Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

The revolution will be supervised.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

The words do not have to be perfect.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / This Week In Blackness / Old White Men Say Ignorant Things

Old White Men Say Ignorant Things

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And in today’s edition of old white men that say ignorant things, we bring you actor Gary Oldman. In an interview with Playboy, he had these delightful gems of wisdom to impart:

The policeman who arrested [Mel Gibson] has never used the word n—-r or that f—–g Jew? I’m being brutally honest here. It’s the hypocrisy of it that drives me crazy. . . . We all hide and try to be so politically correct. That’s what gets me. 

And then he went on to defend Mel Gibson and Alec Baldwin. We’re not even surprised by this sort of thing anymore, but it sure doesn’t mean we don’t want to catapult Commissioner Gordon out of a cannon.

Team Blackness also discusses the water crisis in Detroit, a four year old who foils a racist home invasion plot, and the power of the black vote.

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22Comments

  4. 4.

    magurakurin

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    He’s a good baddie in the movies though.

    But yeah, don’t really get his rant. Wasn’t Mel arrested for being hammered drunk behind the wheel of a car? I mean, he wasn’t arrested for using racial slurs, was he? Maybe the cop who arrested him is a racial slurring, foul mouthed asshole too. So what? Now, if the cop was hammered drunk while driving the cruiser, yeah hypocrite. And Gary is showing his age by assuming everyone uses those terms in safe private company. They don’t.

    but he is an awesome baddie in the movies, I’ll give him that.

  5. 5.

    askew

    He sent an apology out to the Jewish men he offended. Apparently everyone else is shit out of luck.

    Dear Gentlemen of the ADL:

    I am deeply remorseful that comments I recently made in the Playboy Interview were offensive to many Jewish people. Upon reading my comments in print—I see how insensitive they may be, and how they may indeed contribute to the furtherance of a false stereotype. Anything that contributes to this stereotype is unacceptable, including my own words on the matter. If, during the interview, I had been asked to elaborate on this point I would have pointed out that I had just finished reading Neal Gabler’s superb book about the Jews and Hollywood, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews invented Hollywood. The fact is that our business, and my own career specifically, owes an enormous debt to that contribution.

    I hope you will know that this apology is heartfelt, genuine, and that I have an enormous personal affinity for the Jewish people in general, and those specifically in my life. The Jewish People, persecuted thorough the ages, are the first to hear God’s voice, and surely are the chosen people.

    I would like to sign off with “Shalom Aleichem”—but under the circumstances, perhaps today I lose the right to use that phrase, so I will wish you all peace–Gary Oldman.

    What a jackass.

  8. 8.

    Morzer

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Well a lot of Americans seem to think he’s referring to them and are understandably upset. That’s why this is relevant to Balloon-Juice qua American politics/social issues blog, although they seem to have a wider remit than that. What I don’t see is why he would be less of a jerk if he were from Kansas or, for that matter, Gujarat. When Suarez bites someone, what matters isn’t the essentially inconsequential fact that he is Uruguayan, but the appalling way he behaved.

  9. 9.

    magurakurin

    @schrodinger’s cat: yeah, he was. I just saw that movie last month. I guess he was the goodie in that one….although I suppose they were all baddies in their way….one point of the story. His best baddie though is in The Professional, or Leon, as it is called in Japan. But The Fifth Element was good too. His baddie in True Romance was awesome, but that was a really short part.

    I try not to hold actors and actresses politics and opinions against them. Bruce Willis is, by most accounts, a dick, but I like his movies. Apparently the same goes for Gary Oldman. Oh well.

  10. 10.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Morzer: Ok fair enough, his being British is not important to the content of my comment. Oldman’s rant doesn’t ping my outrage meter much. His rant was fairly stupid and unnecessary. Moving on.

  11. 11.

    Keith G

    Why anyone would care about the opinions of folks who do little else but memorize words written by others is beyond me.

    I was trapped and had to listen to an hour long interview with Tom Cruse a few weeks ago. A more vacuous man may not exist. About the same time I listened to an interview with Morgan Freeman. I thought that he might have something interesting to say

    He didn’t.

  12. 12.

    JustRuss

    @askew: So I’m guessing Oldman assumes the cop uses the term “f—-g jew” because he uses it(so of course everybody does, amirite?). How does he square that with ” I have an enormous personal affinity for the Jewish people “? And of course, those who don’t use racial slurs do so out of “political correctness”, rather than basic human decency.

    Dear god what an ass. He was fun in The 5th Element though.

  13. 13.

    scav

    Speaking of men saying stupid things, here’s a treat I ran across. (meaning, I’ve not n]much background, just stumbled into it). Context, first woman to lead a French professional men’s football team quits because she was being side-lined / ignored / excluded from decisions / ect by the men, from the available evidence, she was to be the equivalent of the cute weather girl bringing in publicity with no authority. So she quit.After which the president says “She’s a woman so it could be down to any number of things … it’s an astonishing, irrational and incomprehensible decision.”

    Walk into that rake gentlemen.

  15. 15.

    satby

    Yes, they do.
    Not all of them of course, but enough to embarass the rest of their fellow humans for being part of the same species.

  18. 18.

    Lee

    Yeah said a bunch of stupid shit. I think that was also the point he was attempting to make (that people say stupid shit all the time and we will selectively tar & feather some of those).

  19. 19.

    hells littlest angel

    Dear ADL,

    I hope you realize that, in private, he still thinks you’re a bunch of fucking Jews.

    And just to be petty, Alec Guiness was a way better Smiley in the original BBC Tinker, Tailor.

  21. 21.

    Mnemosyne

    Yet another demonstration of why someone’s artistic talent should never be taken as a sign of their innate intelligence or goodness of heart.

  22. 22.

    WereBear

    Jewish slurs are especially fraught in show business because there are so many Jewish people working in that business. It is relatively unprejudiced (compared to say, WASP banking or Southern politics) as a profession because, like sports, it’s based on stats and facts. Get butts in those seats and you’re golden.

    So it’s especially distressing because they can’t use the excuse they don’t know any one of that persuasion. They just, you know, dicks.

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