It all started with an innocent little fight between Washington and the nerd from 'Can't Buy Me Love'. During the altercation Washington reportedly referred to another cast member (T.R. Knight) as a bunch of sticks bundled together for burning. Which somehow over the years also became a derogatory name for male homosexuals, in a similar fashion to how an embankment of earth and rock built to prevent floods has become a derogatory term for female homosexuals. I won't even venture a guess as to how this evolution came about. The fight took place in October but the press never really let it go, it seems that whenever a story appeared about the show or Washington the subject was brought up and thus was the case earlier this week after the show had won one of Hollywood's many worthless 'let's pat ourselves on the back' awards. The press, never ones to dwell on the positive instead of congratulating Washington for his Golden Globe award decided it was an opportune time to grill him about calling his cast member a bad name. His response got him into deeper water and sparked this cycle of the "bigot press marry-go-round". 

Washington told reporters during a backstage interview, "I did not call T.R. a faggot. Never happened, never happened." Be that as it may, he did offend when he used the term this time and contrary to their name, GLAAD was not happy, and the press attacked like a pack of vouchers (or if you prefer, vultures) leading to the ultimate conclusion, Washington's contrite apology and his outreach to the group he offended. (Homosexuals, not bunches of sticks and water embankments.) 

"I apologize to T.R., my colleagues, the fans of the show and especially the lesbian and gay community for using a word that is unacceptable in any context or circumstance. By repeating the word Monday night, I marred what should have been a perfect night for everyone who works on Grey's Anatomy. I can neither defend nor explain my behavior," Washington said in a statement.

"T.R.'s courage throughout this entire episode speaks to his tremendous character. I hold his talent, and T.R. as a person, in high esteem. I know a mere apology will not end this, and I intend to let my future actions prove my sincerity."

He then outlined his future actions, "I can also no longer deny to myself that there are issues I obviously need to examine within my own soul, and I've asked for help. I know the power of words, especially those that demean. I realize that by using one filled with disrespect I have hurt more than T.R. and my colleagues. With one word, I've hurt everyone who has struggled for the respect so many of us take for granted. I welcome the chance to meet with leaders of the gay and lesbian community to apologize in person and to talk about what I can do to heal the wounds I've opened," he said.

So you can expect the TV appearances etc in the coming weeks from the star to apologize all over again. Which is rightly so, since the use of the burning sticks term obviously violated the 'sticks and stones' escape clause which has become more and more irrelevant as political correctness has grown. Michael Richards used a different derogatory term towards some rude patrons at one of his stand up shows recently, referring to them with a mispronouncement of a river in Africa; a word that somehow also evolved over the years into a derogatory term towards black people. It's all very confusing trying to keep the words and their double meanings straight. I almost used the term African-American but that term in itself is exclusionary since it does not account for black people from other nations apart from the all important United States. And just because they are Americans that doesn't make them more important than people in other nations, does it? Now that definitely wouldn't be politically correct.

Now to clarify some other issues that this and similar stories brings up. I discovered in my research for this story that Grey's Anatomy is not the current politically correct term for geriatric pornography as I originally thought. It is in fact a television program on the Always Broadcasting Commercials Network (ABC), the same network that provides us with such compelling entertainment as "Lost All of Our Viewers," "Extreme Cheesiness While We Build a House" and "Desperate for Ratings So We Made A Soap About Suburban Sluts". Michael Richards is not funny when he doesn't have the Seinfeld writers in his corner. Unfortunately, "did you ever notice" that those talented writers, try as they might, were never able to make Jerry Seinfeld himself funny? Mel Gibson, like 99% of University Students, has been denied proper and honest history lessons and instead has been indoctrinated by agenda driven professors. A quick study of real history would have shown poor Mel that the Jews were not the cause of "all the wars" ever fought but instead the real culprits were the lowest form of humans; politicians! Now it is important to remember that students are taught by people that live in academic bubbles, surrounded by themselves and thus never exposed to the real world. And while this may not apply to Mr. Gibson, the target of anti-religious bigotry himself, many students today are being taught history by former hippies from elitist families that we must excuse for their ignorance because they burnt up most of their reasoning power smoking dope and spitting on the kids that couldn't afford higher education and were forced to go fight a war started not by the Jews but by the French when they pulled out of Vietnam and three American presidents (one far left, one left of center and one far right) took it upon themselves to get the American armed forces involved in a civil war because they felt it was in America's strategic national interest (inline with American Cold War interests) to fight to give the Vietnamese the same rights as the rich college kids to protest their government and spit on poor kids without being sent to prison camps. That and putting down a communist government would have had the added bonus of pissing off Moscow. However, history has shown us that the US failed to add another nation to their insidious Empire. Which reminds me, if any University professors happen to be reading this; I am curious to learn the identity of the other nations in the U.S. Empire. Are Germany, Japan, and Korea secretly part of it? I know Canada is; they just put the British Queen on their money to confuse us. 

Now back on topic, what's the moral of this story? It is really simple; it's not nice to call people names. All humans are different from one another and using strange terms towards others is not at all kosher. We also learn that words do not always mean what they mean. With the exception of "sugar tits" which means exactly what it means, other terms over the years have been stolen and misused by people thus offensively robbing them of their original meaning. Also when you have an ensemble cast in a television show, using the laws of statistics you are bound to have cast members that represent many demographic groups, so like with any workplace, you should keep your bigoted opinions to yourself unless you want a public flogging from people that have other prejudices. 

I'm sure I'll be back soon with another similar report because if there is one thing that can be counted on in this crazy world, you humans have a tendency to say and do stupid things and I'm always happy to point them out to you. 

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Posted by  Cat on 2007/01/19 19:54:13
I would like to apologize for my misuse of the term marry-go-round instead of merry-go-round as an inside-joke reference to gay marriage. It was insensitive and in the future I would only use totally unrelated terms (most related to water in some way).

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