Liam Neeson admits in interview to wanting to exact revenge for his friends rape - Sensationalist Headlines

and he used quotation marks with the phrase black bastard too, he is self aware of each and every word he is saying. he does a follow-up interview addressing this to emphasize that he didn't mis-speak either. He is a no bullshit person who tells the truth and here we are closing the book on an important topic. Someone said Americans are the ones misunderstanding his point but for me it is the modern era of people not actually processing people's words before jumping to conclusions.

I think this whole situation really highlights an issue with the conversation about racism. The important part of this story is that you can do things that negatively affect specific races of people, even without hating other races of people. The lesson here is not "Liam Neeson is a nazi", it's "when we don't reflect on our feelings and our actions, we can do terrible things". I'm empathetic towards both him and the people he could have hurt. I think he recognizes that he made a mistake, and has shown genuine contrition. At the same time, I can't blame people who could've been his victims for being upset. It's regrettable that this has become an argument about which side is "right". Not every horrible thing that people do is born from malicious intent, and no one is owed forgiveness just because their intent didn't perfectly align with the effects of their actions.

There's a situation to discuss this kind of thing and then there's a promo interview for a movie. It's a horrible thing that he was planning to do, and coming out about it and talking about it is useful. I'm not turning my nose up at the idea of revisiting these things. Are you paraphrasing me with those quotes by the way? Because if so you have misunderstood what I am saying. What I find very strange is that Neeson thought the time to talk about wanting to indiscriminately murder a black man is in the promotional tour for his latest movie. We can empathise with some of the thought processes behind his actions at the time, and we can talk about how trauma effects us and can lead to reckless and reprehensible behaviour, that's all well and good. What isn't good is using this controversy to sell movie tickets. I know that's a bold and cynical claim but that's what the interview was for, and Neeson himself even seems to be somewhat aware that coming out with this story to a journalist during a promo interview is a bad idea. I can see that people are quick to jump to claims that outrage is part of a 'stupid twitter era', but really, what was he hoping to accomplish? Because if he was aiming only to 'answer the question' like you said, there are so many better ways to answer it without mentioning that you wanted to do something that absolutely, 100% sounds like a racist attack?

There's nothing to evaluate. Faux progressives are as racist and intolerant as those they so eagerly screech about. They are literally, factually the same, indentical, exact thing. Hypocrites and nothing else. Your best option is simply to highlight the hypocrisy with an objective view, and facts if they're at hand, and then a quick succinct barrage of context to the face, and then move on to subjects and people thereof able to take things on a case by case non-politicized non-polarized kangaroo court cartoon venue.

So now the narrative is that he intentionally brought it up to promote a movie. And yes I did paraphrase because nobody from the UK uses the word gross. You are clearly confused. "What was he trying to accomplish", he is trying to fucking start a conversation, this has been said in this thread alone and by Liam Neeson himself countless times. What is so difficult to understand. More importantly what are you trying to accomplish by calling his actions "100% racist". We are here trying to have an open discussion about human instinct and it is corrupted by completely dimwitted assumptions. What is your actual outrage? Maybe he should just keep his mouth shut because now it's so dangerous to talk about anything that we have felt and thought that may not be universally agreeable. Also think of the kids.

More concerningly what I think is happening is that they very well feel the same sort of bloodlust ...rather they never did realise the wrongness of it. I believe it explains many extreme internet groups who seem to think that destruction of another arbitrary group of people is good and just because the feeling of hate is vindicating by itself

weren't you a moderator? :/

I'm not creating a narrative here, I'm acknowledging the context and the role that it has to play in people's reactions, or as you have put it, the 'conversation'. The purpose of these interviews is to promote the movie, so the questions asked are related to the movie. You have claimed that he's trying to start a conversation, and if so, he's done it very poorly. The paraphrasing that I was talking about was saying 'Ewww gross he's talking about a bad time in his life'. This is something that I have not said in this thread. I have used the word gross before, many times, as have many other people that I know. All of whom are from UK by the way, to dispute your frankly bizarre claim that nobody from the UK uses the word. You were misrepresenting my argument in writing a different sentence and attempting to attribute it to me. Again you seem to have misread my post. I have not said that his actions are '100% racist'. I have said that his intended attack seemed '100% racist', since the only aspect of a person that would make him his victim is his race. That's the whole point of the story isn't it? That in seeking revenge he only wanted indiscriminate violence, and how hateful that was and how it took him a week or two weeks before he realised what an awful thing he was doing. I'm contributing to this discussion by the way, although I'd call it far from open, considering that anybody who mentions that what he intended to do was racist is immediately dogpiled. I'm not outraged, and I'm not sure where you would get the idea that I was. I find the context behind him providing this story strangely motivated, especially considering that Neeson is receiving a lot of praise and positive attention for bringing this incident to light. I haven't said that he should keep his mouth shut or even mentioned children. I am shocked by how generous people are being to Neeson in this thread however and I do wonder how much that has to do with him being a well-liked actor.

not every single promotional interview is bound by talking about the film alone. many delve into personal matters and many times it has caused frustration. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALBwaO-rAsE He walks out because he is not comfortable to talk about a legitimate question. You can call the interviewer an arsehole but it would be more appropriate and resilient to say "I don't want to answer that" and move on. Sometimes sensitive topics arise and it is more important to have a dialogue rather than pussy out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBg-1WPRtQs note: both interviews here are "promotional interviews".

