Isaiah Washington Still Loved By At Least One Gay
While Isaiah Washington's dishonorable discharge from Grey's Anatomy may have been greeted with silent, satisfied approval from a significant portion of Hollywood's velvet community—comforted in the knowledge that their telekinetic Gay Death Rays were still functioning at maximum, career-annihilating capacity—other members of the LGBT community were less than pleased with the outcome. Lesbian and African American blogger Jasmyne Cannick, for example, strongly feels Washington's termination was just the latest example of a racist shitcanning trend emerging at ABC:
Cannick, who worked with Washington on the Pan African Arts Festival, said she's infuriated ABC booted Washington from the show's upcoming fourth season for calling Knight a "faggot" during a scuffle on the set and believes it smacks of racism. So she's launched a petition - which had 1,233 signatures as of last night - to get the actor his job back.
The petition says Washington's firing "further adds to a disturbing new trend at ABC wherein minority actors have been dismissed at an alarming rate over the past two years. Blacks, including . . . Star Jones ('The View'), Harold Perrineau ('Lost'), Alfre Woodard, Mehcad Brooks and Page Kennedy ('Desperate Housewives') have been let go . . . One must ask themselves, what is going on? . . .
The network could of course argue that failure to renew a contract is common TV practice among actors of every race, and that the few times disciplinary action was required—in response to, say, Washington's on-camera epithets or Page "The Guy Under The Mysterious Black Neighbors Stairs" Kennedy allegedly exposing himself to a Desperate Housewives crew member—the network was prudently exercising their protective legal rights. Still, they might have a harder time justifying their messy, public dismissal of perennial audience favorite Star Jones, heartlessly tossed to the streets to make way for the ratings-friendly lily-white lesbianism of her replacement, Rosie O'Donnell.
