An immense amount of guilt that has built on his conscious over the decades.
I mean if it happened, I'd rather he confess to those intentions then hide them. Makes my life easier in who to watch out for and stuff
Also this.
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Liam Neeson's real-life rape/revenge tale (See Staff Post)
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I mean if it happened, I'd rather he confess to those intentions then hide them. Makes my life easier in who to watch out for and stuff
I sure as shit don't respect his horrible thought process back then, but I feel he should have kept this story to himself. Still, the overall focus on how revenge just isn't worth it, as it is illogical, was well-put.
I think everyone is assuming that when he says he was having "horrible thoughts" and that he was "ashamed to say it" he's saying that both the racism and violent revenge fantasies are.
He really should have directly confronted his racism of the time and condemned it.
Idk exactly how I would react.. But if I was in his shoes and someone had a vague description of the guy.. I would be looking all the time, and I would struggle not to judge people. I wouldn't go his route, and hope to just kill anyone of the same skin color to get a feeling of revenge though. I understand the core feeling though.. I think. He is one weird actor though.. Does he get a bit of "revenge" in these movies!?
These are my thoughts on it. I could be wrong, of course, but at least that's what I took from his confession.
No you reading it like that. Him not saying racism is bad leaves it up to interpretation
Yeah, I can see that interpretation as well. I agree with this post:
To be clear: He needs to be a hell of a lot more direct in his inevitable update than an off the cuff story on a press junket about him premeditating a hate murder.
Oh I'm not reading it like that, my previous posts in this thread make that clear.
He needed to directly confront the racism and didn't, probably because the racism is much more shameful to him than the revenge fantasy.
So talk to your family, your close friends, etc... Not a journalist during a press run for your new movie you're trying to promote.
Stalking the streets for a week looking for a random "Black bastard" to kill is not revenge. It's a psycho that's is dangerous and happens to be white and rich it's all hand waved away. People are so blind in their guilt
Well even if he did, that wouldn't wipe away anything. (I don't think he has)
This is like the fourth race-related thing that's hit big news
It's been 4 days
Buddy there's a difference between being scared of a black guy on the street one time and walking around with the deliberate, premeditated intention to commit a lynching
Sp he admits he had those thoughts, what did he do to make sure he doesn't think like that again? Are people to assume it just went away?
Hey, it's cool, black history month in the UK isn't until October, maybe he can apologise then and everyone can congratulate him on how much he's grown.
I notice that a lot of posters are ignoring the fact that the reason he knew the rapist's skin color was because that was seemingly so important to him.
I'd really like to hear some explanation from Liam about why he even asked that question.
Though I am in no position to rule anything, I would like to imagine everyone can understand the concept of irrational rage. Though the racism present in his is more than arguably inexcusable.
However, the overall problem that is present is that he physically brandished a weapon and went looking for a black man to randomly kill. Irrational racism is bad, but actively planning and trying to commit a racist murder is another thing altogether.
So, had this just been a story of "I used to be racist but I'm not anymore.", you could very much argue that it's a good thing for him to share it and we can learn from it and so forth.
However, that's not the story he told. The story he told is that he was planning to commit a murder for about a week and only never did it because he didn't find someone that fit the mark.
That's pretty fucking horrific.
However, the overall problem that is present is that he physically brandished a weapon and went looking for a black man to randomly kill. Irrational racism is bad, but actively planning and trying to commit a racist murder is another thing altogether.
So, had this just been a story of "I used to be racist but I'm not anymore.", you could very much argue that it's a good thing for him to share it and we can learn from it and so forth.
However, that's not the story he told. The story he told is that he was planning to commit a murder for about a week and only never did it because he didn't find someone that fit the mark.
That's pretty fucking horrific.
Real funny how some ppl on this forum are so ready to fall over and forgive him when the black person he could have chosen as a victim could be anybody they know and care about. It's crazy how many of you are willing to speak over and try to belittle black people when we don't fuck with all this non needed sympathetic bullshit when this dude was ready to kill any black person for something they didn't even do.
Right, he said about the movement that "there is a bit of a witch hunt happening".
https://www.vulture.com/2018/01/liam-neeson-says-hollywood-reckoning-a-bit-of-a-witch-hunt.html
The more he talks about these subjects, the clearer an image that forms in regards to Neeson and where he stands on social issues. Some one should give him an open mic and start asking him random questions and see what bullshit he delivers.
Not to derail over a minor detail, but what does Neeson mean by a "tosh"? I gather it's a weapon, but is it a club, a knife? Googling for defintions and etymology is not turning up anything helpful.
Yeah, the closest he gets to touching on why it's fucked up is:
Like, okay, an admission it's bad, but not really specifics or better confronting why it's such. Was it just the thought of murdering someone, with no consideration of the fact he immediately jumped to revenge by proxy of race? Was it the fact that he was willing to condemn a whole swath of people based on the vaguest account of what was done to his friend? Was it none of that, and just the fact he focused on revenge rather than helping said friend?
And this is all in the context of trying to rationalise where his character in the film is coming from - how such an irrational desire springs forth - right or wrong. That's just... not really the best place in which to leave a lack of clarification on how and why he might have almost murdered someone.
It's cosh, meaning club
I never said he wanted to "kill all black people." In context, he said he went out looking for someone, a "black bastard." You don't even need to exaggerate it into all black people, targeting a random black person is truly evil nonetheless. I don't think where he was and the time period changes anything either. Unless you think there was one black guy in town and everyone knew him, but then Neeson wouldn't have been looking for some "black bastard", he would've been looking for a specific person. The odds of him somehow targeting the right person doesn't change anything, he didn't care if he got the wrong person as long as he got to take his revenge out on them.
