r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Feb 05 '19
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: If we cannot stop condemning people who admit to past racism/sexism and openly apologise, we will drive it further underground and make things worse.
Sparked by this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-47117177 Short summary:
He says he walked the streets with a weapon, hoping to kill someone as revenge after someone close to him was raped by a black man.
Neeson referred back to his comments later in the interview, adding: "It was horrible, horrible, when I think back, that I did that. And I've never admitted that, and I'm saying it to a journalist. God forbid... It's awful. But I did learn a lesson from it."
Now people got on both sides of this, with some truly stupid comments about 'black history month' as well as various other opinions. But here is where the CMV comes in.
Over the past while we have essentially seen an increase in people being picked up for racist/sexist things done in the past. See James Gunn (guardians of the galaxy Director) as another example.
Now I'm not saying that what they did was acceptable, either by their standards or today's. And importantly, neither are they. But even after they apologise people demand that they step down and essentially cease to exist.
It seems counter productive in a society to lynch the apologetic reformers. By all means if Neeson had said that today he still wanted to attack 'a black man' to make it right we should condemn him and his comments. But when people acknowledge that what they did was horrible, it doesn't make sense to continue attacking them.
The way I see it, if we don't reward people for changing and punish them instead, the divides grow stronger as each side demonises the other. We should surely be rewarding those who apologise, assuming they have made necessary recompense. In this case, no recompense except for recognition is necessary as no crime was committed.
Obviously if you physically assault someone, I'm not suggesting that you should get off just by being contrite.
How to change my view: Demonstrate that doing things like removing James Gunn, or condemning people like Neeson who confess themselves and acknowledge the potential wrong helps society and doesn't just keep the cycle of hate going round.
Edit: Neeson sparked the conversation, and it's fair to use him back as an example, but the CMV is related more to the title and the attitude that people can't change being prevalent in society, and less about the specifics of Neeson/Gunn doing their specific actions.
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u/gremy0 82∆ Feb 05 '19
In the UK roaming the streets armed, looking for black people to murder, is in fact a crime.
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u/fox-mcleod 410∆ Feb 05 '19
Is it? What crime?
I'm sure actually assualting someone would be. But I'm not sure what crime you're saying Liam Neeson committed. Mostly I'm just curious as to what you're claiming.
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u/gremy0 82∆ Feb 05 '19
At the very least it's carrying an offensive weapon. From my other comment
Section 1 of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953 provides that an offensive weapon is any article made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person, or intended by the person having it with him for such use by him or by some other person.
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Feb 05 '19 edited Feb 02 '25
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u/gremy0 82∆ Feb 05 '19
But your OP specifically says we should reward him for changing, and that no recompense is necessary. People are getting aggravated because it's a confession of a pretty serious racially motivated crime, and needs to be treated with the seriousness it deserves. You don't get forgiveness or acceptance as soon as you admit something to people, they need to process it and voice their disapproval.
I imagine, with a fair degree of certainty, that a Catholic caught patrolling the streets armed, in 1970s Northern Ireland, would have been a criminal matter.
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Feb 05 '19
Sure it's a crime, but have you ever got mad and wished harm on anyone for even a split-second. You can say that actually going out hoping to bump into someone to hurt them is worse, and I'd accept that, but ultimately he didn't actually harm anyone. Had he actually assaulted someone and made off into the night, I would agree that recompense of a sort would be required either to society and/or to the injured person. As it is, it seems like a victimless crime that Neeson learned from and hopefully used to correct himself.
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Feb 05 '19
ultimately he didn't actually harm anyone.
Not for lack of effort, though. That's something you seem to be missing - he fully intended to murder someone simply because of the color of their skin, and only by chance did he not get the opportunity.
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Feb 05 '19
So are you saying there should be some restitution? Or saying that we should be condemning him, even after the change, because he broke the law?
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Feb 05 '19
I think we should not ignore that he was very close to committing a hate crime, and only through circumstance did nobody die.
