*Samuel L. Jackson has built a very successful acting career off of giving it to you straight.
And the entertainer’s personal views are not exempt as he broke down his reaction to the terrorist attack at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, among things during a recent podcast interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
Regarding the attack, Jackson voiced that he hoped it wasn’t an act of terrorism on U.S. soil upon getting word about what happened.
“I can’t even tell you how much that day the thing that happened in San Bernardino … how much I really wanted that to just be another, you know, crazy white dude, and not really some Muslims,” he said during the podcast. “Because it’s like: ‘Oh, sh*t. It’s here. And it’s here in another kind of way.’”
For Jackson, increasing suspicion of innocent Muslim-Americans is comparable to how young black men are treated in the United States. The actor’s comments come as he gears up for the release of his upcoming film “The Hateful Eight.” The movie, which also stars Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Channing Tatum, marks Jackson’s latest collaboration with director Quentin Tarantino, who is known for freely using the N-word in his films.
Touching on criticism of Tarantino’s use of the N-word, Jackson had a blunt response.
“It’s bullsh*t. What word do they want him to use?” said Jackson, who pointed out that while Spike Lee and other directors have used the N-word many times in their films, why shouldn’t Tarantino, who he said embodies a “black consciousness” despite not being black.
“How do you describe me in a Tarantino movie if there are rednecks?” Jackson rhetorically asked.
In recent months, Tarantino has generated headlines for participating in an anti-police brutality march in New York. On the topic of police brutality, Jackson attributed it to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) suffered by war veterans who come back from fighting abroad and enter the police force.
He went on to clarify his comment, saying, “Now, not every cop in the world is guilty of that—there’s good cops and there’s bad cops.”
“Until we get somebody policing from the inside out, those things that happen from outside to us are gonna continue to happen.”
Politically speaking, Jackson mentioned that he plans on voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
“I’m forever a Democrat, you know, and I’m gonna vote for Hillary,” he said. “I mean, I love Bernie — Bernie’s a man of the people — but he can’t win. So I gotta cast my vote for a person that can keep those other people from winning, okay?”
Despite occasionally golfing with Donald Trump, Jackson expressed that the Republican presidential candidate is running on “hate.” Still, Jackson believes that Trump isn’t the only candidate that is.
“There are some other people that aren’t as open about what he’s saying that are running also … that have just as much ill-will toward the common man,” Jackson said, “and not just the common black man.”
To see Jackson defend Tarantino using the N-word, check out the video below:
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