What…this again? Liam Neeson apologizing again for that late ’70s racial-rage episode that he confessed to and apologized for after his remarks blew up on social media around seven weeks ago?
He’s probably been running into some serious casting shunnings over the last few weeks, hence his new re-apology.
On 2.5 I wrote that “public candor about private failings is not a wise policy in our current situation. You can’t say ‘I once succumbed to an urge to practice witchcraft back in the ’70s.’ To the Cotton Mather crowd that’s like saying you might put a hex on someone tomorrow.”
Neeson’s unfortunate recollection was part of an Independent interview that posted on 2.4.19.
Neeson said that he’d briefly succumbed to a surge of racially-focused rage after learning that a friend has been raped by a black dude. Neeson was in his mid to late 20s at the time. He maintained that his furious reaction was more generically tribal than anti-black — that he would have felt the same gut-level animosity “if she had said an Irish or a Scot or a Brit or a Lithuanian [had raped her]…[it] would have had the same effect.”
That explanation apparently didn’t cut it with the International League of Retroactive Racial-Attitude Correction, Fault-Finding and Stern Admonishment. And so Neeson is back on the p.c. carpet, kneeling and begging and weeping….”please, please, please.”
“Over the last several weeks, I have reflected on and spoken to a variety of people who were hurt by my impulsive recounting of a brutal rape of a dear female friend nearly 40 years ago and my unacceptable thoughts and actions at that time in response to this crime,” he said in a statement.
“The horror of what happened to my friend ignited irrational thoughts that do not represent the person I am. In trying to explain those feelings today, I missed the point and hurt many people at a time when language is so often weaponized and an entire community of innocent people are targeted in acts of rage.
“What I failed to realize is that this is not about justifying my anger all those years ago, it is also about the impact my words have today. I was wrong to do what I did. I recognize that, although the comments I made do not reflect, in any way, my true feelings nor me, they were hurtful and divisive. I profoundly apologize.”
I am so sick to death of hearing mature people of consequence apologize to the Cotton Mathers and Robespierre Committees for having done something wrong (i.e., behaved in a cruel manner or wrote something appalling or hair-trigger that doesn’t pass muster by current p.c. standards) when they were in their teens or 20s.
Almost everyone has one or two things in their immature past that they wish they hadn’t done. So here’s a one-size-fits-all apology that the next celebrity or politician can repeat when they get into trouble.
“Dear P.C. Commissars: I am truly sorry for having retroactively transgressed against or otherwise offended current p.c. values when I was in my teens or 20s. If I could return to that offense-giving moment via time machine, I would certainly not make the same error. I wish that my teenaged or 20something self could have summoned the wisdom and maturity that I now possess, but unfortunately it rarely works that way. Young hormonal types often do, say or write stupid things. I wish it were otherwise.
“But I also wish to say that as embarassed and mortified as I am by this decades-old error or shortcoming, the sum total of my regret and shame can’t begin to compare to the loathing and contempt that I hold for you and yours — the admonishing, politically correct, shrieking banshees of our time.
“In my humble judgment the group-think, finger-wagging, potentially-career-ruining admonishments and oppressions that you and and your fellow accusers occasionally issue about decades-old missteps are just as regrettable and perhaps even worse than the bad things that I was guilty of when young.
“I’m truly sorry for and ashamed of my youthful failings, but you guys, no offense, are hooded ogres, and if I could tie your hands and dunk you in a lake I would. Peace.”
Beto O’Rourke is hereby strongly advised to never again apologize for something bad he did in his youth. Explanations and regrets are obviously necessary and appropriate, but begging on your knees really doesn’t make it…”oh, please forgive me, I’m so very sorry, I was such a terrible flawed person before,” etc. Because people like me are SICK OF HEARING THIS SHIT.
