At a recent New York screening for his latest movie, Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington earned some headlines for some of his statements. Why? Because his statements made a surprising bit of sense — especially considering they came from a celebrity.

Speaking about mass incarceration of black males and how it relates to his new movie, “Roman J. Israel, Esq.,” Washington told a reporter for the Grio that positive change in the black community “starts in the home” — and stressed the importance of properly raising children.

“If the father is not in the home, the boy will find a father in the streets … I saw it in my generation and every generation before me, and everyone since … If the streets raise you, then the judge becomes your mother and prison becomes your home,” he said.

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When he spoke to the New York Daily News, the 62-year-old actor added to those thoughts by saying, “It starts with how you raise your children. If a young man doesn’t have a father figure, he’ll go find a father figure … So, you know, I can’t blame the system … It’s unfortunate that we make such easy work for them.”

Washington went on to describe his own experiences growing up — he was born in Mount Vernon, New York, and spent some of his youth there. He said he saw some people around him take very different paths.

“I grew up with guys who did decades [in prison], and it had as much to do with their fathers’ not being in their lives as it did with any system … By the time we got to [age] 13, 14, different things happened … Now I was doing just as much as they were, but they went further … I just didn’t get caught, but they kept going down that road and then they were in the hands of the system. But it’s about the formative years. You’re not born a criminal.”

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Washington has said in the past it was a preparatory military school he attended in New Windsor, New York, called Oakland Military Academy, that was partly responsible for the different path he took.

“That decision changed my life because I wouldn’t have survived in the direction I was going,” the actor told Parade magazine in 1999 about the move.

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Washington’s new movie, “Roman J. Israel, Esq.,” is about a criminal defense lawyer who works to address social injustice. Washington plays Roman J. Israel, a simple man at a small law firm who is content with working cases behind the scenes — and with his daily peanut butter sandwiches.

He also happens to be able to recall case law from memory — likely falling on the autism spectrum. When his law firm partner suffers and dies of a heart attack, Israel joins a much larger and more prestigious outfit, eventually forcing him to take a hard look at his changing values.

Not everyone was a fan of Washington’s blunt comments about personal responsibility. Some on Twitter lashed out — they saw his words as insensitive.

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Some left-leaning publications also went after Washington, especially after some conservative outlets praised his outspokenness about the importance of family.

“Washington is hubby to baby boomers and unc to millennials, which doesn’t give him a pass. But one must consider that he’s made it this far without being problematic — not to mention, as with most 62-year-olds, he’s just not going to be as woke as we’d like,” read an article in Ebony.

It appears it’s a thought crime today to be a celebrity and not toe the accepted liberal political line 100 percent of the time — and to say something that is praised by conservatives and right-leaning thinkers.

(photo credit: homepage image: Denzel Washington at the Press Conference of The Magnificent Seven, CC BY-SA 2.0, by GabboT; photo credit, article image: Denzel Washington and Anne Hathaway, CC BY-SA 3.0, by Harrywad)