Did you watch the clip? It starts with him saying “Shut up, 50 years ago we’d have had you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass.” Audience laughs, claps & cheers. “You can talk brave motherfucker. Throw his ass out, he’s a nigger, he’s a nigger, he’s a nigger. Look, there’s a nigger. Ooh, ooh. Alright, you see? It shocks you, it shocks you. You see what’s buried beneath you stupid motherfuckers?” Then at least one black in the audience (who I assume had been heckling him) says it’s uncalled for and starts hurling racial slurs and threatening him.
“Fucking white boy, fucking cracker ass mother fucker.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“We’ll see what’s up.”
They go back and forth and he says “you see? There’s still those words, those words, those words.”
Is Michael Richards possibly an idiot? On crack? Not very good at cutting-edge-yet-politically-incorrect-comedy? Yup.
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.
I’m convinced that that’s exactly what he set out to be. When he started waxing nostalgic about the time when black guys were hanging from trees with forks up their ass, presumably to cow the hecklers into silence, that pretty much sealed it for me. The “he’s a nigger, he’s a nigger” stuff merely confirmed that on top of being an insensitive bigot he also is an out of control idiot who doesn’t know when to quit when he’s ahead.
Hopefully, the fact that he was ahead (i.e. the audience clapped initially) was just a product of the audience’s confusion and not an indication that they thought he was being funny.
I haven’t seen the clip (I’m at work) but it seems likely that they didn’t catch that first comment as being a reference to lynching. Would they even have been able to tell that the heckler was black? They probably thought it was just a random threat of violence towards a guy who was giving him a hard time, and didn’t clue into what was really going on until he started chanting “nigger” at the guy.
I’m not trying to stir up shit–honest–but I don’t understand why you would give Richards the benefit of the doubt. The guy screamed at the top of his lungs “He’s a NIGGER! He’s a NIGGER!” What other kind of evidence is needed to assume the guy is racist?
I mean, if he were standing on the stage screaming “He’s a FAG!” or “He’s a KIKE!” would you conclude that he’s probably not homophobic or anti-semitic, just having a bad day?
I think the people were laughing because they were simply confused. It may not have been obvious to everyone that the heckler was black (as Miller said). Furthermore, it may have taken a few seconds for it to dawn on everyone what was meant by the “hanging by a tree” remark. I could see myself laughing just because you’re expected to laugh after a comedian says something.
Id’ say extremely tasteless, but not necessarily racist. In fact, I’d never heard the phrase about a fork up your ass, and I was confused until reading thru this thread. He’s a comedian on a stage trying to shock people, so I don’t think it’s possible to draw any conclusions about his personal belief system. These days comedy = shock = comedy, and I don’t know how you tell one form the other in this type of context.
I personally don’t give a rat’s patootie about the context. Whether it’s fair or not, anyone except an African-American who makes jokes about lynching or uses the N word is out of line. It’s not always funny when an A-A says it, either, but it’s never okay for a non-AA.
The clip I saw on the news included some sound bites from Paul Rodriguez, who presumably was at the club that night. He said as much, that only a black person can use the N word, and only a Latino can say “wetback”, and that’s how it is. [This is me now–>] It may not be fair, but if Richards had called a Latino audience member “wetback”, he would have been similiarly out of line. If Rodriguez had called Richards a “kike”, he would have been out of line, and if Dave Chappelle had called either of them those things, that would have been out of line. And so forth.
Logic doesn’t come into it. The words are hateful any time they’re used by someone to whom they could never apply.
levdrakon was answering me-at the time I posted, I hadn’t seen the clip and I wondered if he was trying for some kind of weird shock value thing. Now, having seen the clip, the guy’s a complete fucking moron.
Yeah, there was laughter, but it seemed more of the nervous type, like, 'Hehehe…are we really hearing this?"
When someone “goes off without thinking,” that means that they say things that they ordinarily would have repressed. Which means those thoughts were definitely in there.
Look, no matter how angry I’ve ever been at a black person, no matter what kind of horrible things I may have been thinking, I’ve never thought of lynching and I’ve never thought of the word “nigger.” Those thoughts are just not in my head, so they’d never come out of my mouth.
I’m not claiming that I’m miss perfect when it comes to racism or anything. I’m just saying that the fact that Richards blurted all that out is evidence that he was thinking it. And if he was thinking it, that makes him a racist.
I viewed the clip and concluded Mr. Richards was one or more of the following:
a) under the influence of mind-altering substances
b) having a really bad day
…both of which are occupational hazards for Hollywood personalities having trouble coming back.
After about week 2 of the Mel Gibson debacle this summer I heard a black woman comment, “if he would’ve said nigger people would’ve forgotten about it by now,” and I couldn’t help but think that she was right. This proves it. I can’t believe how many people are apologizing for this jerk.
If what he said was funny or premeditated or intelligent in the least bit it might be excusable. It wasn’t, and it’s not.
You might have a point if this outburst had been worked into an act. Coming as a virulent tirade at hecklers, there’s no excuse for it.
Maybe Mel Gibson, after his traffic stop rant against Jews blew up in his face, should have explained that he was just trying out a comedy act. :rolleyes:
Or just stupid and insensitive. But in this instance, hateful seems to fit.
It is one of the dubious privileges of being in a minority group - that one can, under certain circumstances, use an ethnic slur that non-group members cannot employ, however they may whine about it.
To which I’ll add (imho) that while non-whites can certainly be bigots and hateful there’s simply no pejorative, at least not in this culture, for white people (honkie, ofay, cracker, etc.) that has anywhere near the same punch as the N word. It’s not justified in the least, though I’ve no doubt he’ll play the Lenny Bruce/Kauman “I’m sorry I was misunderstood” card. The guy is nuts.
I think it’s kind of similiar to this: I may rag on my sister, and complain about her, and call her every name in the book. But the minute someone outside the family does it, I see red.
Like when Pittsburghers got mad at Sienna Miller for using the term “Shitsburgh”, even though many of us have used that word ourselves. I guess it’s that those who are a part of something can use that term-but outsiders can’t.