LOS ANGELES -- "Grey's Anatomy" star Isaiah Washington said racism was a factor in his firing from the hit CTV series after he twice used an anti-gay slur. Washington, who initially used the epithet during an onset clash with a co-star, told Newsweek magazine that "someone heard the booming voice of a black man and got really scared and that was the beginning of the end for me." He tried to make amends by expressing remorse and volunteering to enter a counselling program to understand how the confrontation got out of hand, he told Newsweek.
"My mistake was believing that I would get the support from my network and all of my cast-mates across the board. My mistake was believing I could correct a wrong with honesty and sincerity," he said in the interview posted online Thursday. "My mistake was thinking black people get second chances.
I was wrong on all fronts," he said. His unwillingness to act like a submissive black at work was part of the problem, Washington said. "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. In its one public statement regarding Washington, issued in January, the network said his actions were "unacceptable." Washington, who used the slur against co-star T.
R. Knight during a confrontation with Patrick Dempsey, repeated the word backstage at the Golden Globes in January in denying the first incident. A public apology to Knight and others followed.
LOS ANGELES -- "Grey's Anatomy" star Isaiah Washington said racism was a factor in his firing from the hit CTV series after he twice used an anti-gay slur.
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