...or must be alot wiser about race and Hollywood than I once gave him (dis)credit for.
In a recent issue of Newsweek, Isaiah Washington let loose on Hollywood and said what AvBro stated so eloquently a month or so ago: he never had a real chance to regain his job after those infamous "slurs".
Washington, who initially used the epithet during an onset clash with a co-star, told Newsweek magazine that "someone heard the booming voice of a black man and got really scared and that was the beginning of the end for me."I guess it's better late than nevar, but then again maybe Washington knew this was a setup (he wasn't getting that job back because of McDreamy, not the dude he actually slurred) all along, but had a mortgage to pay like the rest of us. Needing to keep the lights on and babies in private school does crazy things to the best of us, and sadly, his "dancin' for chicken" PSA's didn't help salvage his Day Job. Sadly, I think every black person, whether in Hollywood or just in corporate America, can relate with this on some level, big or small.
He tried to make amends by expressing remorse and volunteering to enter a counseling program to understand how the confrontation got out of hand, he told Newsweek.
"My mistake was believing that I would get the support from my network and all of my cast mates across the board. My mistake was believing I could correct a wrong with honesty and sincerity," he said in the interview posted online Thursday.
"My mistake was thinking black people get second chances. I was wrong on all fronts," he said.
His unwillingness to act like a submissive black at work was part of the problem, Washington said. "Well, it didn't help me on the set that I was a black man who wasn't a mush-mouth Negro walking around with his head in his hands all the time. I didn't speak like I'd just left the plantation and that can be a problem for people sometime," he said.
"I had a person in human resources tell me after this thing played out that `some people' were afraid of me around the studio. I asked her why, because I'm a 6-foot-1, black man with dark skin and who doesn't go around saying `Yessah, massa sir' and `No sir, massa' to everyone?
This of course means Isaiah, for spittin' the truth, will effectively be blackballed and sentenced to a life on the chicken circuit. Watch for him soon in the straight-to-DVD release "Romeo Must Die IIV" and in touring onstage in David Talbert's "Momma, Who The Hell Used All The Texas Pete?".
Keep your head up, Isaiah.
Isaiah Washington says Racism a Factor in Firing [AP]
