Bigot Fort Clinic?

From Salon.com:

“In a classic Hollywood move, "Grey's Anatomy" actor Isaiah Washington, in the midst of really bad P.R. after his repeated use of the term "faggot," has checked himself into some kind of treatment facility. In a statement he released yesterday, Washington said: "With the support of my family and friends, I have begun counseling. I regard this as a necessary step toward understanding why I did what I did and making sure it never happens again." Insiders say that ABC demanded that he enter a program "to examine why he would say such hateful words," but there's no word yet on just what type of facility Washington has gone into.”

Hmm… Maybe he went to Bigot Fort Clinic, as sister institution to the Betty Ford Clinic! Where Michael Richards went to get treated. And Sean Connery, in the 1980s, after he had that interview where he explained to Barbara Walters that sometimes women need to get smacked up, though not punched (there is a difference). They are healing people there, one bigot at a time…

Seriously, how do these people find the nerve to do The Whole Thing? Not just the slur, the whole slur-apology-rehab thing. I get the slur, the slur is your true nature. But the apology makes no sense. These people, they don’t subtle things, you know like “I don’t have problem with homosexuality per se, it’s just not for me”--they say faggot—twice in the same month. They don’t say “Some of my best friends are black”—they say nigger 4 times and then make a lynching reference. The slur is what it is. I mean why apologize for things like that? Or rather HOW? It’s ridiculous. How would the apology work? A slur is not a contingent insult like “fuck you”. A slur is the articulation of a position-- a long held, value position that you hold. A slur is not like arguing with someone and falling so low as to call them something foul. It’s not “the reason I divorced you is because you are fat.” The dude who said that to my co-worker could in fact apologize for that one. It’s conceivable that his explanation—which was that he was so mad he wanted to deliberately say something As Foul As Possible to hurt her—is true. We can all relate to the manipulative move where in the heat of the moment you dig really deep and low and throw some fucked up shit at someone. Not so for a slur like faggot or nigger.

Not to brag but I’m pretty righteous. I mean, I don’t do slurs. But I do say Bitch.
[Ok, I say nigga but I’m not entertaining that conversation right now]. I say Bitch a lot. I do. Someone should make me that t-shirt! I’ve been told when I am drinking I say it even more, so maybe Mel was onto something. Kidding! Even sober, I use it as a noun, an emphatic noun—a noun infused with texture. An especially special noun of endless possibilities. Sometimes women get offended—and say so, and I say that I am sorry that they don’t like the word. Granted I don’t have a revolutionary position about Bitch, you know, I got common sense. I’m not saying it at work. I’m not saying it’s a particularly popular word everywhere I go. I don't have to say it to someone if I know they hate to hear it, it's not like that. But I say it, I like it, I use and there would be no honesty in my apologizing for that. Whatever people want to conclude about my frame(s) of reference relative to theirs by my using that word is probably valid. What a novel idea—accountability for one’s usage of words… There is no question that once “Bitch” has come out of my mouth in regular conversation, in a sentence, that this has happened before. There is no question that I use it often. I can’t apologize for doing something I routinely do and mean it—cause everybody knows I’m gonna do it again. This is common fucking sense. So you say to me, well, then what can we do to heal? That’s stupid—we can’t heal from that shit. We can check bigots and make them feel ignorant. We can institute dire consequences to their usage of the slurs. Which is what needs to happen—we can make sure punishment happens. We can make sure our "collective" issues Reprimands of substance, like losing one’s job. Some bigots will take said punishment as a sign that they need to grow and learn shit and shut the fuck up until they have a clue. Others won’t take that at all. (Back to me, yeah, people have suggested, although generally they have mostly insinuated or said behind my back, that I could use some enlightenment vis a vis use of “bitch”; frankly, I don’t care).

The point is that as the swelling on Rodney King’s face suggested when he said that stupid line, we actually can’t all get along. Homophobes can’t get along with their gay coworkers. Racists can’t get along with their black audience members. Wife beaters can’t get along with their wives. My politically engaged anti-sexist feminist friends can’t get along with my using the word bitch left and right. The getting along here is way beside the point once the slur is out. The getting along requires that an innocent, targetted someone has to be put up to the undignified, self-loathing task of ACCEPTING your motherfucking apology. And I’ll be damned, bitch; I’ll be damned.