Patrick Bergin

Patrick Bergin has delivered what is, arguably, his finest film performance to date in When The Sky Falls. He plays Mackey, a Dublin detective as determined to nail the drug-dealing Dave Hackett as journalist Siniad Hamilton is.

Siniad , of course, is a character based on Veronica Guerin and Mackey is a mix of dicks including the legendary Lugs Brannigan.
More about that movie later, but right now, Bergin is sitting in the lobby of Dublin s Conrad Hilton Hotel, reeling in the years and reflecting on the background to his most famous film, Sleeping With The Enemy, which co-starred Julia Roberts. Prior to that Bergin had appeared in Mountains Of The Moon and before that, again, in Act of Betrayal, at a time when he was squatting in Camden Town having struggled in England for years, doing rep, touring, trying to get his break as an actor.
Patrick Bergin had left Dublin when he was seventeen not quite sure of what he wanted to do in life . Now, at the start of the nineties, he was poised for stardom.
Mountains Of The Moon was very much my ticket into Hollywood, my real break, he explains. And when I went there, in 1990, I met Steve Martin, Meryl Streep and they re all embracing me, saying you re the next hot thing . All that shit. But the original casting for Sleeping With The Enemy was Sean Connery and Kim Basinger and I went in for the part of the neighbour. Yet Connery made some faux pax in the newspaper, where he allegedly said a woman occasionally needs a good slap now and then to keep her in line . So he could not play the role in Sleeping With The Enemy because if he d done that, after making this statement it would have validated his position and, perhaps, ruined his career.
Patrick, presumably, would not have subscribed to such a statement.
My motivation apart from career, at that stage, because this was clearly going to be a huge, studio movie was that I ve always tried to be serious about my work, he responds. And the element of Sleeping With The Enemy which I thought was important was domestic violence. I d done a film called Morphine And Dolly Mixtures and that dealt with the subject. And one was aware of the domestic violence you see here in Dublin. In my extended family there was one or two cases of that.
So Bergin doesn t believe that women need to be slapped to be kept in their place?
Absolutely not. You d be a fool to believe that. Everybody needs to know where power lies. But Sean Connery is a fool to say what he said because to slap somebody is not necessarily going to control them. They can come back with a fucking knife! Or, as in Sleeping With The Enemy, with a gun! So, while one can understand the desire to control, you d be a fool to believe you can control the energy of women. It s impossible.
Even so, in Sleeping With The Enemy, Bergin played a psychotic male attempting to control the energy of the Julia Roberts character. Can he, himself, identify with that form of possessive jealousy? Does Patrick fear, say, that he may lose his wife, Paula, to another man?
I m jealous of everything, he admits. I ve certainly felt sexual jealousy. Though maybe more so when I was a young man. I have been through phases of inordinate, possessive jealousy, yes. Jealousy is one of the sickest emotions a person can go through. But it s absolutely human. I m as jealous as the next man. I ve also gone through a phase of professional jealousy. I still get twinges of it but, by and large, in the last five years, there s no film I was jealous about not having been in.
Is it not the case that Neil Jordan s Michael Collins is one movie Bergin did long to be in?
Yes, he admits. But though Neil is a great director, I think he missed the plot in Michael Collins. I was keen to be involved in a film with that kind of historical significance. And I did meet him, to talk about playing De Valera.
But I d read the script and felt Neil was badly underwriting the character. And I said that to him. I wouldn t have been a great supporter of De Valera. My family background was more socialist oriented. Labour. My father actually was a Senator and set up the Irish Labour History Society. So, though I don t know what Neil s politics are, Michael Collins seemed to undermine the huge significance of republicanism as an intellectual force. It s part of the neutralising of Irish history. In fact, De Valera was totally debunked by that movie. What he stood for is gone. That s how badly the man was represented.
And I did argue with Neil, at that meeting, said that if I was going to do the film I wanted a stronger role for De Valera. And he said if you do this, we re going to argue all the time, aren t we? And I said probably. Then, I didn t get the part.
Bergin also feels that even on the pure level of film-making Neil Jordan fucked up Michael Collins.
That, too, is what I mean about the part being underwritten, he explains. In any film, the stronger the bad guy, the better the movie. And Jordan glorified one character Collins out of all proportion, and neglected to make De Valera a character worthy of being an opponent.
According to Bergin some American viewers found the De Valera character puzzling for another reason.