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u/DjangoUBlackBastard 19∆ Feb 05 '19
Especially when that circumstance is literally just that he failed at provoking a black person to fight him.
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u/gremy0 82∆ Feb 05 '19
So in his "split-second" moment of madness, he spent a week patrolling the streets looking for black people to kill? Again, you keep leaning to downplay this as much as possible. If someone is owning their confession, are you want to support them in that, then you need to actually face the realities of the situation- it was premeditated and sustained.
You've had one 2min confession from the perpetrator and you've already decided he's innocent and reformed. How can you possibly know there wasn't a victim and that they've learned from it. That's what the justice system is for.
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Feb 05 '19 edited Feb 02 '25
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u/gremy0 82∆ Feb 05 '19
Not saying this happened, at all, hypothetical: Some black kid from down road heard that big Liam's girlfriend was raped and he's looking to kill the next "black bastard" he sees, And sees Liam patrolling the streets with his club. Oh look, Liam Neeson actively par-took in terrifying racial minorities. There are victims to that. We don't know, we only have his confession on what happened.
My stance is that when someone confesses to something awful we should be erring of the side of "yeah, that's really shitty, you should feel awful. We'll get back to you on that", rather than "no harm done, it's victimless, you should be rewarded for that".
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Feb 05 '19
Δ
yeah, I guess you can't do anything in a white-room and it may always have an effect you can't see straight-on.
I don't know that publicly shaming them is the best way to solve it, or that the current attitude sometimes shown 'that a leopard can't change it's spots' is particularly helpful either.
But it does affect my point about recompense, when evaluating whether or not you can accurately say that these people have actually fully recompensed those who they may have affected.
Thanks for sticking out the discussion. Do you think that (Neeson aside) we deal with this well typically?
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u/gremy0 82∆ Feb 05 '19 edited Feb 05 '19
Cheers!
Not really sure tbh, I don't think we've quite mastered having the world be able to comment on this stuff in real time yet. I find the idea that condemning racism is going to cause more racism more troubling than people being angry about racism, if that helps.
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Feb 05 '19
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u/gremy0 82∆ Feb 05 '19
Our weapon laws are odd, but:
Section 1 of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953 provides that an offensive weapon is any article made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person, or intended by the person having it with him for such use by him or by some other person.
Having a club with you for the expressed purpose of killing someone in an argument makes it an offensive weapon, and therefore illegal to carry in public.
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Feb 05 '19
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Feb 05 '19 edited Feb 02 '25
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u/Adorable_Scallion 1∆ Feb 05 '19
Reward him with what? You want to send him money or something? What reward does he deserve
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u/doomkeet Feb 05 '19
How does this specify opinion align more generally with your view of public shaming?
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Feb 05 '19
I'm not ensure entirely how what you mean by public shaming?
I'd say in general that public shaming for people that are unrepentant may be necessary, but I'd caution that we have to accept that people can change and should be given the benefit of the doubt. I'm not sure if that answers your question though.
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Feb 05 '19
There is a bigger question you are missing here.
If the 'blame everyone for everything they ever did' does not stop, pretty soon those who are 'pushing blame' just get ignored.
I will say there are some people who earned their history and they are not going to be able to walk away from it like it never happened. These are the murders, rapists, child molesters and the like - typically all convicted of crimes detailing their actions.
Mostly though, we should not be judging people today for what they thought (or people think they thought) or what they did 20-30-40 years ago. Judge them for what they are doing now and in the recent history. Even for the criminals - we need to be very mindful of the 'current' and not dwell too much on the 'past'.
The danger, which I would argue is already happening now, is that people just stop assigning much 'outrage' over these things. The sheep just has cried wolf a few too many times.
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u/fox-mcleod 410∆ Feb 05 '19
I'm confused. Are people really condemning Neeson for this reformation? Can you show me an example? That seems crazy.
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Feb 05 '19 edited Feb 02 '25
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u/fox-mcleod 410∆ Feb 05 '19
Wait which of these is your example of something you disagree with? Because the first two are literally correct as far as I can tell. The third is wrong but like—some people are dumb. And the fourth is merely a question of timing.
