***UPDATE: Most embarrassing grammatical error in the history of Big Hollywood has been fixed.
First off, though Kilmer claims he was misquoted, what he is accused of saying doesn’t even mention race. Second, in America, even the most vicious and divisive of racists are allowed to develop their own property. Have you seen Al Sharpton’s home?
Aggrieved by a planning board’s decision permitting Kilmer to rent out guesthouses on his 5,300-acre ranch, the neighbors charged that he had denied locals access to fishing holes in the nearby Pecos River and made ethnically insulting comments in magazine interviews.
The San Miguel County Commission responded by tabling Kilmer’s application until he comes forward to explain his comments. It has scheduled a June 23 public meeting for that purpose, which Kilmer is expected to attend.
That, in turn, has drawn fire from the New Mexico chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has offered to represent Kilmer, saying the commission violated his 1st Amendment rights.
Calls and e-mails to Kilmer were not returned, but he recently told the Albuquerque Journal that he had tried to be a good neighbor, helping local schools and supporting wildlife preservation on his ranch.
“It’s very upsetting for my friends,” he told the newspaper. “I’m not worried at all about the reaction because I just see it as an opportunity to bring people together. No one would make a false statement like this statement of racism if they knew what we were doing.” …
But Abran Tapia, a 76-year-old Rowe native and civil rights activist, sees a darker side. According to Tapia, Kilmer has chased off people who walked through his property to fish in the Pecos. Tapia, who fished and swam in the river as a child, accuses Kilmer of creating a segregated lodge to keep Latinos out.
Tapia counts himself among a sizable number of local residents offended by comments Kilmer allegedly made in a 2003 Rolling Stone interview.
That story quoted Kilmer as saying he lives “in the homicide capital of the Southwest” and keeps a gun in his vehicle. According to the magazine, Kilmer added, “Eighty percent of the people in my county are drunk.”
The actor says he was misquoted.
We should all thank the ACLU for once again proving the stopped-clock theory correct…
Methinks this Abran Tapia has all the makings of a race hustler who smells a shakedown courtesy of a wealthy movie star.
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