"Kramer's" Racist Tirade -- Caught on Tape

TMZ ^ | 11/20/06 | TMZ Staff

[torchthemummy]

Michael Richards exploded in anger as he performed at a famous L.A. comedy club last Friday, hurling racial epithets that left the crowd gasping, and TMZ has obtained exclusive video of the ugly incident.

[spectre]

Good thing he is a multi-millionaire...bump!

[ReignOfError]

Isn't this the kind of routine we are SUPPOSED to lionize Lenny Bruce for?

No. Lenny Bruce used, in a calm tone, racial and ethnic slurs offensive to several different group of people. He did not single out any one person and call him a name. He then explained why, in his view, people should stop being offended by such words, because taking offense just empowers the people who use them.

Lenny Bruce, like Richard Pryor and George Carlin, used shock value to get an audience's attention, and then to make a point. Richards' rant was not a comedy routine, and he had no point to make. It was just bile.

You can't really get a feel for it without watching the video, especially the audience reaction. Near the beginning, there's a smattering of nervous laughter; well before the end, he's lost the whole audience.

[jonesboheim]

Kramer was stupid. That other guy was a racist @sshole.

And Kramer wasn't a racist a-hole? I have been to a lot of comedy clubs and I have never seen a performer talk to an audience in such a manner -- with racial slurs for the sake of racial slurs. No punch-line. No tongue-in-cheek. No Kramer pratfall. Just good ole civil rights-era racial epithets.

Who still talks like this? Racists. Comedy is subjective, but this was not comedy. This was not intended to be comedy. This cannot even be excused as a typical comedian's response to a heckler. A typical comedian's response to a heckler is, "Hey, do I come to where you work and mess with the French fry machine?" A typical comedian response to a heckler is not yelling racial slurs and then saying, "Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a **** fork stuck up your ****"

[JDoutrider]

Bump for later...

[GourmetDan]

What it means is that white people should not say 'nigger' because it hurts black people's feelings.

Blacks assign more power to the opinions and words of whites than they do to their own people's opinions and words.

We should not abuse that power.

[GourmetDan]

". And if the environment that produces racism doesn't exist, then a person will not be racist."

Yeah, but the environment is internal to the black culture, not the white culture. Blacks teach each other to value the opinions of whites more than their own culture from birth.

That's why whites can't say the same things that blacks say. They believe it as the truth when a white man says it.

[jonesboheim]

Excellent point. The main difference was that Lenny Bruce was intellegent and funny while Kramer is an unfunny racist a-hole, the type of person Bruce was making fun of. His tirade was ridiculous and stupid and it shows how asinine and unfunny this idiot is. He obviously doesn't have the brains or the composure of a good comic as evidenced by how he completely lost control of his audience. If he was really good, he could have even dropped a few creative n-bombs, defused the situation, gotten a nice laugh from the crowd, and moved on. It wouldn't have made the news, and no one would even have heard about it. But instead he looked like an unfunny racist jackass. If I were there I would have asked for my money back - not because he's a racist d***head, but because he's not friggin funny!!!

[Steamburg]

Kind of like what Senator Big Byrd said about the subject. Except he has life time immunity.

[SamAdams76]

Well I must come here and establish my credentials as an enlightened person. Naturally I could never indulge in such crass humor because, you know, some of my best friends are...

[oceanview]

yes, I figure this will cost him 3-5 million.

[Mr. Brightside]

After eating a black and white cookie (peace!)...
Jerry: My stomach doesn't feels so good. It's like Louis Farrakhan and David Duke down there.

lol! I was just looking for that quote. Beat me to it.

[Defiant]

The kavorka?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[TheInvisibleMan]

'That's why whites can't say the same things that blacks say. They believe it as the truth when a white man says it.'

No!
Truth is...a relatively short time ago a black person could have ACTUALLY been lynched with no consequences. Takes a while for those wounds to heel. This is what part of this comedy 'act' referred to.

[trisham]

The main difference was that Lenny Bruce was intellegent and funny

**************

Lenny Bruce was a perverted drug addict. If you're going to claim he's intelligent, at least spell it correctly.

[L.N. Smithee]

Is it the K-Man or the KKK-Man?

[JCEccles]

Sad development.

I'm going to watch Seinfeld tonight and laugh at Kramer as he was, one of the greatest comic characters ever brought to life on the television screen.

[RetiredArmy]

I am unsure if you are being sarcastic or not, however, if you are, then I really could care less what you think. Because I do not find that program to particular funny and do not have any desire to watch it does not make me stupid. In fact, because I refuse to be led, trained, and don't give a rats ass about hollyweird people, doesn't make me unAmerican or something.

[Revolting cat!]

at Indian casinos.

Hush, you "RACIST!" You can't say 'Indian' any more (just axe the holy Defiant here), unless you are referring to

... in which case, I sincerely apologize. Don Rickles in Bollywood? I gotta see that!

[RetiredArmy]

Wrong. John Wayne was a conservative and DID NOT bash the military or the USA as the puke Clooney has.

[JCEccles]

The main difference was that Lenny Bruce was intellegent and funny

To each his own. To my mind Lenny Bruce's material was sick, crude, and beyond pointless. It was pure dreck, like Alan Ginsburg's poetry.