Should your racist act or speech hurt you forever?

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In Virginia both the governor and the attorney general face pressure to resign after admitting to posing in blackface in the 1980s. Liam Neeson has admitted to hanging around bars hoping to start a fight with a “black bastard” for the purpose of murder for a day after his friend was raped in the 1970s. For his honesty a red carpet event for his new movie was cancalled and a scheduled Steven Colbert appearence did not happen.

In none of these incidents did a criminal act occur although in Neeson’s case it came frightenly close to happaning. All of these cases involved more then an insensitive thought typical of the time. They were actions that were considered way out of bounds even for those politically incorrect times by people who were old enough at the time to know better.

These situations tell us more about current thinking then it does about racism. It tells us that in todays world people are viewed as ireedeemable. Once a racist always a racist, once a mysynogist always a mysogonist etc.

Virginia is indictitave of the problematic consequences of this way of thinking. Virginian’s are wondering who their next unelected governor is going to be.

Thing is most people have feared people that are different from them, another words have been at least temporary bigots, taken to its logical conclusion most people do not deserve to have jobs.

Does this shaming work?. In America it has failed so far, it was a factor in getting a demagogue elected thus enabling bigots to feel enabled to commit crimes.

Very likely the backlash to Trump has and will cause more public shaming, and eventually force used to successfully stifle public hateful thought. This is counterintuitive to the constant calls for “national conversations”. Racists are not born that way. Neeson described one way people can become that way and this needs to be talked about.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 07 Feb 2019, 5:19 am, edited 4 times in total.

I think there's a difference between someone having said or done something racist once and someone who practices actual racism.

When someone practices racism as part of who they are, you don't have to dig up something they did 30 years ago. Or have to construe what they said as being racist. You just point out when they recently used the N word for the zillionth time.

Robert Byrd (D-WV) was a "Kleagle and Exalted Cyclops" of the Ku Klux Klan in his youth. As an adult, he actively supported the Civil Rights Act, reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, the health care legislation of 2010 and Hate Crimes Prevention legislation, becoming one of the most effective advocates for civil rights in American history and helping to defeat Jim Crow and end discrimination against millions of Americans. Everything changes, and people are no exception. To suggest "once a racist, always a racist" denies a persons humanity; despite all appearances, humans are dynamic beings which are constantly learning, adapting, and evolving in thought due to external and internal causes and conditions which are themselves constantly arising and changing. I think that it was Lincoln who said that when people know better, they do better. We should be very cautious about judging someone by the stupid s**t they might have done in the distant past, instead of who and what they have become today.

NAACP MOURNS THE PASSING OF U.S. SENATOR ROBERT BYRD

It absolutely shouldn't hurt you forever.

Saudi Arabia gets praise for things like letting women get behind the wheel, things that the whole World or nearly the whole World do and think nothing of. But as nauseating as that is, if it helps to encourage positive change, I can accept it, and beating Saudi Arabia over the head with wrongs that it has put right would be nothing but counterproductive.

It does seem like a confusing double standard. It's a fact that people can change in their beliefs and their ideology over the course of decades. My problem isn't with whether or not the Governor should resign over something he did thirty years ago. Whatever is decided on this, either way, I'm more concerned about the "court of public opinion" being consistent.

Demand a resignation and refuse to forgive/forget (something he did thirty years ago)? Then we should also.....
Refuse to forgive/forget the acts of criminals who have served their time over crimes committed years prior.
There are many analogies that would fit equally well here including Drake's Saudi example above.

My problem in larger scope is selective morality and the double standards and hypocrisy that results. I can respect people on an individual case by case basis. Society as a whole? No. Philosophically, selective morality and its double standards (e.g. "reverse racism") I don't respect or accept. Consistency. Rules applied selectively as they often are is one of the reasons humanity is messed up. No thank you.

I can certainly forgive someone personally, but sorry, your political career is done.

"... anything you say can and will be used against you ..." -- Excerpt from the Miranda Warning of 1966.

And now, with virtually no privacy at all, anything that you have ever said or done in your entire life can and will be used against you, if only by the Media.

I'm not saying that it's right, I'm just saying that's how it is.

By todays standards Byrd would been forced to resign, any supporter of him deemed guilty of being a racist by association.


2010’s PC warning: "... anything you say can and will be successfully used against you ..."

The 1966 version is limited to legal matters. The updated version is something we as a society are increasingly allowing to happen because for the most part we are unwilling to stand up to bullies. Unfortunately people that are anti-PC to cloak thier bigotry often are the most prominent defenders of “free speech” furthering guilt by association. All indicators are that these trends will to continue to accelerate.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 07 Feb 2019, 10:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes! I don't know how he survived in politics all that time. The racist thing might not apply, since he disavowed racism. But that doesn't mean we really needed a former racist in office.

I don't know the specifics of every case, but it does seem like a number of public figures should be allowed out of Purgatory by now. The Grease Man maybe, and certainly I think that Roseanne Barr, and Paula Dean, should be allowed out of Purgatory.

