My dad died suddenly in early 2005 of heart failure. We didn't get the luxury of having a long time to say Goodbye. Even so, I really felt for George, and he summed it up best when he said "I don't know how to exist in a world where he doesn't." And like Cristina said "Yeah, well... that never really changes." was quite the truth.
I have mixed feelings about the Isaiah Washington thing. While I feel that he was wrong in using a slur against TR Knight, and then seeming to make light of it in that post Golden Globes remark, the flip side of it is that he has at least on the surface, made an effort to apologize and fix things. Isaiah Washington is a great actor, and the character of Preston Burke has many layers and is one of the better roles ever created in my opinion. While I was rather angry during my last post about his flippant remarks, I'm a bit calmer now and have had chance to mull things over a bit more.
I think nowadays, we are a bit too quick to want to run someone out on a rail, tarred and feathered for making rude remarks, racial slurs, and so forth. Look at what happened with Mel Gibson, Michael Richards and so forth. Deep down we all have our prejudices and most of the time, for the sake of getting along we keep them to ourselves, which I think is the proper thing to do. I think too often we want to ream those who have said these things in anger and frustration because we don't want to look at ourselves and see our own prejudices exposed.
This situation is very dicey because we have an African American man who is being taken to task over slurs he made towards a Caucasian man over sexual orientation. Part of me wonders if he'd called TR a "cr****r", "Wh**e-boy" or a "h****y" (anti-Caucasian slurs) rather than the anti-homosexual slur he used, would there even be any uproar over it at all?
It usually seems that if a non-Caucasina celebrity makes anti-Caucasian slurs, people like myself that are offended are told to just "Get over it!", while if a Caucasian celebrity uses slurs against a non-Caucasian, or if a Gentile makes an anti-Semetic remark, they are CRUCIFIED in the media. This, to me, makes it seem that there are extra protections made for minorities and homosexuals that most people don't have access to, especially in the realm of offenses they are allowed to commit. This goes against the notion of equal justice for all.
I am personally of the opinion that it doesn't matter what the ethnic group, sexual orientation or whatever else of those that make the offending remarks or of those that are the target of the offending remakrs. If someones makes offending remarks and uses slurs in a public forum, they need to be taken to task for it. However, if the offender makes a sincere apology and makes an effort to mend their ways and learn from it, and NOT DO IT AGAIN, then there is also room for forgiveness and moving on as well.
