Isaiah Washington makes me think Part 2 - 6.29.2007.2

Continued from Isaiah Washington makes me think Part 1...

As for Mr. Richards,
he and Mr. Seinfeld tried to explain how this was meant to be humor. It was just ‘a response to being heckled.’ The news media, which only picked up the story due to the proliferation of a YouTube video of the event, 3 days after the fact, dropped the story in a couple of days. No mention on this has happened since about a week after the event. Mr. Richards also went for counseling, and apologized to several of the patrons at the Laugh Factory that night. There may have also been a cash settlement, but that was never confirmed or followed by the media to my knowledge. [If you know tell me]

In both these cases we see that the media made a big deal and then quickly dropped the story. Both men had huge entertainers stand up for them when the news broke. Neither man had ties to a television or movie studio at the time [Mr. Gibson’s movie was independent and self-owned]. Mr. Gibson seems to have fully recovered. Mr. Richards abilities are unknown.

So is Mr. Washington correct? Well I do have to mention that Mr. Michael Jackson has continued his career since allegations of child molestation. Then again, that is quite different in nature of what happened, and some claim Mr. Jackson may be near bankruptcy. Still there is no question that he has mostly survived the negative media attention. Not that his career is not filled with negative media.

There is also R. Kelly.
5 years after being accused of raping a minor on video tape, his case has yet to see the light of a courtroom. The widely distributed tape is barely ever mentioned anymore, and the father of the victim reportedly now works for R Kelly. He has made record albums and comparatively toned down music videos since, and the media today barely whispers about the case.

Yet I have never heard of the kind of forgiveness that Mr. Gibson or others have received. When comparing apples to apples, as best as can be done, the similarities end. The volume of acts committed by the entertainers and celebrities that the media takes a soft hand to is numerous. The number that this treatment reaches, that are minorities of any type are few.

Mr. Washington seems to not have gotten a fair shake, compared to other entertainers of similar stature and nature. I mean there was a lot said about Ms. Angelina Jolie, before she started traveling and working to improve the lives of children. But even Newsweek had to mention that Mr. Washington is building a school in Sierra Leone. Mr. Washington claims to have been donating to homeless shelters, and working to improve the lives of the downtrodden for many years. Like many African American, and Hispanic/Latino American entertainers and celebrities, like Mr. Chris Gardner of whom the movie Pursuit of Happyness is based, little of these actions has ever been mentioned.

Forgiving Mr. Isaiah Washington for his comments is a personal decision. Whether anyone thinks his comments were vile, crude or ignorant is not my point. But I do wonder why it seems quite apparent that the media seems ready to crucify entertainers and celebrities of color when something that is questionable is done, yet when blatant criminal acts are done by other entertainers [like taking drugs, driving without a liscence, drunk driving, ect] they turn the other cheek repeatedly.

This is what I think, what do you think?

Isaiah Washington makes me think - 6.29.2007.1

Newsweek has just published an interview with Mr. Isaiah Washington, that seems to be getting interesting comments. Many are probably familiar with recent troubles for Mr. Washington. He called a former cast-mate a f*****, twice. The second time backstage of an Awards show. This lead to a reported homophobia counseling and then to his dismissal from Grey’s Anatomy.


According to the interview [which has an interesting title], what has been reported is not everything that was going on. As is often the case, the media played up aspects of the issue and ignored others, according to Mr. Washington. There is no question that Mr. Washington made the comment, though he claims the context was quite different.

"Patrick and I had a philosophical disagreement that got out of hand and that I regret a great deal," Washington says. "I said a lot of negative things that were never reported, but there was one word that caught everyone’s attention, particularly someone who wasn’t even in the room with us. It was a fight between two men that shouldn’t have happened. But someone heard the booming voice of a black man and got really scared and that was the beginning of the end for me. I see that now, but I didn’t then."

Regardless of how anyone might feel about his comments, Mr. Washington does go on to make a strong point, and I wonder how often this will be mentioned in the mainstream media,

"If a black man can’t get forgiveness in this country, when so many other people like Robert Downey Jr. and the governor of California get second and third chances … I think that says a lot about race and this country where we stand."

That one statement got me wondering. How many websites and media sources were covering that comment and what it means? When I found this interview on Newsweek’s site I noticed 2 other items. One skips this part of the interview entirely. The other, which appears to be a British site, does mention it in part.

So is Mr. Isaiah Washington correct? Who might have been forgiven for similar actions? Well of course there are the numerous problems of Mr. Downey. The ‘Govenator’ is accurate too. But is there anyone else? Well there is Mr. Mel Gibson’s widely covered comments about Jews, which was excused by his drunkenness – but he still said it. And there are the comments of Mr. Michael Richards at the Laugh Factory. But his friend Mr. Jerry Seinfeld came out to publicly state that he wasn’t like that. I’m sure comparisons to Ms. Lindsey Lohan and Ms. Britney Spears could be made as well. But I think Mr. Gibson and Mr. Richards are the most recent and most applicable.

In Mr. Gibson’s case, he apologized and went back to his alcohol abuse counseling. He then released his movie Apocalypto, which did very well. Today there is barely anyone speaking about it. During the incident there were many that came to his side, and the media made a big deal about his being drunk at the time.

Continued in Part 2...