USA TODAY reported on Jason Alexander apologizing over culturally clueless comments he made about cricket and gays. No word if Alexander will receive PR advice from former Seinfeld Show co-star Michael Richards.
Jason Alexander apologizes for calling cricket a ‘gay sport’
By Reid Cherner, USA TODAY
Actor Jason Alexander can’t take back what he said so he’s apologizing.
Last Friday, Alexander was on The Late Late Show on CBS and told host Craig Ferguson that cricket was a “gay sport.”
“You know how I know it’s really kind of a gay game? It’s the pitch. It looks like nothing — if you slow it slow motion… It’s the weirdest… It’s not like a manly baseball pitch; it’s a queer British gay pitch.”
He has now apologized through his Twitter account.
“… I should know better. My daily life is filled with gay men and women, both socially and professionally. I am profoundly aware of the challenges these friends of mine face and I have openly advocated on their behalf. Plus, in my own small way, I have lived some of their experience. Growing up in the ‘70’s in a town that revered it’s school sports and athletes, I was quite the outsider listening to my musical theater albums, studying voice and dance and spending all my free time on the stage. Many of the same taunts and jeers and attitudes leveled at young gay men and women were thrown at me and on occasion I too was met with violence or the threat of violence.
So one might think that all these years later I might be able to intuit that my little cricket routine could make some person who has already been made to feel alien and outcast feel even worse or add to the conditions that create their alienation. But in this instance, I did not make the connection. I didn’t get it….
…So, I can only apologize and I do. In comedy, timing is everything. And when a group of people are still fighting so hard for understanding, acceptance, dignity and essential rights — the time for some kinds of laughs has not yet come. I hope my realization brings some comfort.
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