Michael Richards goes on beserk racist rant during nightclub act.

The BBQ Pit
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[QUOTE=Wee Bairn]
My question is this: No hypotheticals: I am great friends with a white person who has adopted a two year old black girl who he would literally die for, and has two or three black friends who he would do the same for. Yet, due to crime in his area that is mainly perpatrated by blacks, and due to personal problems he has had with some blacks, he really doesn’t like blacks in general. Is he a racist?
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Hmmm… There are certainly thoughts that spring immediately to mind, but I’d like to mull this one over before I give my definitive opinion. For the time being, though, I’d be interested in hearing what others have to say about it. Hell, Wee Bairn, I’d be interested in hearing what **you ** think about it.

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LP, I perosnally do not see this is wrong. This is my best pal, and I know for a fact the ill will he harbors towards some of the blacks in his neighborhood is specifically based on specific personal negative experiences with blacks. If you don’t dislike a person of another race because of their race, but because of their actions toward you, is that racist? If I develop a tendency to not like Chinese because I have been beaten up for no reason by Chinese people on many different occasions, is that racism? If my pal lived in a well to do black neighborhood without the crime and other problems in his area, I am positive his current attitude would have never been formed. So in other words, what if *the actions of a race * cause you to be racist whereas without those actions, you wouldn’t be racist? Then it is understandable, or is it never justified to think negatively of (lamost) all for the actions of some?

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Ok so then you do accept the possibility, I feel we don’t have enough information on Richards to establish him definitely either as a racist or not. And then as others have said maybe sometimes it itsn’t as simple as one or the other, there could be degrees of racism. So maybe it isn’t as simple as all that.

You know I’m sure it is a great possibility that they did think that word and it follows that most racists probably will think in those terms, but it doesn’t follow that in a one time incident someone who thinks or uses those words is a racist.

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[QUOTE=ambushed]
Just as I find your implied 11’th Commandment that racism must be a non-conscious phenomenon amusing. :smack: “unimplied qualifier” indeed!
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Yeah, you need to smack yourself on the head. Please do it a few more times. Never have I said that racism must be anything, unconscious or conscious. I’m not even going waste my time asking you to find a post with me saying that foolishness.

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Ok I think your painting with way too broad a brush here. Yes the country has a racist past and present and probably future, but to act as though every white person is actively and willingly indoctrinated into this type of behavior and that it is also expected of all white people as white citizens to be racist is simply bullshit.

So all these young white kids that espouse equality and point out the egregious nature of racism in America and elsewhere are just paying lipservice? Saying what will make them look good to everyone on the outside but inside everyone knows they’re all just closet racists waiting till they go out in the world so they can be the racists they truly are? That’s a pretty fucked up view of society man and while there is definite truth to it, to blatantly basically say that thats how it functions for everyone is a dishonesty.

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[QUOTE=monstro]
I agree. I wasn’t a huge Seinfield fan, and part of the reason was Kramer. My grandmother once summed it up perfectly: “He’s too nerdy to be real”. I could buy Jerry, Elaine, and even Castanza. But Kramer was always a One-Note-Johnny to me.
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The whole show was a one-note-Johnny, to me. I once overheard a good friend and respected colleague of mine say something to the effect that “Seinfeld” was some kind of revolution in TV comedy. Yeah, right. It was the same shit as every other sitcom. And his monologs were pretentious and annoying and dull.

I don’t know why they take some run-of-the-mill stand-up comedian and name a show after him/her. It’s like putting all your eggs in one basket that has a hole in it.

Stand-up comedy is a dead art form, if it ever was alive in the first place. The saddest thing of all is that people pay good money to enter a place like the Laugh Factory. And why do they laugh? Well, because the guy is on the stage. With the mic. He has to be funny, right?

Wrong. This clip just underscores how stupid stand-up is.

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I find it funny people are debating whether his career is over or not. Imdb confirms he has not has a TV or movie credit since 2000. His career has been over for some time now. If anything, this will get him slots on interview and talk shows that wouldn’t have had him on before.

I also find his comments on Letterman about (sic) “We need to ge with people and find out where this hatred in people comes from” implying that racism in people is formed collectively, against their will? Funny! Watching him squirm was actually funnier than watch Mel Gibson squirm. And you know Mel Gibson is tickled shitless that this happened, to take some of the attention off of him. This shows how out of touch with reality most famous people are, that a guy who has been doing nothing for six years thinks he has a career to “save”!

Does anyone think a point that was made in an IMDB post is valid, that if it is was determined that QT’s character in Pulp Fiction was created by QT simply to vent his hatred of blacks with impugnity, and not with any artistic intent in mind, that that is similar to this incident?