That is besides my original point anyway. He wraps this whole thing up as having anger issues and learning that revenge isn't good. However he makes no attempt to address the racism he harbored (harbors). He tells the story as if being black was just a random detail of this rapist, like he went looking for a guy with a specific tattoo or birthmark or fit an actual description but when you rewrite the story that way, it doesn't carry the same meaning. Imagine if he was told the rapist had a nose ring and so he went looking to kill some nose ring wearing bastard. Still a terrible and awful thing to do but it's just picking something random. A nose ring is just an accessory a person can wear, it's not at all like something such as being black. When you change it to a black man, it adds this hate, this racism that exists separate from general anger and desire for revenge. Remember, Neeson asked what color the person was. The racist motivation here is absolutely something that Neeson or the interviewer should have addressed but failed to as they didn't deem it important.
People love a redemption narrative. So much that their brain fills in the blanks.
You've mispelled it. It's cosh, so like a club or a more lethal baton.
To everyone saying 'he learned from his actions' can you pinpoint exactly what he learned other than it was 'terrible'? To me it sounds like he learned revenge is bad, that's it.
This article is trash and so is the interviewer. Dude drops this in the middle of the interview and the interviewer doesn't push him on it further and even excuses him to a degree in the article.
One of his first thoughts in learning someone close to him was raped was 'what colour was he?' LMAO.
Him wanting revenge is understandable, not right but understandable. Him wanting to kill some random black dude who had nothing to do with it? FOH. This is the same BS mindset of the people who want to shoot up mosques because 'Muslims did 9/11'.
Trash.
This article is trash and so is the interviewer. Dude drops this in the middle of the interview and the interviewer doesn't push him on it further and even excuses him to a degree in the article.
One of his first thoughts in learning someone close to him was raped was 'what colour was he?' LMAO.
Him wanting revenge is understandable, not right but understandable. Him wanting to kill some random black dude who had nothing to do with it? FOH. This is the same BS mindset of the people who want to shoot up mosques because 'Muslims did 9/11'.
Trash.
I can get that. I mean it's just a simple step from "what did he look like". Skin colour is a broad place to start, I might do the same if I was needing a description of someone. It's the fact that he stopped after "black" and ran off that's the telling part. No "tall/short", no "fat/thin" or "hair/bald". Nope, black was enough and with that he set off to club someone to death.
I'd imagine if I ever found myself that enraged and it was targeted at someone, I'd be a bit more specific about what they looked and sounded like.
Never fails.
Literally grew up in the troubles, could have picked any number of likely a hundred stories to compare to this one. What does he pick? The one where he was ready to go out and lynch some random black man because of his anger and impotence.
This isn't true because I doubt there are any black people they actually care about.
"What colour were they? " was one of the first things he asked.
This, on top of the fact that he wanted to kill a person because of the color of their skin. I can't possibly see how anyone can think "Well he only wanted to murder black people, but doesn't anymore, all goodzies now!"
I'm white and can't possibly imagine what it's like to be black and reading a story like this, but in a world where black people are historically and currently discriminated against, lynched, enslaved, and more, I don't see how you could forgive him only because he doesn't want to kill black people anymore. That line of reasoning is like the incel/fedora "Well I didn't rape her, so she should reward me with sex." thing.
This, on top of the fact that he wanted to kill a person because of the color of their skin. I can't possibly see how anyone can think "Well he only wanted to murder black people, but doesn't anymore, all goodzies now!"
I'm white and can't possibly imagine what it's like to be black and reading a story like this, but in a world where black people are historically and currently discriminated against, lynched, enslaved, and more, I don't see how you could forgive him only because he doesn't want to kill black people anymore. That line of reasoning is like the incel/fedora "Well I didn't rape her, so she should reward me with sex." thing.
Well in his irrational rage he found enough mental acuity to ask if the dude who raped his friend was black, which is kind of a weird detail to ask in the middle of a murderous revenge rage.
I'm not talking about Liam Neeson. I'm talking about the people here who are upset black people aren't forgiving him because a black man was lucky enough not to cross paths with him that week.
Fuck that noise. And Liam Neeson.
How in the fuck can I know this guy is not racist anymore when his racism was so intense that he just wanted to kill random black people? I mean the first thing he asked to her was his skin colour for fucks sake!
It's no wonder some black folks here can't forgive him. If he truly cares about it and he truly is not racist he may need to work his ass a little more, because someone that goes from "I want to kill black people" to "I'm not racist anymore" is such a big change to happen lightly. Dude basically said "that was bad" and thats it.
This is not the redemption story some people here are implying it is.
It's no wonder some black folks here can't forgive him. If he truly cares about it and he truly is not racist he may need to work his ass a little more, because someone that goes from "I want to kill black people" to "I'm not racist anymore" is such a big change to happen lightly. Dude basically said "that was bad" and thats it.
This is not the redemption story some people here are implying it is.
And he said he was in that state for a WEEK
A WEEK
How you gonna be on tilt for a week on that level, what the fuck
I might have thoughts but it's too early and I'm too decaffeinated to share them and not make a damn fool of myself. I guess it's good to have a reminder that the mind-numbingly awful confessional essay isn't solely the purview of racist white women
100% agreed. The push from some people to "forgive" this insanity is sickening. Hunting people just because they share skin color with someone who did something bad is not a mindset that just goes away from "years of reflection" and a single article expressing regret
He's in a movie about revenge and he says he understands it personally and how cyclically destructive and irrational it can be.
User Banned (1 Week): Excusing violent racism
seems like some regular ass thoughts tbh. lightweight impressed he was able to reflect on it and come to a more nuanced understanding of his actions and way of thinking. id be trying to fuck up any and everything off the strength of such a foul thing to do to someone you care about.
Nah, it meant so little to him that he thought it would be an interesting little tit bit to help promote his movie.
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