What Lies Beneath (re: RIchards racist tirade)

[MountainLaurel]

Robinson hits the nail on the head again:

Anyone who thinks that racism in this country is history really ought to watch the video of Kramer going postal.

I'm not saying that everyone is like Michael Richards, the "Seinfeld" alumnus whose hideous meltdown at a Los Angeles comedy club Friday was captured by a digital camera and soon posted on the Internet for all to witness in slack-jawed amazement. I'm not saying that evil lurks in the hearts of all men and women. But I am saying that, as a society, we still haven't purged ourselves of racial prejudices and animosities. We've buried them under layers of sincere enlightenment and insincere political correctness, but they're still down there, eating at our souls.

For those who missed it, Richards -- who will always be known as Cosmo Kramer, Jerry Seinfeld's indescribably weird neighbor -- was performing at the Laugh Factory, a club in Hollywood, when a heckler in the audience began to intervene. There isn't a comic alive, I would wager, who has never been heckled. Surely, a performer of Richards's experience has faced rowdier interlopers than the one Friday night.

Who happened to be black.

Out of nowhere, Richards explodes. He screams at the man, and I mean screams, "Fifty years ago they'd have you upside down with a fork up your ass." Audience members don't initially react, perhaps unsure if they've really just heard a nostalgic reference to lynching.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/21/AR2006112101221.html

Edited to add:

Looks like the heckler wasn't black, the guy sitting next to him was:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/21/AR2006112101886.html

[Nozebro]

1. Maybe it was just a publicity stunt to help promote sales of their new DVD

"The Seventh Season" of the Seinfeld show. With a touch of a Clinton-like "Sister Souljah" twist.

[DURHAM D]

2. I think Richards belongs in rehab. n/t

[Straight Shooter]

3. I never could stand the character Kramer. Richards grated on me.

That doesn't really mean anything to the issue at hand, but at least I'm not suffering the disappointment that thousands of his fans have to deal with now.

He's a total putz.

[buff2]

4. I think this story should be put to rest

We've heard it on the "news" 24/7,all the late night talk show hosts have pounded it to death and all the political show talking heads and guests have had a field day on it.The people who started this whole fiasco are never blamed,they are always the "victim". If it wasn't bad enough,they popped up on the Today show this morning. What's next for them? Larry King? Why is this pot of shit kept getting stirred? Hey! Does anyone remember we have a clueless maniac running our country who is itching to get us into ANOTHER war???All this focus on name calling has clearly distracted everyone from some real serious issues going on. Geez.....enough already.

[classysassy]

6. Sure let the racist run rampart

Racism must be confronted where ever we find it.I alright for black and browns to die for a white man's stupidty,but we must give that racistMF some slack.

[Trajan]

5. I have always adored his character, Cosmo Kramer ....

I think Seinfeld is perhaps the funniest sitcom, ever ....

Richards obviously harbors some serious personal animosities if this crap came barreling out of him like it did .... How sad ...

My father was a Tennessee boy who used THAT word regularly (HE was also a rabid John Bircher and extreme conservative violent-asshole-alcoholic).... I remember asking my Brooklyn-born mother about that word that dad used, and she explained how rude and unnecessary such words are, and how ALL people, now matter of their color, should be judged by their own actions, and not because of which race they belonged in ....

I was raised in the Brooklyn/NYC mindset .... LOTS of people are good, and LOTS of people are bad .... Color is irrelevent ....

Sure : there are racists in the northeast : pockets exist in ALL areas .... but that kind of 'Tennessee Boy' thinking is thankfully shrinking .... Robinson's explanation, while true to a great degree, fails to capture the complexity of the human personality, which likes and hates MANY things based on MANY specific and personal criteria .... It is too easy to blame 'political correctness' as a catchall for all of a complex human being's faults and failings ....

It isnt 'political correctness' that restricts the usage of such derogatory terms : It is the basic fallacy of identifying ethnicity with goodness or badness that drives the need for societal change ...

I personally could never use that word .... I dont use it because it is WRONG to use it, not because it is 'politically incorrect' to use it ....

[IntiRaymi]

7. Please don't label it 'Tennessee Boy'

It does a disservice to that state, and all the good people that live in it.