Michael Richards (Kramer from Seinfeld) and his racial rant

[Aristotle]

I am sure most of you already heard about this on various news outlets. It was all over radio and tv today.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/features...artslife-today

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...ath=News/World

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...s/4351115.html

What are your thoughts? I'll withhold mine for now.

[Vidare]

I saw the rant, and part of the apology(I had to turn it off). I was never really a Seinfeld fan, but I thought Kramer was an amusing character. I'm pretty disgusted about it. His apology, if it can even be called that, was a fucking joke. He sounded sincere in some parts, but in others it was like he was about to jump off the deepend again. Fuck Richards, and fuck his joke of an apology.

[Shadarach]

Well first off, I am acting on the premise that the articles are unbiased and what not.

Seems like he was really sincere to me.

I mean hecklers.. and comedians doing stand up are like peas in a pod. Until you are huge, part of your stand up act IS dealing with people who shout whatever during your act.

It strikes me that two things have come out of the incident, firstly once again celeb status gets a person who is still clearly living in the fifties off from racial villification and second Michael Richards has clearly forgotten where he came from or was never a struggling stand up comedian.

To top it all off, he comes off as if he was in the right and that it was a completely random response. Random or not doesn't matter, it was the wrong response.

[Rijiny]

Here's a link to a video of what happened. Its all pretty sick to me, he sounded really pissed off. That is so unprofessional to an extreme. I hope he really is sorry, though. But I think he's only sorry because he's quite possibly ruined his career.

KRAMER VIDEO
(Warning: Link contains offensive and explicit content)

[Xenoroyal]

I really think the man had no idea what he was getting into doing stand up comedy.

Apparently, he hadnt been doing it that long. Some other well-known comics were mentioning that he probably wasnt used to being heckeled on stage like that. Not that this justifies his behavior of course...

It looked like he started the response back as a joke, and then he just lost it. He lost control of the audience, did not know what to say, and flipped out. Perhaps it was a combination of anger, nervousness, drunkeness, and stupidity. Even his interview on Letterman, he just seemed very scatterbrained about the whole issue. I believe he -IS- sorry about it, he is just in shock from the exposure.

Despite acting in the role of a wacky character like Kramer, I remember reading up on Richards. He is totally a reclusive person from what I remember, very quiet and not outgoing. Making absurd comments as he did shows how out of touch he is with the world today, and that is a shame.

[kestra]

It's the risk you take when you go up there. I guess he forgot that.
It is odd to see a celebrity in another light, when you're so used to seeing that person in a certain way.
His apology seemed sincere to me.

[Belair]

The lines he threw at the audience were shot so quick and fluent that it's hard to imagine this is not the kind of talk he would frequently use. While his anger at hecklers in a crowd is understandable, albiet wholly unprofessional, the flatly racist venom he had on the tip of his tongue is not.

[Pyrosama]

To be honest, it didn't shock me. I know there are people out there who are racist and who have alot of hatred toward each other based moreso on ignorance than anything else. I heard alot of anger and pain in that tirade and in the reaction from the audience.


Hatred for any reason is a very ugly thing to me. I don't care if you hate because of race, sexual orientation, religion, etc. It's ugly as hell. Even if he apologized for exposing a very dark and ugly part of his being, it does nothing to me. He made himself a victim as far as I'm concerned. It's like punching yourself in the face while everyone looks at you in amazement. Who walks away with the blackeye?

I feel sorry for him.

[Jolen]

It was sad, but not really shocking. I think the shock factor comes from the fact that he is a celebrity and from the fact that most people have not seen such blatant racism. Having seen such thing before, my reaction was, "Huh.. he's pissed." What was surprising was how sincere his apology was. Instead of passing it on to something like being drunk, he says, "I blew up, I lost control, I did not mean that, I am sorry." That's enough for me and it really should be the end of this. People move on.

I think there is a double standard in America where, whenever an Anglo says something prejudiced/racist, there is an uproar by both angry ethnics and guilty Anglos. However, when an ethnic person says something similar, there is a collective nod from fellow ethnics and nervous laughter from the Anglo community. Really, picture any Black/Hispanic comedian doing a routine that shows the differences between blacks/hispanics and whites. Now picture an Anglo, doing the inverse of this act. Now which one is going to get the laughs and which one is going to get the jeers?

Personally, I laugh at prejudice/racism directed at me since it usually stems from ignorance and fear than any sort of fact. Perhaps people need to lighten up a bit more in America. Just my two cents..

[Savaric]

Originally posted by Jolen
I think there is a double standard in America where, whenever an Anglo says something prejudiced/racist, there is an uproar by both angry ethnics and guilty Anglos.

You better believe there's a double standard. I'm not bothered by this at all. I'm not racist, but I do make my observations in a neutral light (I try very hard- believe what you want). I've listened to blacks call themselves the n-word many times, in person and even more in their music. If a white person says it, it takes on a whole new meaning (understandably). Okay, okay, well that's fine. But when people like me try to remain grounded on these issues and see these kinds of scenarios, I'm like, what the fuck man? I'm supposed to be upset when somebody calls you the n-word, but you call yourselves that all day long? I'm afraid it doesn't work that way.

It's a known fact of life that if you don't respect yourself then no one else will either.