Here's a fun fact about mega movie star Mark Wahlberg: he was once arrested and convicted for beating the shit out of an Asian man, while calling him racial slurs, in a vicious attack that left the victim blind in one eye. Now, the actor/producer is requesting to have the assault conviction officially removed from his record.
Mark Wahlberg applies to have 1988 assault erased
Back in 1988, long before he was an Oscar-nominated actor, or battling Transformers, or even the rapper known as Marky Mark (YouTube it, kids), Wahlberg was a 16-year-old asshole who tried to steal two cases of beer from a Vietnamese American man, Thanh Lam, outside a convenience store in Dorchester. Wahlberg called Lam racial slurs and hit him over the head with a 5-foot wooden stick, knocking him unconscious.
Later than night, Wahlberg approached another Asian man on the street, Hoa Trinh, and punched him in the eye. He called him, among other things, "gook" and "slant eye." Trinh lost sight in his right eye.
Wahlberg was arrested and convicted of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and possession of a controlled substance, and served 45 days of a 90-day sentence. To this day, he maintains that race did not motivate the attack. And now he has formally applied to the Massachusetts Board of Pardons to erase that ugly, inconvenient little hate crime from his past.
"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," Wahlberg states in the application filed with the Board of Pardons.
Wahlberg also mentions the work of his charity, the Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation, and his support of the Dorchester Boys and Girls Club and his habit of attending church almost every day.
"I have not engaged in philanthropic efforts in order to make people forget about my past," he states. "To the contrary, I want people to remember my past so that I can serve as an example of how lives can be turned around and how people can be redeemed."
According to Wahlberg's pardon application, he wants other troubled youth to "see this as an inspiration and motivation that they too can turn their lives around." So how does receiving a pardon achieve this?
Wahlberg has clearly turned his life around a hundred times over. How about owning up to your past, claiming your mistakes and living with the consequences? And then make good on your supposed redemption. You don't get to erase the ugly shit you used to do because you're friggin' famous.
More here: Mark Wahlberg should not be pardoned