And the award for most ironic award goes to...

Long before Mr. Washington opened his mouth about his Grey's Anatomy (a show i hate with a frightening intensity, but that's for another blog), I saw him having a cigar a few doors down from where I take a class.

I so wanted to pop into the store and buy something, anything just to get a little closer. Maybe see what he smelled like. Though at that moment, it was probably a cigar--a smell I'm not all that fond of.

Were that to happen today, I'd probably just shake my head and sigh. Like I'm doing now as I think of the rest of what I'm about to write.

The NAACP image awards were last week. Isaiah Washington accepted his award for best actor to a standing ovation.

I don't even know where to begin with this one. I supposed I should say that I don't think that what an actor does in their personal life should affect what we think of their performances. Actors do have an unfair burden since we as a voyeristic public pry into their personal lives and ask way too invasive questions in the name of escapism. When all that really matters is do they convince us on screen that they are who they're pretending to be. I don't think we should let whether or not they're married to this starlet or that affect how we view their work.

Unless they're getting an award for projecting an IMAGE of a group of people.

Ostensibly, the NAACP Image Awards are about more than just talent. More than being a pretty face that can cry on command and make us cry with them. They’re about sharing the burden that people of color share for the rest of us. At least that’s what you’d get from the name of the award ceremony. But apparently, the NAACP isn’t so concerned about that. And is easily duped.

For those that don’t remember or know the story, here’s what happened.

Basically, Isaiah got into a fight with Patrick Dempsey and in the course of doing so, called cast member TR Knight the f-word. Then, on the red carpet at the Golden Globes, said, in front of his cast members, “I never called TR a f---.” Then a few days later, he issued an apology for calling TR that name and went to “rehab” which is apparently the new black. Last year, it was pregnancy, this year it’s celeb rehab. Whatever.

My husband, who is white, has let me in on a few secrets of whiteness. One of them being how much more often the n-word comes up in conversation than it really should and how it does seem to bring with it a sense of power.

I watched this happen on afternoon. I was on the way to a bible study of all places and was with three (white) friends of mine. One of them said of the n-word “if the rappers can say it, why can’t I?” And I sighed heavily and steeled myself for a long ride.

I told her that just because some rappers (who are ultimately having their music produced by white people at the record labels) say it doesn’t mean that every single black person wants to say it or ever does. Besides, why would want to say it in the first place. Sure, people in England say “c*nt” a lot, but I’m not sitting on my side of the pond saying “Oh, if only I could say the word c*nt over a pint. Then life would be complete.”

And so, I said she shouldn’t want to say the n-word, either. She told me that she’d never in fact said “nigger.”

Then she said it. About five times.

And as she kept saying it. I could feel the power that she felt from using it. By the time she said it the last time, she was practically smiling and said it with the casualness with which one might say “toast.”

I read a quote that described hearing that word as a black person was like experience a flashback you didn’t even know was part of your memory. This shared nightmare that you forgot you had.

I say all of that to say that the only word that has ever given me a since of power. The only word that I could say that would really put someone in their place (because, let’s face it, “peckerwood”—not that stinging) is “faggot.”

I’ve said maybe once or twice. Not to someone, I was relating a story. And I probably said it the second time because of the power I felt saying it the first time.

Then I stopped and never said it again.

I couldn’t and can’t bring myself to say out loud a word that I know carries the weight, disgust and hate of the n-word. I know too well how that feels and I won’t put that on someone.

Isaiah Washington knows the weight of such words. And not only did that not stop him from saying it in a moment of anger (which might be excusable if he’d just apologized) but from joking about it later and saying it again, into a microphone, in a public place, in front of everyone who got pissed at him for saying it before, totally unapologetically.

And then only really apologizing when his contract was in trouble.

This is not the kind of image of a black man I would think that the voting members of the NAACP across the country would want perpetuated via their award ceremony. And Dr. Presont Burke isn’t so layed of a character, so unbelievable of a story vehicle that Washington’s portrayal of him trumps his lack of tact and his tarnishing of the image.

His comments were indicative of the kind of bigotry black Americans have fought so long to have taken out of the public discourse. His blatant denial and flippant attitude about said comments at the Golden Globe Awards were embarrassing, pointless and showed that Mr. Washington has little to no concern for any image he is putting forth.

It’d be like giving Tim Hardaway a Humanitas for his “honesty.”