Ya’ll know the actor Mark Wahlberg, voted sexiest actor by Glamour Magazine twice in a row, you know the fine one that is the leading actor in the movie, The Gambler, thats out right now? And how can we forget when he played along side the gorgeous Denzel Washington in 2 Guns!? Well it turns out that that sexy Mark Wahlberg has a very colored past which includes racism and violence and some people still aren’t over what he did to them.
If you have been keeping up with the news lately you would know that Mark Wahlberg is seeking to be pardoned by the state of Massachusetts for a 1988 crime he did as a teen.
On April 8, 1988, Wahlberg reportedly assaulted two Vietnamese men while trying to steal alcohol and in an attempt to avoid the police. He was arrested and charged with two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, marijuana possession and criminal contempt for violating a civil rights injunction. He was sentenced to two months in prison but only served 45 days. He also suffered from alcohol and drug abuse at the time.
You would think that the Mark Wahlberg today is not the same person. In December, the now 43- year-old actor and Calvin Klein model told the Associated Press,
“I am deeply sorry for the actions that I took on the night of April 8, 1988, as well as for any lasting damage I may have caused the victims,” he writes in the petition. “Since that time, I have dedicated myself to becoming a better person and citizen so that I can be a role model to my children and others.”
Well one of his victims thinks otherwise and is now speaking out against him. Kristyn Atwood, recalls being on a fourth-grade field trip in 1986, when Wahlberg and his friends started throwing rocks at them and shouting racial slurs like “kill the ni***” and chasing them down the street.
“I don’t think he should get a pardon,” 38- year-old Atwood told The Associated Press who also says she still bares a scar from the attack. “I don’t really care who he is. It doesn’t make him any exception. If you’re a racist, you’re alwaysI don’t think he should get a pardon. I don’t really care who he is. It doesn’t make him any exception. If you’re a racist, you’re always going to be a racist. And for him to want to erase it I just think it’s wrong.”
However another person who was involved in the attack sees the situation in a different light. Mary Belmonte, who was the teacher who brought the 8 and 10-year-olds on the trip says, “I believe in forgiveness. He was just a young kid — a punk — in the mean streets of Boston. He didn’t do it specifically because he was a bad kid. He was just a follower doing what the other kids were doing.”
Wahlberg and his friends were only cited with a civil rights injunction (a warning basically to stop doing hate crimes or possibly face jail time) for the incident which he lately violated in his 1988 crime. Belmonte doesn’t dispute the fact that the crime did leave her a bit shaken up and scared when it happened but seems to have since gotten over it.
Its hard to look at this man as an alcohol and drug abuser who was a racist! But then again Boston back in the day did suffer segregation and I am a firm believer that racism is taught at home and unfortunately at the time thats probably all Mark really knew. I believe everyone has a past and as long as you can accept it as a mistake and learn from it you should also be forgiven. But let’s chat below do you think he should receive a pardon at all?
SOURCES SITED: TheDailyNews.com, TheJasmineBrand.com
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