Interesting that you choose the Robert Downey Jr. walk out interview as an example of what? A hard-hitting but valuable interview? Blind-sighting an actor with sudden very personal questions about his relationship with his abusive father when the topic of the day is an Avengers movie is quite a low move. Krishnan was definitely trying to provoke a reaction to grab more views than the other interviews, and you could say that it worked. I don't think you get any more insight into the human condition from this though. Also I think it's pretty shit of you to say that it's 'pussying out' to walk out like that. Krishnan knew it was a risk asking completely irrelevant questions to try to get an emotional reaction on camera, but that's the gamble that he took. These interviews aren't relevant to the topic though so w/e. I don't have many thoughts on black people supporting Liam Neeson here, because I haven't done that much reading into it. I would imagine that they would acknowledge that any attack that happened if a man had confronted him would be absolutely tragic.

nah i changed that interview because the interviewer was a cock anyway

I'm using this scenario as a test for what kind of people there are in modern Internet-based discourse. If you despise him and think he's racist then you're failing on multiple levels of critical thinking.

They may be relevant now that you've changed them, but not so as you initially presented them being 'promotional interviews that delve into personal matters'. Should I be waiting for you to make several edits and until you've actually settled on your argument before I respond? I didn't call Liam Neeson racist, I said that his actions and intentions were very much racist at that one point in time, and it's understandable that people are finding him questionable now. I also wanted to call out the fact that people seemed to be arguing that his attack would not be racist, that his thought processes weren't racist. I don't know what you want me to say about black people praising Liam Neeson. I've told you I haven't done the reading and you haven't provided any sources to talk about. If we're not talking about what ifs, what are we talking about?

I dunno guys even if he admitted he was a seething hateful racist 40 years ago I still wouldn't really be that upset by this story because it would still be quite moving?? He sought support for hateful thoughts he had and because of that, a horrible atrocity was avoided. He went on to leave a positive influence on the world. I understand that this would be an extremely sensitive topic, and if you were personally affected by racism I could understand not wanting to downplay the racist aspects of this story. But again, racist or not - this is a story of self-reflection and personal improvement. He was in a very dark and angry place, and he's so far away from that place now that he can openly talk about it. Yeah I actually agree that an interview about a movie might be a bad time to admit to something like that, but depending on how attached he is to the role in the movie, it could be a very personal and relevant topic for him. Going off his words and that full interview, I don't personally interpret his actions as entirely racially motivated. If you do, I'm not going to disagree with you. I just hope you can focus on the positive aspects of this story, rather than the dark place Liam Neeson was once in, or the horrifying "what-if's" had he truly given in to his violent urges.

To the people condemning him, I would question if you would condemn an ex-neo-nazi the same way. One who spreads a message of change and hatred being a poison. Yeah, Liam did a super racist thing ~40 years ago. He didn't act on it thankfully, he deeply regrets it, and is obviously a changed person. Nobody is saying what he did wasn't racist, but they're also saying that no crime was committed and he has changed his ways and changed his heart. He's telling a story about being angry and confused and was looking for the easiest person to blame. It's nothing interesting or new, it's the modus operandi of nearly every racist. If he had killed a man and never faced justice for it, that's a massive deal. But he had racist and violent thoughts, that while disgusting, do not represent him currently. He is spreading the message of change, in dealing with your pain in better ways. There are still people who have the feelings he felt then, now. This is a story for them. This isn't absolving him of his extremely racist thoughts. But it's admitting they happened and he fixed them. As I've said before, we need to allow for people to change.

I mean I've done things in my past I'm deeply ashamed of; and I'd like to think most people have. We live really long lives if we're lucky but it feels like if people find out you've done anything bad we still like to brand people, even if prior to finding out they were perfectly fine with said person. Especially since it seems like in this case Liam seems aware of the awful nature of his thoughts and mental processes at the time. Most people will never be stressed out to the point where they feel like they have no control of their thought processes. Even if he was racist at one time; why does it matter if there's no evidence that he hasn't already put that behind him and moved on? The idea of making people into social pariahs for who they used to be is scary shit and I'm sure that many of those who would outwardly support it probably have some skeleton in their closet they could be branded with. But that doesn't count because I know I am a good person and that was just one (or couple) of accidents.