I have actually had people come to me, in America, and ask was De Valera gay? And not in terms of any subtext in the movie! Because he is this quivering fucker in a barn with some young kid at the end! They ask what was he doing with the kid in the barn? And, apart from the fact that he was not in the barn in the first place, at first, I said I don t know what you re talking about . But now I see exactly where they re coming from. In Michael Collins, Neil cast a great, but very camp actor, as De Valera, which was a huge mistake. He let his political or sexual prejudice cloud his judgement.
In citing sexual prejudice , is Bergin agreeing with those who see a strained, sexual undercurrent in Neil s movies? Some commentators, for example, suggest that most of the women in his films are either Madonnas or whores and that the only sexually adjusted creature is the male-female lead in The Crying Game!
I agree with that, Bergin responds. Neil does put a strange, ambiguous sexuality into his movies. But if he was going in that direction, with Michael Collins, perhaps he should have explored Collins renowned predilection for horseplay . And yet, when it comes to the question of the sexual dynamics in Neil Jordan s movies I have to admit that, overall, I find it fascinating. In fact, if a film isn t about sex it isn t about anything. You have to have a sexual element to every movie. A film that is not sexy just doesn t have life in it.
That said, Bergin himself reveals some sexual prejudices when the subject turns to Irish actresses.
They re great. I d love to work with Orla Brady, Charlotte Bradley and Fiona Shaw. But it s true there is not enough gee as in women s sexual juices in Irish films.
Surely Patrick means there is not enough explicit sexuality ?
No. Not enough gee. That s the word I want to use, he says.
Bergin did work with Fiona Shaw on Mountains Of The Moon and ran into her again recently.
I met her the other day, in Dublin, the director of Medea, Deborah Warner, and Fiona actually said we must do something again. And she used to proudly display the bruise I gave her on the inside of her thigh. In that movie I had to go down on her! And I think she still thinks about that!
Okay, so let s cut to the, eh, bone of Patrick Bergin. Did he want to shag his Sleeping With The Enemy co-star Julia Roberts?
No, he says, emphatically. I really like Julia. She has a Southern charm and manner that is timeless. I ve worked with Ashley Judd recently and she has it too. I like it better than the LA quality but not as much as the New York quality!
As in, Ellen Berkin?
I don t know Ellen, personally. I mean New York girls in general. But, yes, Ellen, in movies, has an upfront honesty, toughness and rawness that is so refreshing.
So Bergin prefers ballsy women?
That s what I m trying to say, yeah!
Which movie actresses did Patrick lust after as a kid?
Gina Lollobrigida! Sultry stuff, he replies. And Cappucine.
Who s Cappucine? What movie was she in?
Fuck knows! Who cares? She looked like Gina!
Quite.
Would Patrick describe himself as vain?
Yes, he says. Vanity has always been part of my nature. But vanity can interfere with performance, to a great degree. And that s where John McKenzie [director of When The Sky Falls] really helped, because he encouraged me to rise above vanity. As in, think: I don t give a fuck how I look in this film, whether I ve got nine chins or not, as long as it looks authentic in terms of the part . And that is hard to get to, as an actor. I haven t gotten many parts where that would be encouraged. Or allowed.
Meaning the same tyranny is imposed on Hollywood stars as starlets. So does this whole question go back to that time when Bergin first established himself as a Hollywood heart-throb in Sleeping With The Enemy? And allowed himself to be sold to female or male fans fundamentally as someone-we d-all-love-to-fuck?
Yes, he says. And movies, throughout history, are filled with not so much actors as archetypes. A dozen or so. And I m including actresses in this. The one with the tits , the dark, sultry types; the blond, muscular types. Every generation of actors produces its own archetypes. Or stereotypes. So, definitely, I fitted into that concept from the start. And there is a pressure on you, in Hollywood, simply to look good. Or, as you say, fuckable . And the demands of any genre, such as thrillers, are incredibly shallow. But Hollywood offers you a huge amount of money to do something like that and you decide to do it, or not. And Sleeping With The Enemy was the beginning of all this for me. Slotting into some kind of sexual stereotype. Though I didn t realise that at the time.
On a more personal level, having fantasised about movies stars such as Gina Lollobrigida since he was a kid, did Patrick go crazy, sexually, when he went to Hollywood in 1990. Think hey, I m a movie star, I can fuck whoever I want ?
