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Oh, I believe him. He grew up in a violent society, with murder happening almost daily. He is a big guy, who also did some boxing in his youth.
As a younger man, I would think he could have been a real handful. He wasn't looking to pick a random black guy to hurt. He was looking for a random black guy trying to hurt him, so he could take his anger out on that person.
Hand to hand, in his younger days, I have no doubt Liam Neeson could have been a danger. I knew Irishmen of his generation in my youth, and anger and violence was just under the surface, ready to blow at any slight.
I was in the British army, and I learned to avoid their company socially. They enjoyed violence, and a night out drinking wasn't complete without some. I thought they were nuts.
OMG, both of you're ridiculous. You sound like a bunch of kids: "my dad can beat up your dad, trust me".
It's pretty cowardly to want to find some random stranger because someone else caused harm to a friend or family member. Now if he had found the actual perp and brought about some actual justice, that's one thing. But he becomes no better than the rapist when he wants to take out his anger on someone not involved in the original crime
Cowardly?
I would say that anger is what it is. Someone you really care about tells you that they have been brutalized. You will want some pay back. Logic or PC won't be part of the decision making.
We as a nation reacted just that way after 911 and after Pearl Harbor. We wanted some azz and didn't care whose.
Liam was wrong for wanting revenge that way, but it was a perfectly human response. Luckily he calmed down and didn't act upon it.
What does a potential rapist look like? You tell me.
Bill Clinton?
Bill Cosby?
I can keep going. But seriously you're right, the average rapist doesn't wear a T-shirt or wave a flag that proclaims their intent.
Snowflakes are upset over an honest admission by Neeson.
However, Neeson should have darned well known that people were going to get upset in this hypersensitive day we live in, so it's on him. Seriously, he should have just kept his mouth shut, TMI. His statements served zero purpose.
I'm guessing he was trying to show that people can do something horrible in reaction to something, or that people can change.
It's not safe to be honest about race things these days. I hate racism and fully support the Af. American causes, voting rights act, and such. But it's getting to where people are villified or fired for a slip of the tongue or something they did decades ago that didn't physically hurt anyone and maybe wasn't intended to be hurtful (done out of youthful goofiness or ignorance).
I'm also a feminist who has suffered through unwanted pretty bad "attentions" from men in the past, but some of the allegations against men that I've seen are ridiculous and not something that I would call harassment or molestation or anything of the sort. Allegations like some I've seen lessen the importance of the serious allegations of real harassment or molestation.
Are you smacking your head because you just realized you made up a statement, threw quotes around it and then attributed it to someone that didn't say that?
It's pretty obviously a paraphrase of what Neeson said. Also, if you read the actual transcript or listen to the audio, Neeson doesn't actually say "cross". He says he walked up and down the streets with a "cosh" for about a week. Hoping some black dude would come out of a pub and "have a go" at him, so he could kill him.
Keep telling us how it's not a racist statement, though.
Yes, I had read your post where you differentiated between crossing him as in a random person in his path vs crossing him as in messing with him. His statement still stinks. Of course he’d fight back with ANYONE that crossed (provoked, attacked, messes with, etc) him—that would be self defense. So why the need to specify a black bastard?
Precisely. That's where Mathguy's justification falls apart.
Well, I’m pretty sure he had to have run across a lot of blacks. Why didn’t he do something?
Meh...I take it with a grain of salt. I have my doubts that he meant what he said.
Oh, I fully doubt he ever meant to follow through on the fantasy, no. That doesn't make the mindset less stupid and racist. It was also exponentially more stupid to say it out loud to a reporter/journalist.
Yes. Liam Neeson was stupid for being so honest about his thoughts. But he evolved from that situation. He was mad that his friend was raped and so the focus of his anger was the black man that raped her. Over time, his initial anger faded. And of the several weeks in wandered NYC for a black man to take his anger out on, he never found one who was an appropriate target. He obviously didn't want to beat on most black men, he was looking for one that looked like the kind of man that could rape a woman. So it seems to me, that during those weeks, the black men he saw looked like good men, and not the type to assault a woman.
Therefore, I don't consider Liam Neeson to be racist. He was only frustrated and angry that one of his close female friends was raped, and that man happened to be black. It was a very tribal instinct. And his initial reaction was basically... "an eye for an eye" one.
I have no idea if he is racist or not. I've never heard of him saying anything else that was overtly racist like this.
I'm sure Neeson is generally a good guy. THIS statement was still racist. Those two things can both be true.
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