Liam Neesan shouldn't even be in Purgatory for a minute, but praised for his honesty. He confessed to being in a temporary PTSD type mental fog which caused him to act just like the lead character played by Charles Bronson in everybody's favorite five Hollywood movies: Death Wish, and the subsequent Death Wishes Two through Five.

I am sorry. SEVEN favorite movies. They remade it starring Bruce Willis in 2018, and that was after they had already remade it under the name of "the Brave One" (with a female as the lead vigilante murderer character) starring Jodie Foster.

For Neesan's sake I wish he had tweeked his confession with just a little bit of nonhonesty. Instead saying that he stalked the back allies of the city waiting for a Black guy, I wish he had just said "waiting for a mugger to attack me, so I could kick ass". And everyone would probably be cheering him now for being a real life version of the Charles Bronson character instead of pilloring him for being a momentary racist.

It shouldn't hurt as much as "change" you forever. I'm biracial (Black/white just like the cookie) and what Liam Neeson said really, really hurt me. I imagined being a child again and Liam Neeson killing my father just because he was black.
I was brutally raped as a child. I was 7 and my attacker was a 14 year old Jewish boy. Do you think that every 14 year old Jewish boy in the area should have been killed because my attacker was 14 and Jewish? Did my father go out and hang around middle schools and freshman year classrooms with the intent of killing all 14 year old Jewish boys? Personally, I do believe Liam Neeson really experienced this. I believe he is being the "Brave one" and starting a trend of love. He confessed the wrong publicly. He's using his ever upward moving celebrity status for the better cause. People forget that he won his initial fame when he took the lead role in "Schlinder's List". That movie forever changed him. His role as Schlinder uprooted his racist past. Because actors and actresses impact our lives to such a degree, a good deed done by them can be happily emulated. Now, in politics, it's different. People fear the agendas of politicians - especially those agendas that are hidden.

Mike Tyson is a convicted rapist and has been in films. Paul Ruebens is a paedophile and was allowed to make another children's film after that.

Liam Neesan shouldn't even be in Purgatory for a minute, but praised for his honesty. He confessed to being in a temporary PTSD type mental fog which caused him to act just like the lead character played by Charles Bronson in everybody's favorite five Hollywood movies: Death Wish, and the subsequent Death Wishes Two through Five.




The character played by Bronson was a vigilante against sociopaths of all colors. Just because a man is black doesn't make him a rapist. Our brains are all the same color but they function differently. It's not the color, it's the action.
I experienced bigotry in all levels from all colors. A lot of white people in America think that black americans are getting even for slavery. That's not true. They are racist too. It's in the human G-nome. Believe it or not, racism is a primitive defense mechanism. The struggle is for resources. People will join the group that looks like them. Case in point: When Charlton Heston was interviewed about the making of the original Planet of the Apes, he commented on how surprised he was to see the gorillas at one table, the chimps at another, and the orangutans at their own table too. People were having lunch in costume. Friends weren't sitting together as they usually were. Heston found this very interesting and couldn't explain it. If a person isn't comfortable associating with people of another race, I don't feel they should be condemned. It's when a person degrades or hurts another - that is racism. Now. I have a situation with my neighbors. I'm biracial (black/white) and I live in a white neighborhood for almost 30 years now. I've seen people come and go and I have NOT one friend. I reach out but am constantly rejected. Dogs poop on my lawn and their owners don't pick it up. I don't get nearly an inch of respect around here simply because I'm not considered white. Sometimes I'm actually referred to as "that spic who lives at #19".

Last edited by RightGalaxy on 07 Feb 2019, 1:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

YES! I agree! People who are in politics and in front of cameras are "supposed" to represent a sort of ideal. If a politician is not on their best behavior, this causes DISCORD. Would you want your country pulled back into the Stone Age?

If we were to stick to such a rule then we wouldn't have many people to choose from. I think that picking our politicians should be something that is done by voting, not by digging dirt up on someone from decades ago and forcing them to resign on something they may no longer believe to be true. If that rule were held up then Hillary Clinton has no business in politics at all, she has said many racist things in her past. Also, I could be wrong but it seems that this rule is mostly applied to white people that mostly fall on the conservative side.

To give an example I have to ask a question(I don't know the answer) Has any politician been outed for saying the word "cracker"(In a racist context) in their entire life?

No human brought into this world instantly knows everything, growing and forming ideas is a process that never stops.

*I'm willing to accept that my prescription could be flawed. That is why i dislike media, rather than bringing people together they seem to desire to push people further apart. For example, If I were to base my prescription on media only then it seems the country is basically in a race & sex war. Yet when I go into public people of both sexes and all races seem to get along just fine. The level of hateful people appears to be very low.

The problem is we are getting to the point where we can't even have a discussion about grading those who have said something racist, or done something racist, on a scale of badness. Context no longer matters. Just toss them all in one basket and make them suffer forever.

We've seen that with the #MeToo movement. Take Louis CK, for instance. What he did was creepy and inappropriate, but you can't compare him to someone like Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby. Still, celebrities have been savagely attacked for even suggesting he should have a path to redemption. It's just crazy!