'Cuz Nice People Say F@6, Right?

Sheesh. Isaiah Washington stands accused of something -- homophobia? -- and something even worse -- using a mean word ending in -got. This is the third Using of Bad Words by a Celebrity lately, after Mel Gibson's direction of anti-Semitic slurs to the Jewish police officer who was arresting him and that guy from Seinfeld using anti-African American slurs to the African Americans who were teasing him while he was onstage. Why is this news? People who get in fights often say the meanest things they can think of with the express intent of deeply hurting the feelings of the person with whom they are fighting. I'm not defending the language, and I'm certainly not defending the sentiments embodied in the language, but I don't think it's fair to draw broad conclusions about people because of the things they say to a specific individual when they are angry. If Mel actually starts doing hateful things to Jews then we'll know he's an anti-semite; otherwise, he's just a drunken idiot who unimaginatively reached for the crudest possible tools in the midst of an argument. Same with the others. Breathlessly reporting their name calling only makes it seem worse than it is, and encourages those who are at risk of being called something really insulting (and who isn't?) that they've all suffered at the hands of Mel and Co. Is it really good for us to be that fragile?