Penna Dexter

After an interview promoting his new film, Cold Pursuit, actor Liam Neeson was hit with an onslaught of Hollywood shaming. The character Neeson plays in this movie is a man consumed by his desire for vengeance at all costs, similar to the father in his Taken films. In the interview, he described an episode in his life that helped him relate. He reacted to the rape of someone dear to him with rage which he admits was impulsive and racist. He told the reporter from The Independent,"I asked, did she know who it was? No. What color were they? She said it was a black person." For a week, Neeson says, he walked, carrying a heavy stick, in areas where he thought a black person might go after him. "So that I could" — he pauses before saying — "kill him." The actor says that, after a week and a half, he brought himself up short. He sought help from a Catholic priest and repented. Then came the industry backlash. The studio cancelled the red carpet premiere of his film. In a piece at The American Conservative, entitled "Why We Can't Talk About Race", blogger Rod Dreher says the actor made "a human admission." "Neeson," he writes, "told a very personal story about how rage consumed him, to the point of wanting to commit a racist homicide. He condemned himself in the recollection, which he offered as a cautionary tale of how anger can drive a man crazy." This happened 40 years ago. Much of Hollywood offered no mercy. No grace. An exception was Whoopi Goldberg who said, "He's no bigot." The lesson we must learn from this, writes Rod Dreher, is "If you are white, never ever let yourself be vulnerable when talking about race." He continues, "After what happened to Liam Neeson, you'd have to be a fool to make yourself vulnerable in a forum like this." With the Left, there is no redemption.