Samuel L. Jackson wished San Bernardino jihadist killers were white

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Samuel L. Jackson challenges interviewer: Say the N-word

Flustered Jake Hamilton balks at proposal (warning: graphic language)

Samuel L. Jackson gave an interview with the Hollywood Reporter in which he said on hearing about the December murders in San Bernardino, he had wished the killers were white and not Muslim.

“When that thing happened in France, we were sitting there going, 'Oh, my God, these terrorists!' And I can't even tell you how much that day the thing that happened in San Bernardino — I was in Hawaii — how much I really wanted that to just be another, you know, crazy white dude, and not really some Muslims, because it's like: 'Oh, s**t. It's here. And it's here in another kind of way,'” Jackson said. “Now, okay, it happened on an Army base and it happened somewhere else. But now? It's like they have a legitimate reason now to look at your Muslim neighbor, friend, whatever in another way. And they become the new young black men."

In the wide-ranging interview, covering everything from his career to world affairs, the “Hateful Eight” star elaborated that for years Americans had "been kind of shielded from what the rest of the world's been dealing with. I remember the first time I left the country — in 1980 I went to London — I knew a little bit about the Irish and the English and what was happening, and then something blew up around the corner from where I was, and I was kind of like, 'Woah, what was that?' And they say, 'Oh, Irish terrorists.' It was the first time I'd heard the word 'terrorists.' 'Oh, what do you mean?' And then I started seeing signs in the tube — 'Don't pick up untended packages.' That was the first, 'If you see something, say something.' So I started thinking about it."

Jackson said terrorism became America’s problem when “Bush and those guys put us in that fight. And as soon as we drew blood in that war, we became part of something that's been going on for thousands of years. It's like, 'Well, you killed my cousin Akhbar,' duh-duh-duh, and it's like, 'Oh, s**t.' So we'll never be out of it now because people hold on to grudges in that kind of way — we're the Hatfields and the McCoys in the world. So that's happened."

Jackson also weighed in on the 2016 presidential campaign, distancing himself from his sometime golf partner Donald Trump, but also trashing Trump’s competitors for the GOP nomination. “There are some other people that aren't as open about what he's saying that are running also, you know, that are just as crazy, that have just as much ill-will toward the common man — and not just the common black man. People who don't have a certain amount of money don't mean anything to them."

Jackson said he’ll be voting for Hillary Clinton. "I'm forever a Democrat, you know, and I'm gonna vote for Hillary. 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?”