No. I was much too mature at that stage. You have to remember, I worked in Butlins as a teenager. And Butlins was wild then 67, 68, 69 I was a trolley boy and we had more fun than redcoats. Then I spent a lot of time in London with, say, Australian women who were very liberated. And I spent a fair amount of time in Amsterdam which meant I had a lot of sexual experience long before I ever went to Hollywood.
Tinsel city circa 1990 was a town fuelled largely by cocaine. Did Patrick indulge in any such excesses?
Not really, I worked, he says. I worked my balls off, basically, at the time. And, in terms of coke, I can t understand how grown, civilised people would keep their nose in a trough all evening. Of course it happens. I ve seen it. But how could you do that to yourself?
Has Bergin seen Hollywood actors fuel themselves with coke before filming?
I, personally, have never seen an actor taking drugs on set, no. And I don t know how people function at all, on cocaine. I like a pint, for sure, but I can do without it. And yet I have seen here in Ireland a couple of actors who were, let s say, the worse for wear on set early in the morning. Yet taking a line of coke early in the morning to get started, to me, is a stupid idea.

Patrick already gave us one explanation as to why he didn t work with Neil Jordan on Michael Collins but why hasn t he ever worked with Jim Sheridan?
I d like to work with Jim and I think I will one day. After all, he made Ireland s greatest film, My Left Foot. Even if he went on to ruin Ireland s greatest play,The Field!
Why? Because Sheridan allowed Richard Harris to turn it into his King Lear and tilt the narrative more towards his own character rather than the community, which was the original focus in that play?
That, certainly, Bergin agrees. And the fact that he removed the woman from the story. And, yes, cast fucking Richard Harris, who is all hot air, bluster and stage Irish ry.That ruined it for me. But I would work with Jim Sheridan. Maybe on some Shakespearean or incest-ridden Greek tragedy set in Ringsend!
All joking aside, Bergin admits he really doesn t know guys like Jim Sheridan. When they were doing the Project and all that stuff, in the 70s, I was in London with my own project! Trying to break into film and theatre. I wasn t part of any group here, in Ireland. In fact, I owe nobody in this country a fucking screed. But there definitely is a Jordan and Sheridan clique. Just as RTE operates as a clique, a closed-shop. Patrick Cassidy, the Irish composer, is a friend of mine and I was there, in Lillie s Bordello, the night one of RTE s top broadcasters told Patrick he was told not to play Patrick s Famine Remembrance on radio because RTE had their famine piece! And Cassidy couldn t get onto the Jordan/Sheridan bandwagon because they don t want anyone stealing their glory. And look at Cassidy now! In LA, working on the new Ridley Scott movie! Yet he couldn t break through the various closed shops in this country and had to leave.
That s what still pisses me off about Ireland. And Dublin, in particular, certainly gives you a good, fundamental training for keeping a strong shield at your back!
Is Patrick Bergin speaking, here, about the film world, or Ireland?
Both, he suggests. But especially the world of film. For example, we have a Film Board that is ruining Irish film. They call it a board but it s not a board, it s one person making decisions. Rob Stone-person! And he s a perfect Irish civil servant. Ambitious, imposes, tries to get films changed to his vision. Obviously a frustrated film-maker. And not very bright. I ve first-hand experience of all that.
Deciphered, does this mean Patrick went to Rod Stoneman seeking support for his own Yeats Trilogy a cycle of films Bergin funded and has been working on for years and was rejected?
Yes. But I really did feel that if you were making a film in Ireland, about Yeats, you should be supported. How naive of me, he says. And I was shocked that there was no support. But in no circumstances would I object to being rejected. That s not the point. My film was supposed to be shown to the board. But it wasn t. Stone-person told me, before he showed it to the board, that Yeats language was inappropriate for film . And I found it highly insulting as I m sure a lot of the public would that an Englishman is telling an Irishman Yeats is inappropriate. Imagine an Irishman, [as] the head of the English Film Board, saying you can t film Shakespeare. Fuck that shit. You can find any number of quotes supporting the idea that Yeats is our greatest poet, dramatist. Then, some rat says something as ignorant as that. And I really was appalled at the language of Yeats being criticised in this way.
