Fired actor speaks out about race

Isaiah Washington has blamed racism for playing a part in his public excoriation for homophobia and his eventual firing from ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” according to Newsweek magazine online. “If a black man can’t get forgiveness in this country, when so many other people like Robert Downey Jr. and the governor of California get second and third chances ... I think that says a lot about race and this country where we stand,” the magazine quoted Washington as saying.

Washington also said his so-called rehab for homophobia was actually an executive counseling session, “which many people in this industry know about and go to. They [ABC] knew what the program was but chose to call it what they wanted to fit their agenda,” he said. What’s more, he said, “It didn’t help me on the set that I was a black man who wasn’t a mush-mouth Negro walking around with his head in his hands all the time. I didn’t speak like I’d just left the plantation, and that can be a problem for people sometime,” he said.

--

From a Times staff writer