PM] Fermium: Understandable, yes. Justified, no.
[10:28 PM] Fermium: You ever been to Ireland?
[10:29 PM] Fermium: But no, he went out and was looking to find a black person who would start a fight with him.
[10:29 PM] Iron: Oh right, right.
[10:29 PM] Fermium: That way he could claim self defense
[10:29 PM] Fermium: And justify it.
[10:29 PM] Iron: That's right.

[Iron] then linked the Good Morning, America interview I linked above.

[10:34 PM] Iron: It's interesting that he says he would have done the same if his friend had said the person was Irish, or Scot, or Lithuanian.
[10:38 PM] Emilly Orr: Yeah. And maybe, maybe he would have. Part of me doesn't think so, based on the way he still, after all these years, growls "black bastard" in the interview.
[10:39 PM] Iron: That part of it struck me, yeah. I figure he was trying to explain his mindset at the time.
[10:39 PM] Emilly Orr: nods.
[10:39 PM] Emilly Orr: It's still a chilling phrase.
[10:39 PM] Iron: And the guy that raped her? It's not an inappropriate phrase to describe. I mean, technically so, as he's likely not the technical definition of a bastard (although one never knows) but in the insulting way.
[10:40 PM] Fermium: You're missing the forest through the trees.
[10:40 PM] Fermium: Ignore what he said or whether he actually would have if she had said those things.
[10:40 PM] Iron: It's a bit weird to combine a technically accurate word with a technically inaccurate word, bit of incongruity in the phrasing there, but yeah.
[10:41 PM] Fermium: Focus on the way he describes it. When asked if he would have done the same thing if it was a white man, he branches off into 'Sure, Irish, Scot, Brit, Lithuanian.'
[10:41 PM] Fermium: There's a casual racism in that.
[10:41 PM] Fermium: Which most people have.
[10:41 PM] Fermium: But is important to point out.

This is another excellent point, that I think a lot of white people hearing his description float right by. Because we see different types of white people, and most of us only see one single type of non-white people--they're all black, they're all Hispanic, they're all Asian. We are not enculturated to differentiate.

[10:41 PM] Fermium: To him, Black is black. But White? White can be British, or Scottish, or Irish, or a bunch of things!
[10:41 PM] Iron: He was just explaining himself, answering the question.
[10:41 PM] Fermium: But Black is black.
[10:42 PM] Emilly Orr: Exactly.
[10:42 PM] Iron: This is why he'll be slaughtered when he gets interviewed right now.
[10:42 PM] Fermium: It's not a major thing, it's just casual racism, it's something to be aware of. Casual racism, casual sexism.
[10:42 PM] Iron: I'm aware of it. I do it too. S'not good.
[10:42 PM] Iron: It is good to be aware of it.
[10:43 PM] Iron: But he shouldn't lose work over it.
[10:43 PM] Emilly Orr: Personally, I think casual racism can be more horrifying than knee-jerk, reactionary racism. Because it's that socially acceptable, "oh, everyone feels that way" racism. Which shouldn't ever be dismissed.
[10:43 PM] Fermium: He hasn't lost any work besides Spike Lee dropping him. Who, being Spike Lee makes sense he'd rather not associate with him, at least for now.
[10:44 PM] Emilly Orr: But the other thing I'm wondering? Why did this come up now? He's done endless interviews for the Taken series, been asked this exact question for those films, but...now, this story comes out? Why?
[10:45 PM] Iron: Because he was asked where he gets the feeling of revenge from in the interview and that's what came to mind. I don't think there's more to it than just that.
[10:45 PM] Fermium: That's sort of what I mean. There's this almost counter-rage that happens when people dismiss how people feel or what they call for. They simplify, they extrapolate.
[10:45 PM] Fermium: People can call for whatever they want. They have that right. It comes down to whether it's enough to matter to a studio or not.
[10:45 PM] Emilly Orr: But it didn't come up for the other films he's done with revenge as a theme--and look over his IMDb, he's done a LOT of them--and this never surfaced before?
[10:46 PM] Iron: Maybe he thought better of it those other times, if it came to mind at all?
[10:46 PM] Iron: Clearly being truthful hasn't worked out so well for him.
[10:46 PM] Emilly Orr: Maybe.

Maybe. But this was another odd point for me. Why did this story come out now? What drew it to the forefront of his mind, when the last twenty years of his acting career in revenge epics didn't draw it out?

[10:46 PM] Iron: And people can call for things, yeah, but it doesn't make it right for them to do so.
[10:47 PM] Iron: Coming from my perspective of what is right and wrong.
[10:47 PM] Fermium: What makes it wrong.
[10:47 PM] Emilly Orr: Careers in this climate can be ruined over casual comments. Look at James Gunn. Is it deserved? Sometimes. Can people change? I have to believe they can, and I refuse to believe that once change occurs, they can go back to those old modes of thinking. (Or, at least, usually.)
[10:48 PM] Iron: What makes anything wrong, [Fermium]?
[10:48 PM] Iron: And I agree Emi.
[10:49 PM] Emilly Orr: How about a less charged word, then? It makes it unfortunate, that he decided now, in the midst of one-strike-you're-out society, to tell this story. Very bad timing.
[10:49 PM] Fermium: That is a very deep question, [Iron].
[10:49 PM] Iron: Yeah. One often discussed in Philosophy classes, heh.
[10:50 PM] Iron: And yeah, bad timing. I do think it will, for the most part, blow over at least and not be completely career ending.
[10:50 PM] Iron: So it could be worse.
[10:50 PM] Iron: But still unfortunate for the time being.
[10:53 PM] Fermium: The easy answer is 'When it harms someone' but that's not always true. A boycott would hurt someone in some fashion. So, instead perhaps directly harming someone. Though I'd also say that people trying to enforce their values via laws on other people is wrong. But what makes that different than calling for a boycott? The more subtle answer to that is the ability of the group to actually accomplish it. What power they hold, so to speak.
[10:53 PM] Fermium: Either way, not really important. I'm not saying it's right, just not sure what specifically makes it wrong. It's subjective, all of this is subjective.

And we'll pick this up in one last part.

(Continued in part five.)