The morale of the story is: Never reveal anything dark about your past. If you do, you are a fool and will be swiftly devoured by the social media hyenas of the present.

I've had a similar, albeit much less tragic, experience. Got my phone stolen by an Arab looking dude a few months back, and for the following weeks I was very suspicious of Arab strangers, regardless of the fact that I already knew plenty of Arabs who weren't like that at all. I think it's a pretty natural reaction to have, even more so if it stems from a much more traumatizing event. The important part is being aware of it, which Liam apparently was.

That's really not what the takeaway from this should be, though - and like I've said in the rest of this thread, his motivation wasn't racism. His motivation was to carry out a reprisal attack. The takeaway is that reprisal attacks don't bring justice to the original victim and that it is an entirely selfish action to take. There's no context from what he said or the wider social context of being brought up in Northern Ireland where this can be construed as a racially motivated attack. This is people from outside Northern Ireland projecting their own perceptions of racial biases onto a country where it isn't relevant.

He literally used the words "black bastard" dude. I mean yeah, the whole idea of vengeance and reprisal attacks being totally useless and ego driven is also what's on discussion here sure. But there was also some serious racism.

What else was he going to say? "White bastard?" He was told the perpetrator was black, he was going to carry out a reprisal attack on a black person.

I want to say you're wrong. I really do. But you aren't.

If there's wasn't some racial motivation "black" wouldn't even have been a factor in the identifier. He wouldn't have gone out to an area where black people would be in large numbers hoping for a reason to club someone. That's inherently a prejudiced move. Hanging around a black populated area expecting and hoping one of them will fight him for being there. If there wasn't any racist intent, even in that moment of emotional distress, I'd expect him to have been a bit more cautious in how he seeked revenge to avoid attacking the wrong person rather than hoping any black person would start a fight. Not that this matters much as the point of this whole thing is he realised what that emotional rage and desire for revenge was doing to him. And took steps to unfuck himself. Both his clearly wrong desire for revenge, and the other troubling thoughts that surfaced. This was decades ago. Back then racism was still pretty common and accepted. Denying a possible link to racism is asinine.

The motivation was that the perpetrator of the rape was black. He's not going to carry out a reprisal attack on a white person or any other colour of person. The prejudice lies in that it was a black person who committed the rape. Once again, applying this modern, Americanised view of race relations to a context where it isn't relevant. If Neeson wanted to carry out an indiscriminate attack on someone out of anger, it wouldn't have been against a black person. As a Northern Irish Catholic, he would've went into a Protestant neighbourhood and attacked someone there. But that wasn't the motivation. The motivation was to carry out a reprisal attack, and as the perpetrator was black, his victim was going to be black.

Why is it that being critical of how Neeson decided to frame his story gets phrases like "twisting the narrative", "thoughtcrime", "punished", "condemning", etc? Seriously. I see this a lot on Facepunch. People have the most surface level criticism while acknowledging the greater point and suddenly anyone who disagrees with you is some kind of shadowy Orwellian cabal. How does a critcism of how a message was relayed become "NEVER SHARE ANYTHING BAD AND I WANT YOU PUNISHED FOR EVEN SUGGESTING REEEE"? The fuckin' projecting from people and the "Lol dumb Americans don't understand race relations" is pretty tiring.

For some added Northern Irish context, "black bastard" is a derisive term used by Catholics/Nationalists, to refer to the RUC and Unionists/Protestants in general. So Neeson having that in his vocabulary isn't from a racist context.

The sad part I feel is, he could have went through with it and attacked someone and killed them 40 years ago in 1979-1980 and then he could have gotten a slap on the wrist or acquitted for it, claim self defense. He probably would have the same acting career and everyone would have mostly forgotten about it and still like him. More than not going through with it and admitting it now. I mean Mark Wahlberg shouted racist language, committed hate crimes, even blinded an Asian man, and people love him today. Speaking of Northern Ireland, Matthew Broderick killed two people in head on collision car crash while being drunk, only got a £80 drunk driving fine. Its quite depressing.

see this is where the interpretation gets messed up. he's not bluntly calling black people bastards, he said it using quotation marks to emphasize the cultural norm at the time in northern ireland. i think if he didnt use this phrase there wouldn't be near this level of outrage.. i think this is the fundamental trigger here.

It's like none of you understand intent. If I waited outside a school with a gun for the right opportunity to enter and blast some kiddies, that would be fine as long as I actually didn't do it?

Honestly dude if you told people about it 40 years later with the caveat that you regret it immensely, sought help and ultimately moved past it, they would probably shrug about it and not really care. Maybe say 'good on you.' Maybe others would say 'yeah that was a fucked up thing to do.'