Fleeing headlong to the last refuge of a particular type of scoundrel, actor Isaiah Washington, fired from the high-rated ABC-TV program Gray’s Anatomy for referring to a fellow actor as a "faggot," claims that he was dumped because he’s black, not because he said something—twice—almost guaranteed to get him in trouble in today’s extremely sensitive, pro-homosexuality Hollywood environment.

In an interview with Newsweek magazine, Washington said that his refusal to act submissively was what really got him fired:

"someone heard the booming voice of a black man and got really scared and that was the beginning of the end for me."

Right, it had nothing to do with the bad publicity the show was getting for his outburst, right or wrong as that public outcry may have been.

Washington further said that the organization’s expectations were for him to act like some sort of 1930s B-movie comic character:

"Well, 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.

"I had a person in human resources tell me after this thing played out that `some people’ were afraid of me around the studio. I asked her why, because I’m a 6-foot-1, black man with dark skin and who doesn’t go around saying `Yessah, massa sir’ and `No sir, massa’ to everyone?

"It’s nuts when your presence alone can just scare people, and that made me a prime candidate to take the heat in a dysfunctional family," he said.

Right, and Samuel L. Jackson and Denzel Washington are shrinking violets who bow and scrape before their white overlords. What a jackass.