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[QUOTE=ambushed]
No one is defending Richards, and how you have kept from realizing that by now is beyond me.
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Plenty of people are defending Richards. The most obvious cases are not present on this board, but there is a tone to some of these posts that reveals a puzzling and sometimes aggravating reluctance to just call a duck a duck. When this reluctance is expressed in the form of “Richards was just being mean and hateful, but not racist”, that comes across as something an apologist would say. It is a defense. It’s a defense against the idea that Cosmo Kramer could be anything except an angry guy who blew a gasket one day. The thing is, I know plenty of angry people. And I can’t imagine them saying anything like that.

It’s disingenous shit like this that makes me consider you a Richards apologist, as you completely glossed over the most offensive parts of his speech and focused on the name-calling part.

Of course it is, you dumbass. Look at the thread title. That’s who I was talking about when I was making my disease analogy. If you want to talk about someone else, make a thread about them and do so.

Everything that I’m saying refers to Richards, sweet child o’ mine. So when you express disagreement with me like you have, and in the weak manner that you have done so, I have no reason to believe that you aren’t defending Richards. You’re bending over backgrounds to convince us why it’s wrong to call the man racist when that is exactly how he’s presented himself to be.

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I have seen many people defend his by saying there is a double standard that no one seems to have a problem with the black guy calling him a cracker ass mother fucker. I understand the point that at no time have whites been treated as blacks were, but also see that a 26-year old black man (born in 1980) has no personal experience with lynchings, either. I can see not making a Hitler joke to a group of Holocaust suriviors, but making it to a group of young hip Jewsih teens from Astoria? Would they even care?

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[QUOTE=guizot]
Stand-up comedy is a dead art form, if it ever was alive in the first place. The saddest thing of all is that people pay good money to enter a place like the Laugh Factory. And why do they laugh? Well, because the guy is on the stage. With the mic. He has to be funny, right?

Wrong. This clip just underscores how stupid stand-up is.
[/QUOTE]
How does the fact that one comedian is a racist asshole do that, exactly? It seems a bit bizarre to be attacking the medium in this way; you realise there are racist musicians, racist sportsmen, racist everything, right?

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[QUOTE=Wee Bairn]
I can see not making a Hitler joke to a group of Holocaust suriviors, but making it to a group of young hip Jewsih teens from Astoria? Would they even care?
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yes, I believe they would

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Don’t be so sure. When I was in high school I had two friends, one of whom was Jewish. One day the Jewish one was holding his history text opened at a page with a picture of Holocaust victims. The other friend said hey “john smith” is that your Uncle right there, pointing to one of the victims. Not only did Jewish friend not get upset but he actually laughed. Granted, they had been friends for years, and his laughter could have been a front, but seeing it myself I don’t think it was. It doesn’t make the joke appropriate, but I’m just saying not all people are sensitive to those kinds of things.

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[QUOTE=pool]
Granted, they had been friends for years,
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that, I think,makes it a different situation than the one I responded to.

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[QUOTE=Li’l Pluck]

I don’t know **you with the face ** (though I **totally ** dig her posts), so I won’t pretend that I can speak for her. My take, though, is that her earlier use of the word “apologia” wasn’t an indication that she felt that *everyone * with a view contrasting her own was apologizing for Richards.
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Psssst. That was monstro who said the “apologia” thing, not me. But it’s funny you got us mixed up. monstro and I are twin sisters in real life.

But you’re right about where I’m coming from. When people do fucked up things, they need to be called on it. Imagine if we were talking about a physical attack instead of a verbal one. What if Richards–instead of hurling invectives at an audience member–had beaten the guy up and had broken his nose into two pieces. I’d expect everyone to say stuff like this…

“Wow, what an asshole jerk.”

“He’s got major issues and needs help.”

“WTF? I never knew Richards was like this. That was fucking ridiculous what he did. What a violent thug.”

…and so and so forth.

What I wouldn’t expect is people to say stuff like this:

“Wow, what an asshole jerk. I think he was just trying to scare the guy, though. I don’t think he meant to break his nose.”

“He’s got major issues and needs help. That said, I don’t think he’s a violent person.”

“Richards was wrong, but it was just one incident that we know of. We don’t have enough evidence to say that he is violent. Harm could come out of calling him violent if he’s really not. So I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

On the surface, these comments aren’t explicit defenses. But they come across that way, with the “thoughs” and “buts”. I probably wouldn’t be so sensitive to this if we weren’t talking about racism, but unfortunately I see it frequently and it bothers me each time. Probably because it seems we are encouraged to give the benefit of the doubt only when we’re talking about racism. When its anything else, people don’t hold back on their judgements as much.

