Posted on 11/28/2006 3:53:47 PM PST by Luis Gonzalez
I’ve never been a fan of Seinfeld, and I’m not very familiar with the characters. When the show went into syndication a few years ago, I began to come across it whenever I did any channel surfing. I don’t know anything about Michael Richards, the guy who played Kramer on the show.
When I read about his onstage rant at a comedy club in Hollywood last week, I figured the guy has some serious anger management problems. Anyone who has performed in front of a live audience knows of the danger posed by hecklers; it comes with the territory.
Hence, when Mr. Richards was interrupted by a small group at a nearby table, he should have been competent enough to deal with it without engaging in racist invective. Having said that, let’s look at what it means to lose your temper and make a few stupid remarks in the ultra-sensitive country that we’ve become. Since the guy imploded onstage, the video quickly made its way onto the international airwaves, resulting in the type of condemnation that should be reserved for, say, a man who butchered 2 people and got away with it.
When OJ Simpson was acquitted by a predominantly black jury, there were scenes of black people celebrating the gross injustice all across the country. The pain on the faces of the Brown and Goldman families, as they sat in the courtroom watching the murderer being congratulated for beating the system, was heart-wrenching to all decent people. Yet, we didn’t hear from Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, or any other so-called black leaders.
Anyone with an IQ higher than a fire hydrant knew the man was the killer. Imagine if a white man had just slaughtered 2 black people and left that much evidence behind. If a white jury acquitted him, there’d be rioting from coast to coast. Recently, when the obnoxious monster tried to thumb his nose at the public again with his “If I did it” obscenity, where was the denunciation from the black community?
Why didn’t we see Mr. Sharpton on the David Letterman Show castigating those responsible for foisting that pathological display of arrogance on our nation? Are a few forbidden words by a disgruntled, has-been comic worse than a tantalizing tongue-in-cheek “confession” from a murderer who cheated justice? To say our priorities are distorted is a gross understatement.
When someone like Mr. Richards makes a bunch of stupid comments he’s immediately crucified and no one seems to have the courage to point out that it was merely some angry words from an emotionally disturbed man, it wasn’t homicide.
How many people know that the blacks at that table were referring to Richards as a “white cracker”?
Evidently, it’s okay to be pejorative toward whites if you’re black. In fact, it’s acceptable for blacks to use scurrilous language toward other blacks, as is often heard in the lyrics of rap music. Moreover, blacks can use similarly disparaging words toward other ethnic groups and refer to women in the vilest type of street language imaginable.
The question is: do blacks have some special privileges granted to them by the Constitutional description of freedom of speech?
Whites and blacks have fought, and often died, in the struggle for equality. However, it appears that what we have arrived at is a disproportionate equality that gives blacks the exclusive right to be offended by non-blacks. When Eddie Murphy or Chris Rock make racist comments about whites during their standup routines, there’s no hue and cry from the white community. But, let a white comic take similar jabs at blacks and you’d have an earthquake that would shatter the Richter Scale.
Undoubtedly, there are those reading this who will accuse me of racism, but that too, comes with the territory. Someone must point out these things to a public that has become robotically trained to go into knee-jerk mode every time some white fool blows his cool. This marvelous, melting-pot experiment in democracy will never work until we rid ourselves of this one-sided view of race relations. If certain words and phrases are to be prohibited from use by one segment of society, they must be prohibited from use by all. Otherwise, the countless number of lives lost, both black and white, to obtain “equality for all,” has resulted in a most bizarre and incongruous definition of the phrase.
I really can't decide if he's a bigot, or if he just used what he thought was the worst thing he could say to them because he was very angry. I don't really care, I suspect I wouldn't enjoy his comedy anyway. However, it's time for the US to grow up and stop encouraging grown men to cry because someone called them a name.
susie
It looks like it was the wrong week for Michael Richards to stop sniffing glue. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I think he did.
Seinfeld had most of an entire show devoted to how to handle hecklers correctly. Richards has neither the talent or intelligence to do it right, IMO.
I think the hecklers were right, in that Richards is probably a one-trick pony.
No, they do not. What they do have in America is a society that treats them with the subtle racism of low expectations. Chris Rock says the N-word. Why, that's just him being a funny black dude.
Players riot in a college football game. No problem, says Donna Shala, that's just what young black men do.
Until this subtle racism, which is practiced far more by the liberal elite among us than not, is ended, black americans will appear to have been granted "special rights". Man does not grant rights. God does.
He was WAY out of line but I've heard equally offensive (to me) words and descriptions in reference to our President, and no one seemed to mind him being called some of the worst names out there in public by very famous politicians, reporters, Hollywood stars etc. The double standard yet again.
He said that???? He should have been fired. A white man saying that would have been canned on the spot.
You may be right.
However, I fail to see where being a racist (or holding/speaking any other view) entitles anyone (i.e., the "victim") to a pile of cash.
When Gloria Allred shows up you know the circus is fully in town.
You just echoed my #11
Exactly what I said.
In the video linked to in my response #21, Patrice O'Neil TRIES to make some great points, but he's shut down.
He sure did sound like a racist, huh? Is he?
Do his words make him one -- or do his actions? I guess according to you, one outburst on stage makes him a bona-fide racist. Interesting.
Well said.
Didn't Rush get canned from ESPN and villified in the media for comments much less offensive than Irvin's?
I spent Thanksgiving with a family of people who could rightly be called 'African-Americans', although they'd prefer 'Americans'. Their children, born here in the U.S., are, you could say, black 'Americans'. Neither the parents nor the children speak 'jive', nor do they want to have anything to do with the dominant black culture in this country. I suppose some of the posters here would call these people 'racist', whatever that means, or 'bigots', whatever that means. That's how it all becomes a Theater of the Absurd, and you are willing players in it. It's the culture, and only the culture!
And 'racism' was some scientific discipline that studied racial differences. I'm reading Conan Doyle now, and in it a Dr Mortimer is asked about the differences between the skulls of people of different races. (Sherlock Holmes should be banned, I suppose.) Cultural ethnocentrism is not 'racism, and it is present in every society. So sorry.
So enough of this racial obsession.
I find it amusing that Michael Richards is being crucified for using a word to describe a black person that black people freely use to describe themselves.
Richards is busily hammering nails through his own hands and feet.
Are they originally from the Caribbean?
Well said
I am of the belief that the dreaded "N" word is used by whites and blacks, not to describe race, but to describe a set of behaviors. In the black world, it is construed as used by other blacks as a positive. In the white world, it's a negative. When a white uses it to describe negative behavior to a black, the crap hits the fan.
IIRC There was a pretty good book/thesis done by a black man that "racial discrimination" has actually passed-that people form "racist" attitudes based on behavior-I think it has merit-too bad the black "leaders: don't see it the same way
There are well behaved people of all races, and people that deserve words that describe negative behavior. Unfortunately, things have progressed to where you can't call negative behavior for what it is.
americans=Americans
I heard the interview with Aldred and the "victim" on Hannity's show this afternoon. The "victim" was bellyaching that he felt threatened and feared for his safety and as a result of Richard's rant, has suffered emotional distress. Hannity tried to pin them down with how much $$ they wanted but they just kept saying it would be up to the "retired judge who sat in on the personal apology" they've requested.
I still want to know what the hecklers said to set this thing off. BTW the "victim" admitted to being the one that called Richards a blankety blank cracker on the video.
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