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Originally posted by notcasesensitive
Who is "she"?
Do I hate celebrity news? I don't think I've ever said that. I did confess to not following the will-Paris-get-jailtime saga particularly closely. And I have an ongoing beef with the dumbing down of the coverage by the CNN's of the world. But I've even admitted here that I used to read US Weekly on a weekly basis (until the subscription Mr. Man purchased expired a few months ago). Proper outlets, etc.
In other, well, celebrity news, Isaiah Washington (aka the fired Grey's Anatomy guy) has come out (ha!) with a statement that his firing was racially motivated. You can read about it, where else, on cnn.com.* He's trying to hearken back to times when black actors were only supposed to smile and entertain and were told to shut their mouths otherwise. Nothing in his statement rings true to me, given the status of black actors in our country today, but there it is. Discuss? Would the shitstorm that hit him ever have happened to a white guy? I think he got in trouble for being an asshole, but that's just my impression. Kind of like Mel Gibson. Would Mel have been fired in the aftermath of his anti-jewish tirade if he were under contract with ABC (and of equivalent level of fame to Washington)? I think probably.
Here's the story link: http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/0....ap/index.html
*See? It angers me, yet I read it anyway. It's a conundrum.
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I think some of what he said was true. I think he's overstating a lot of it because he now knows that any publicity is good publicity in the Hugh Grant/Mel Gibson/Lindsay Lohan/Paris Hilton/etc. Hollywood. His name will grow, he will become contrite and all will eventually be forgotten or forgiven and he will have jumped one step up on the Hollywood ladder.
But the simple fact is, people are scared of large black men, especially dark-skinned ones. It's a lasting stereotype that he and others are surely still fighting in Hollywood and irl. Whenever anyone wants to conjure up the scariest person they can, it's always a dark-skinned black inmate or something. So, the question becomes, did the fact that being an imposing figure because of his build and skin color aggravate an already fucked up situation? Absolutely. If the scrawny guy from scrubs called someone a fag in an argument, it would be bad, but he wouldn't get fired, because most people would think to themselves, "If he calls me that again, I'll just beat his ass," or "He's just having a little tantrum." But when Washington says it, there's that additional fear that comes along with it, because he is a large, black man.
Anyway, I don't think they should have strung him along so long and made him dance the way they did. They should have either said, "We are upset by what he did and it is unacceptable, and we are taking disciplinary action and taking care of the matter, but he will not lose his job," or they should have just fired him right away and said they wouldn't stand for it. Instead, they made him do One to Grow on promos about hate and had him see counselors and then fired him anyway. That's fucked up.
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