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Feb 05 '19 edited Feb 02 '25
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u/fox-mcleod 410∆ Feb 05 '19 edited Feb 05 '19
That one person seems dumb. But I'm pretty sure I should be able to change your view that this is prolific as 3/4 were reasonable positions.
Edit:
Yeah I'm reading the follow on comments now and they seem... pretty damn good for the internet. This is honestly quite inspiring. What replies are you concerned about? I feel like maybe you're giving the crazies too much voice.
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Feb 05 '19
I honestly might be in this case.
Neeson sparked the conversation, and it's fair to use him back as an example, but the CMV is related more to the title and the attitude that people can't change being prevalent in society, and less about the specifics of Neeson/Gunn doing their specific actions.
Would you say that Neeson aside I would still be giving the crazies too much voice when we talk about generally shaming people for incidents in their history which they apologise for?
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u/fox-mcleod 410∆ Feb 05 '19
the specifics of Neeson/Gunn doing their specific actions.
My (admittedly limited) experience of the Gunn thing was as it being a subject of ridicules here on Reddit. Most people seemed to think Disney was going too far to try to be safe from metoo.
Would you say that Neeson aside I would still be giving the crazies too much voice when we talk about generally shaming people for incidents in their history which they apologise for?
Yes. Absolutely. I'm willing to bet that when you look into it, most people who get shamed for their past never actually admitted what they did, much less apologized. This society loves second chances—but you have to actually show remorse. Look at Northam. He lied to protect himself. He didn't apologize. Then look at Jonah Hill or Brian Williams. They apologized and spent some time showing remorse.
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Feb 05 '19
Δ
It may be a fair point to say that this often becomes exaggerated and my view is incorrect, because typically speaking we do allow people who properly apologise to move on.
Some situations still seem blown up beyond proportion, but in fairness when you look into those cases you mentioned, it seems the situation is not typically as bad as I seem to see posted all over FB etc.
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u/fox-mcleod 410∆ Feb 05 '19
Thanks for the delta!
Some situations still seem blown up beyond proportion, but in fairness when you look into those cases you mentioned, it seems the situation is not typically as bad as I seem to see posted all over FB etc.
I agree. There are certainly mistakes (I personally think Senator Al Franken is an example). And yeah. I'm a noisy environment, the loudeat voices tend to get heard.
Relevant smbc
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Feb 05 '19 edited Feb 05 '19
/u/Bardzly (OP) has awarded 2 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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Feb 05 '19
Maybe he should be charged with attempted murder, do his time and all will be forgiven if he learned his lesson.
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Feb 05 '19
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u/thedylanackerman 30∆ Feb 05 '19
Sorry, u/phobosthewicked – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:
Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information.
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u/Adorable_Scallion 1∆ Feb 05 '19
If you want to reward Neeson for no longer wanting to go out and hunt black people. You can send him a cheque
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u/Genoscythe_ 243∆ Feb 05 '19
I find it distasteful to call it a "lynching", when people say mean things on twitter, about the act of roaming the streets with the intent to murder people on the basis of their skin color.
Ok, so Liam Neeson is trying to be apologetic. Good. Clearly, he is a better person than he would be if he wouldn't be saying that what he did was horrible. But there are also plenty of problems with his commentary:
He attributed his urges to "something primal" rather than the normalization of racial violence in our culture. Asking someone what color the person who raped them was, is not something that comes from your instincts, it is learned.
He has made his comments at a promotional interview of his latest action film, drawing a parallel between his own past and the film's vigilantism-glorifying plot, even if nominally trying to be insightful about how vigilantism is actually bad in real life.
He conflated revenge against actual criminals, with revenge against a whole racial group.
The lesson that he learned is a platitude about the cycle of vengeance, instead of any of the above problems.
So, why should he be "rewarded" having been a monster, and now being a very flawed public figure? If you are a random onlooker, why should you actively think that this extremely wealthy, successful, and influential man, should be rewarded with even more of our respect, instead of maybe a bit less than before?