- Yes, sir.
- What do I think of Liam Neeson's recent admission
that he was, well, I think, it's really difficult
because in many ways it feels like an onslaught, you know?
I can understand, for any black person out there
to just be like, this shit never seems to end, right?
You think you get past the age of lynching,
and then there's still blackface in 2019.
You know, you hear stories every day about black people
who are persecuted just because of the color of their skin.
Black Lives Matter exists as a hashtag
because of that very reason.
I do think, though, the Liam Neeson story,
most of it is treated the way it is, because of
how he told the story and where he told the story.
I think if Liam Neeson had told that story on Oprah,
and there was like a conversation,
we would have seen it as a person admitting
to a time in their life when they allowed
their anger and hatred to fester
into a racism that they're ashamed of.
Then it would be like,
'cause then you'd have someone on the opposite side,
Oprah would be like, "Why, Liam?"
And he'd be like, "I don't know, Oprah, I don't know.
"It was so horrible, Oprah."
And she'd be like, "Come here, Liam,
"no, you know what you," and he's like,
"It was so bad, Oprah, it was so bad."
But we never had that.
So all it was was Liam Neeson was talking
about a movie about revenge,
the next thing, in the middle of it,
he goes, "I know what it's like.
"A friend of mine got raped, I asked her who did it.
"She said she doesn't know,
"she just knows it was a black guy.
And I went out into the streets,
hoping that some black bastard"
and he put it in quotes, you know?
And he went, "Some black bastard would step out
"and start something with me so that I could kill him."
The headline, obviously, is "Liam Neeson:
'I Walked the Streets Looking for a Black Person to Kill'"
which is what he said, but not technically
what he was saying, right?
And I think also, I'm gonna be honest,
I think a lot of people take the story
a little bit more seriously because it's Liam Neeson,
because people see him as the Taken guy.
If like Tom Hanks said the same thing,
"I walk the streets for,"
black people would be like, "Really, Tom Hanks?"
(audience laughing)
"Really, Tom Hanks?"
People would be like "Yo man, we gonna kick your ass man yo.
We gonna Bubba Gump yo ass."
Tom would be like -
like I think part of it is that.
It has a certain weight that it wouldn't have
if it weren't for Liam Neeson.
I do think it was a powerful admission though.
I hope he and people who hear the story
understand the gravity of what he's saying
and that is, if you're not careful,
you can have inside of you, a hatred
that is encouraged or grown by the society
that you live in, and you don't even realize
how disgusting that idea is.
I think it was cool that he said
he looked for help afterwards.
I think it was cool that no one bust him,
he volunteered the information.
I think it was great that he was ashamed.
So for me, that's the world I want to live in.
I want to live in a world where
a person who says something like that
is ashamed of it and they're telling it to you,
not you catching them out.
On the other hand, I hope he understands
'cause I saw him afterwards saying,
"I'm not racist, I'm not racist at all,
"it wasn't racism."
Like no, no, no, I understand why you would say that
but it is, it is racist.
That is racism that you have, the fact that
you think you can just go out and kill a black man,
like you're gonna kill any black man,
for what a black man might have done,
is a form of racism, 'cause you're going
the whole race should be condemned.
So you should be able to accept and be like,
yes, I was thinking a racist thought.
But a lot of the time, I find people afraid to
admit that they ever had a racist thought,
because then society says you are racist forever
and then that's it.
So there's no value in atoning, I guess.
And he keeps going out and giving more interviews that
make it worse, I'm like why do you,
like the things that he says, I'm just like
clearly your particular set of skills
doesn't include shutting the f**k up.
(laughter)
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