Interesting view, AB.
Do you think more people become products of their societies/environments in how they think and view others, or more think independently from it?
BTW, he said in an interview 5 yrs ago he was a victim of racial profiling as a young Irish man, that he was always being pulled over, and also that "he - and all people - racially profile."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6673327/Liam-Neeson-claimed-victim-racial-profiling.html
I can't imagine what it was like growing up in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. Just like I can't imagine what it was like growing up in the Palestinian territory in the 1980s and being willing to strap a bomb to myself and kill a bunch of innocent passengers on a bus in Tel Aviv.
Liam Neeson had no interaction with Black folk growing up. His mindset was strictly US versus THEM, for everyone. People want to focus on the race of the potential targets Liam was going after, and miss the fact no matter who it was that raped his friend, his response was probably going to be the exact same.
People don't understand the level of horrific violence taking place in Northern Ireland when Liam was growing up, all against White people, the dividing line being religion and nationality.
The IRA slaughtered thousands of White Protestants and Catholics and it was never about race.
There's a nuance to Liam's story except people can't get beyond his skin color and that of his intended victim.
A thug Catholic kid from Northern Ireland in the 1970s would have wiped out an entire family of WHITE Protestants and not thought twice about it because of ideology.
If Liam grew up in South Africa during aparthied, then I would be inclined to think he was probably just a racist.
People are trying to make Liam's comments strictly about race and really they weren't. It was a tribal hatred of anyone he felt betrayed him, at that specific time in his life.
It's the sudden impulse towards violence that's most disturbing about Liam's comments, not the race of the man he was looking for.
For someone to say Liam deserves the same condemnation that Kevin Hart received after both men rejected their previous actions is just being vindictive.
This incident happened 40 years ago and Liam said he's no longer that person.
After 4 decades, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt.
We're all products of our environment, good or bad. I remember in HS being in a car with dudes from my HS football team, drunk, pulling into a gas station, and watching a teammate beat the hell out of a gas station attendant because he didn't feel like paying for shit.
At the time I didn't stress one minute about that attack and thought it was funny.
It took a couple years later for me to realize how fucked up that night was.
I don't believe Liam didn't see ONE Black person during his personal vendetta that he couldn't have exacted his revenge upon. Something stopped him from becoming a full on vigilante, assuming his story is true.
Maybe it's different for others, but I don't know many people who walked a pure straight and narrow path their entire lives.
I can't tell you how many White people I've known growing up who said their own parents were racist to the bone and they themselves didn't really change their own views until they interacted with actual Black people.
What I'm trying to say is, people change. We accept it when former gang bangers and stick up kids reject their former way of life to pursue a different path, but somehow we put Liam Neeson a permanent racist box for having homicidal impulses when he was in his 20s.
That doesn't make sense to me.
