Isaiah Ponies Up for Oppression
GLAAD might have its issues with Isaiah Washington, but the Grey's Anatomy star is doing his best to make the NAACP proud.
Fresh off his Image Award win, the actor has made a $25,000 donation to a West African computer-animation project that will attempt to bring to pixilated life the plight of Sierra Leone natives at the height of the 18th-century slave trade.
Washington made the donation through the Gondobay Manga Foundation, a nonprofit he created last year to benefit the impoverished people of Sierra Leone, the country to which he recently traced back his ancestry.
The project will be set around Bunce Island, a castle that served as a hub for the African slave trade, and will attempt to re-create the living situations and atmosphere of the island as it was in 1805, as well as re-create the experience of being imprisoned by traders.
Washington's donation will help the project's masterminds, James Madison University professors Joseph Opala and Gary Chatelain, create an educational CD, which they will then be able to distribute to students nationwide.
"The stories of innumerable Sierra Leoneans that were forced into slavery have yet to be extensively told," the actor said. "I believe this project will begin to shed some much-needed light on the region, both past and present."
"Our computer animation project will allow us to go beyond the imagination, and actually see how the Atlantic slave trade was carried out," Opala added in a statement.
Washington's donation to the project could be deemed even more generous in light of his salary situation at Grey's Anatomy.
While the star has not been docked pay for uttering the homophobic slur heard round the world, he certainly has not been rewarded. He was not among the group of castmembers who received major raises this month as thanks for a time slot well done.
Several fellow castmates, notably Katherine Heigl, are still undergoing contract negotiations.
Washington, like all castmembers, is contracted to remain on the show through the series' sixth season—and for the time being, it's likely he'll do so at his current pay scale.
The actor, who has changed PR firms and completed a stint in rehab following his post-Golden Globes faux pas, was named Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series at the NAACP Image Awards earlier this month.
At that awards show, quite unlike the last one, he kept his mouth shut.
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