We’re never going to resolve racism in this country if one segment of the population refuses to acknowledge racist behavior even when it is at its most overt. Racism today rarely presents itself like Richards’ “performance”, so if someone who behaves like Richards is given the benefit of the doubt, everyone and every institution who falls below him on the overtness scale is also given the benefit of the doubt, too. Which means that anyone who wants to talk about racism and its impact will be ignored, because there’s never enough “proof” for some people.

That is a *big * problem to me.

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[QUOTE=Wee Bairn]
I can see not making a Hitler joke to a group of Holocaust suriviors, but making it to a group of young hip Jewsih teens from Astoria? Would they even care?
[/QUOTE]

Try making a joke like that to some of our Jewish Dopers, whom I’m guessing weren’t survivors either. I’m sure they’d care, at least some of them. Of course, it depends on who is being made fun of. Hitler? Or the 11 million some-odd people he killed?

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[QUOTE=Dead Badger]
How does the fact that one comedian is a racist asshole do that, exactly? It seems a bit bizarre to be attacking the medium in this way; you realise there are racist musicians, racist sportsmen, racist everything, right?
[/QUOTE]
Because the word “underscore” does not mean the same thing as “prove.” It means to provide an additional example.

Let me try to clarify my opinion. There’s a guy on a stage–though he really shouldn’t be–with a lot of people expecting him to entertain them. He’s failing. Some guy in the audience heckles him (which is part of the tradition, if the comedian is failing). The heckler is black. Instead of saying, “Okay, you’re right. Good night, folks, my assistant will follow up,” he gets desparate, and thinks, “I’m not just Michael Richards, I’m KRAMER. I am intrnisically entertaining. Whatever I say has to be funny. Now let’s see…what do stand-up comedians do to be funny…oh, yeah, they say shocking things and make racial jokes.” Except that he’s racist. So instead of making racial jokes he makes racist remarks, thinking that because he’s KRAMER, it’s okay, because it’s “part of the tradition,” or something to that effect.

Does that help? Gibson was drunk. Richards was caught up in a stupid tradition. They both are racists–it just came out differently.

But you’re right that it was a slight highjack.

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[QUOTE=Wee Bairn]
I can see not making a Hitler joke to a group of Holocaust suriviors, but making it to a group of young hip Jewsih teens from Astoria? Would they even care?
[/QUOTE]

Yes. They would. A lot. I’m only 44, I didn’t live in Germany during WWII but my Dad did. A group of teens at this point is not far removed from the stories told at family gatherings, shared by the grandparents and greats, and parents themselves.

It isn’t just a matter of time, it’s a matter of taste, and audience threshold. That’s being glossed over too, here, it seems to me. How so?

Richard Pryor released an LP called Bicentennial Nigger. ( release date: 1/01/1976. Warner Brothers Records. UPC: 075992733748 ). Did all of his audience walk out after he released this album, every time he used that word? He did not. He did, in fact, perform a routine at some point before he was injured, a routine that wound up in one of his two hugely successful concert films that went into wide release where he spoke at great length about a trip to Africa. He said he wa surrounded by thousands and thousands of black men and women and children and not a nigger amongst them. ( I’m paraphrasing but the routine says this, not word for word but darned close. I can’t FIND the routine word for word, which is weird. ).

Point being, teenageres or oldsters, if you have been raised in an environment where certain words and ideas are flashwords and elicit a strong response, then you have.

It is also an axiom of modern life that Jackie Mason can crack jokes at the expense of Jewish stereotypes and others cannot. Richard Pryor can title his album as he did. Gangsta rappers can use the word " niggah " as a term of endearment without vilification by their peers.

About 7 years ago, I was in Miami on Star Island. I shot the MTV Cribs Star Island House Party with Ja Rule. All of the footage that is at the house, of the crowds and of Ja Rule and the others is my footage. There is some more jiggly hand-held that is not mine.

I was setting up when Ja Rule got out of his limo with his posse. He saw me in the driveway, near the fountain, getting ready. I’d shot a Cribs with him already and he recognized me and in his stoned state, walked towards me and yelled out, " Hey Niggah, how you been ?? ". I was alone, so know his comment was aimed at me, the very white cameraman. I just cracked up and returned his hug. His posse was…uh…slackjawed with surprise. Why was Ja hugging me? Why was he addressing me as such?

I was amused, and shocked that he chose to use that with me, but it was his way of saying he was okay with me. Strange, but true.