So, if one is to go along with that argument, does this mean the language that is encouraged is what we hear in a lot of films made recently in Ireland? That it s alright to use the word motherfucker in every second sentence, but not to speak poetry? If so, what are we trying to tell our young people? I m not saying every movie has to be poetic but the question is as with all art is there truth in the movie? What is the point in having a film industry unless it s pursuing some form of truth? So it s not a question of my being turned down. It s ignorance that makes one annoyed. I don t give a fuck about the money. The money they would give you, anyway, is pittance.
Bergin, in full flight, barely pauses to take a breath.
But you really do assume you re going to be encouraged, if nothing else. Yet there was no encouragement whatsoever. Even so, I m proud of the Yeats cycle. It s a great piece of work. My wife has done a fantastic job of directing and everybody is brilliant in it. Another thing is that Stone-person told me he would be able to give me a strong indication as to how my application would go. That means it was his decision and not the board s decision. That s corrupt.
At this point Bergin, obviously, is enraged.
Because I know, from experience, he has gone on film sets and forced young, more naive film makers to change the ending of the movies to suit him, Patrick explains. He tried to do it with John Boorman on The General. He was telling Boorman how to make his fucking movie! How boorish and ignorant can you get? In fact, his ignorance is so vast and intense he s lucky I didn t give him a dig in the head. And he gets his name, personally, onto films. How dare he use Irish taxpayers money to put his name on films. Surely that s beyond his remit?
(Contacted by hotpress, The Irish Film Board s Rod Stoneman responds as follows:
The Board do read and decide upon scripts that are shortlisted for production money. In the specific case of Patrick Bergin s Yeats film it was not just me, or Stoneperson who viewed and assessed the tape.
On another tack we are please to recognise and appreciate Patrick s work as an actor, he delivers a marvellous performance in When The Sky Falls, a film we supported, but did not interfere with!
Finally, there are lots of other assertions he makes which are absolutely not true but I think it s best to let that go. )
Given this rejection from The Irish Film Board, how did Patrick raise the finance to finish his Yeats cycle?
Actually, I broke an arm on Frankenstein some years ago and nobody apologised so I sued them, he reveals. I d have walked away, man, if somebody had said they were sorry. I swear to God. But nobody would take responsibility. And that was a very crucial time in my career. It was going very much up and I was out of work for at least a year. So I sued them, meaning the Yeats cycle was made by Broken Arm Productions! And I did get a Section 481 Tax break, which I am grateful for. In fact, the people who are dealing with money in this country have more artistic interest than the people who are pretending to be producers . People at 481 and the likes of James Hickey, who are lawyers, are deeply interested in poetry and art. Whereas the people who are supposed to be interested in the art are only interested in money. You get all these people calling themselves producers and they re not. They re facilitators.
In what sense?
Basically facilitating companies from outside to get their 15% tax break, Bergin explains. So is that all we re becoming? For a brief period, around about the time of My Left Foot, things did change but, overall, what still happens is that big movie companies come in to this country, use local actors as fodder, put in their stars and get the tax benefit. And if the dollar was not as strong as it is right now those film companies wouldn t be here at all. So I don t buy into this idea that we re riding the crest of a wave again in terms of the Irish film industry. What s happening is that the content of our movies is being dictated by outside forces. We re a suburb of fucking Los Angeles. In other words, we re making films not for ourselves but for the American market.
Bergin also argues that RTE fails the Irish people at this level too. It s really a shame there isn t a more vibrant national television station in this country because I feel that a lot of the films that were made here over the past few years should have been made for television, he suggests. We lack a Sunday night drama. A place where, every week, fresh work of self-analysis can be presented so you don t have to make a fucking six million dollar movie on a subject. You can make an hour drama on television. As I said earlier, I m not interested in just making movies, I m interested in thought and expression. Drama containing (a) self-reflection and (b) self-analysis. That s the kind of stuff I feel RTE should be doing. But I, genuinely, would rather sweep the streets than do a TV series.
In fact, I m lucky in that I haven t really been out of work, but I really did despair about two or three years ago when I was in LA and it was the pilot season, and all anyone was interested in doing was putting you into a TV series. I don t give a fuck about that. I wouldn t mind doing a series in Dublin, like that one John McGinley did. Fifteen shows and that s it. But something that goes on for five years, no fucking way.
So acting hell, for Patrick Bergin, would have been playing in Glenroe as his brother Emmet has done for years?
Well, it would have been the same as when I was teaching, I couldn t teach in a regular school. I d go fuckin bananas. So I set up my own school in Kilburn! But I definitely don t like authority, don t like being told what to do. And it d be the same if I worked for RTE. I couldn t work for RTE. Having to deal with producers who are dictating your life? Likewise, in America. Being told how to dress, how to perform and how to meet the demands of market research about your character. Fuck that! I d rather be free. But, to go back to your question of when I despair, I despair when I m not doing my music.
His music? Yes, folks, Bergin not only practically writes a song every day but has recorded a 13 track album of these songs. I don t have the time to go to the various meetings with people who might be interested in distributing it so it s very frustrating, for me, overall, he explains.
And I often wonder if I should take a break from the day job and actually focus on the music. I ve also written a musical. And music really is something I ve loved since I was a kid. Long before I bought my first LP, which I still remember: Nina Simone s Gin House Blues. So music is of great importance to me. In fact, I loved the blues, in particular, since I was about fourteen, when I first heard Lightnin Hopkins, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, which is when I started writing songs in the same vein. Dylan was a great influence, too. And, later, I busked all around Europe, singing things like Blowin In The Wind and Honky Tonk Women. In fact, I met Jagger in LA recently and he has film ambitions so he was schmoozing, basically, and wondered who the fuck I was. As in are you any use to me? But I d heard about how mean he is, so I said I think I owe you some money, Mick. And he said what do you mean? So I told him I made an awful lot of money going around Europe singing Honky Tonk Women and I think you should look into how much buskers owe you!
Bergin admits he also sometimes despairs when he realises he has two or three projects he really wants to do and suddenly feels that time is running out. As in a return to the stage, perhaps?
Michael Colgan [artistic director of the Gate Theatre] offered me a few interesting things last year but, timing wise, they were not quite right, Patrick explains. And, in terms of really interesting stage projects, I may do them myself. And I have found that I had to do everything myself. In my whole fucking life and career. As I said, nobody has ever helped me, one bit. Some people get mentors. I ve had no fucking mentor. The only person that helped me was Pat O Connor because he saw a little half hour video and wondered why I wasn t working and encouraged an agent to meet me. That s how it all started. And I would thank my agents. But I often wonder how much work they do on my behalf. They just take their 20%, so you re lucky to get a quarter of what you earn.

When Patrick Bergin says that absolutely, When The Sky Falls is an important movie to me, he s quick to add but not in terms of my career because, as I say, I have never pursued a career. If I was pursuing a career I d be appearing in a TV series in America and be absolutely world famous. I have no ambition in that sense. But I have, as I mentioned, two or three times, done movies for the money and that was a mistake.
As in Lawnmower Man?
Yeah! says Bergin, laughing. That was more of a career move so it was a mistake. Joe Rubin once said unless a movie is going to advance your career, don t do it. That s not my way. I ve always been drawn more so to character. If that means I m playing a flesh-eating-antichrist as I just have, in a movie! so be it. In Eye Of The Beholder, I m a blind man. I ve also played a saint, an Irish cop, whatever. So look at it this way. If you re a songwriter and 10% of your songs are fucking great you re doing well. I ve done fifty movies and I d say five of them have real substance. Like, When The Sky Falls, which is a great story, on any level, and a movie of real social significance.
When The Sky Falls certainly doesn t draw back from its relentless depiction of the Dublin underworld and ain t as Bergin notes a Bord Failte film! On the contrary, he compares it to another soon-to-be-released-in-Ireland film, About Adam. The trade magazine, Variety, apparently moaned about how this movie does not represent the Ireland we, in America, know and love. This, says Patrick Bergin, is a totally healthy development.
This goes back to what I was saying earlier, he suggests. It is about time we were able to present truthful and mercilessly honest movies about ourselves. There should be more. And I ve no doubt that, as with punk music in the 70s, the digital revolution is going to radically alter film-making in Ireland so that more and more of those stories will be told. And I would say to young people, pick up a video camera and get out there and make your punk movie. No matter what people in America might prefer to see.
All of which brings us back to the Dublin underworld. During one of the most horrific scenes in When The Sky Falls, thugs beat to death a heroin addict because they d discover he s a squealer for the cops. It s an assault which had heavy echoes for Patrick Bergin.