I used to live in Astoria. Find me a group of young hip or not hip Jewish teenagers in Astoria. I think you’ll have a rough time with that, but I might be wrong.

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[QUOTE=pool]
Ok I think your painting with way too broad a brush here. Yes the country has a racist past and present and probably future, but to act as though every white person is actively and willingly indoctrinated into this type of behavior and that it is also expected of all white people as white citizens to be racist is simply bullshit.
[/QUOTE]
But indoctrination of bigotry doesn’t have to be active and willingly absorbed to take effect, though. Back to my own experience: No one in my family or our immediate circle of acquaintance, that I can remember, was overtly racist – or sexist or homophobic or anti-Semitic, for that matter. I wasn’t exposed to spittle-flecked tirades, I wasn’t straight-out told “Those people are such-and-such.” Occasional offhanded little side comments? Yeh, that happened, but no direct teaching of discrimination. And yet there’s a collection of derogatory stereotypes lodged within me that were somehow inculcated by the milieu in which I grew up.

Hell, my grand-uncle was a Catholic monsignor and my grand-aunt was a nun (grampa left the Church to marry a Protestant, oh, the horror!) and by the time I’d arrived relations between the faithful and the apostate branches of the family were cordial – yet if I rummage around in the darker corners of my soul I can find a set of anti-Catholic stereotypes too.

My point, such as it is, being: Prejudice is so inextricably intertwined throughout our society that it’s damn near impossible, I believe, to be wholly untainted by it. The question is not whether one has such thoughts, ever; it’s what one does to confront and overcome the poisons within that matters.

Oh, and Li’l Puck: Thanks. :o It was damn hard to hit “Submit” for that post.

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[QUOTE=pool]
Ok I think your painting with way too broad a brush here. Yes the country has a racist past and present and probably future, but to act as though every white person is actively and willingly indoctrinated into this type of behavior and that it is also expected of all white people as white citizens to be racist is simply bullshit.

So all these young white kids that espouse equality and point out the egregious nature of racism in America and elsewhere are just paying lipservice? Saying what will make them look good to everyone on the outside but inside everyone knows they’re all just closet racists waiting till they go out in the world so they can be the racists they truly are? That’s a pretty fucked up view of society man and while there is definite truth to it, to blatantly basically say that thats how it functions for everyone is a dishonesty.
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Granted, I didn’t say it in the post you quoted, but I did say somewhere else upthread that people in American society (or any society, for that matter, I’d think) absorb, without volition, and, often, without their own knowledge, society’s prejudices. I hope that clears up your misunderstanding, but if it doesn’t, you can just read EddyTeddyFreddy’s rather dead-on post. (Thanks, BTW, EddyTeddyFreddy.)

And WRT to the young white kids that you mention: It is quite possible–nay, it most certainly happens (from the point of view of my observations, readings, and conversations that I’ve had with **honest ** white people)–that this is true. What I mean is that there are (a) people who are aware that they harbor racist views, and are unrepentent about harboring such views, who know what they can and cannot say if the objective is to avoid societal sanction/hold onto their jobs/whatever; and (b) people–again, **honest ** people–who can/do indeed decry racism while understanding that they themselves harbor racist beliefs, and who decry racism while doing whatever they can to either rid themselves of those beliefs or act in ways contrary to their acculturated racist beliefs simply because they recognize such beliefs to be unethical/a sin/wrong on the merits alone, and **not ** simply because they wish to avoid societal sanction.

Does this help you?

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EddyTeddyFreddy, you are not alone. I would be the first to admit that I have racist ideas and feelings in me. I am racist. And the worse thing is that I usually suffer my most intense feelings when I’m around my own “kind”. I absolutely hate it, but I’m glad I have the awareness to acknowledge it and not rationalize it away. When a nasty thought creeps up in me, I’m smart enough to snatch it back and toss it in the incinerator before it blossoms into action! I’m sure sometimes I fail (and sometimes consciously…deliberately), but at least I try. That’s really all you can hope for in an individual. That they try.

I have confessed my racial sins on this board numerous times. If someone were bored and wanted to catalogue my posts, they’d find more admissions of guilt than stories of victimization. And yet, I’m probably perceived as one of the most vocal “race card players” on the board. It’s kinda funny.

I have a problem with these guys suing, as they seem to be milking the incident for all its worth. Sure, it was a humiliating experience but is it really worth monetary damages? Plus, Gloria Alred is the most irritating human being on the face of the Earth. I know that has nothing to do with the merits of their case, but it just needs to be said.