I don t know if that scene is based on fact, he says, his eyes suddenly growing darker. But the closest I came across that kind of thing was when a friend of mine Peter Smith s son, Ben Smith was murdered with a screwdriver through the head, in Tallaght. It was in circumstances that are not a million miles from the subject matter of this movie. He was just an innocent kid sitting on a fucking wall and, as a result of that, he is dead. Fourteen year old. Brilliant. Bright as a button. Great life ahead of him. He looked like a young Bono. Or that kid on the cover of U2 s album, Boy. And we ve set up a project that will send, in his name, a kid to further education. So that experience, on an emotional level, was probably the most terrifying, horrible thing I ve known.
But, on the subject of drugs in Dublin, it is now the same as it once was with TB. Nobody gave a fuck about it until the middle classes started getting it. As long as the poor are dying, it don t matter a damn. It s ethnic cleansing. And Veronica says something similar in this movie. It doesn t matter that the kids in Rialto, Crumlin or the inner city are dying from drugs, it matters when it gets into our areas. That s why she had her wake up call, felt something had to be done, before as she also says her own son was on drugs like heroin.
What does Bergin say to those who argue that The Sunday Independent must bear at least some responsibility for her death?
Well, they are still advertising on her gravestone, he says, acerbically. The name of The Sunday Independent is on Veronica Guerin s gravestone! They obviously feel they have the right to be there.
And what of those who might feel that the movie taints Guerin s memory?
Anybody that sees this film and believes her memory is jeopardised or degraded, has an agenda, Bergin responds. Because Joan Allen s performance lends a purity to the memory of Veronica Guerin. For as long as people see this movie they will remember Veronica as a courageous, committed woman. I ve had journalists saying things that would imply She was just after the glory. So I reply to that do you think she got the glory? Nobody gets the glory. It just doesn t happen that way! If you do a great job, the glory might follow. If you go out looking for glory you ain t gonna get it.
What about the rumour that Veronica Guerin s family from her mother to her husband and child wanted nothing to do with When The Sky Falls?
I genuinely don t know if that is true, but I can imagine it being the case, Bergin responds, agreeing that yes that might also apply specifically in terms of scenes such as the re-creation of the shooting of Veronica.
But can Patrick Bergin imagine, for example, the feelings of Veronica Guerin s son, if he goes to watch that movie and has to sit through that scene? More to the point, didn t the director fuck up in the film s penultimate scene by yielding to sickly pathos as the father tells the son, Veronica has been murdered. Surely it would have been better to have just the scene of a child kissing the coffin?
I agree, and I think there are a couple of those scenes that could have been cut short, says Bergin. But there were other sentimental scenes that did end up on the cutting room floor. Because it was just too much. Even so, though that scene you mention was over-written, or over-played, you did need to highlight the fact that, essentially, apart from the glory that might come along with the job or any personal ambition Veronica Guerin was, as I say, deeply concerned with the spread of the disease of drugs into the lives of the children of Ireland. So you had to give the father and son that final moment.
But, in terms of the actual family, I would understand why they might draw back from this movie. As in, yes, the son. Yet that kid, at some point in his life, may be able to look at this movie and see there was a group of people who respected his mother enough to put an awful lot of energy into getting this movie made. Because they believed it should be made. To commemorate his mother. And a lot of people even took a cut in salary to see this movie was made. It wasn t a commercial venture. It was a group of people saying this is an important moment in history that should be captured out of respect for a great woman . And Veronica Guerin was a great woman.

A Voice Against Racism
Married to Paula, a woman of Afro-Cuban descent, it is perhaps not surprising that Patrick Bergin has strong views on the rise of racism in Ireland.
My wife is black but we have received no problems, by and large, he says. There have been one or two stupid, ignorant remarks, here in Ireland, where we live. But that s all. A few oddballs have said things that are fucking stupid. Yet sometimes racism can be so subtle that such people don t even know what they re saying.
You can t address racism without addressing the fact that Irish people are xenophobic. We d fight someone in the next street Irish or not just to protect our turf . That s just the way we are. Probably, because we were colonised for so long.
Then again, most reports on racism, from Hitler onwards, suggest that underneath it all, racists are abused children. It s not a direct cause-effect correlation but it is often argued that racists, for whatever reason, have a deep-seated hatred inside and have to find something they consider lower than themselves simply because they have been so deeply humiliated. So they ll find any category of person that is vulnerable, to attack. And maybe we should look at that more deeply, this notion that racists are actually fucked up, crippled human beings. That may take any of the sexiness out of this disgusting idea of being racist.