By now most of you have heard about Michael Richards’ (aka Kramer from the insanely popular “Seinfeld” series of the ’90s) disgusting racial tirade at a Los Angeles comedy club last week.
TMZ.com, the infamous celebrity Web site, first broke the news and even posted a cell phone captured video of the event, which occurred at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood. In the video, packed full of profanity and bellicose language, Richards appears before the crowd, looking a bit disheveled and perhaps intoxicated. He prances around the stage before playfully being heckled by Kyle Doss, a black man there to enjoy the show with his friends. That’s when Richards loses it.
“Fifty years ago, we’d have you upside down with a f**king fork up your ass!” he said, continually using the “F-word” and, even worse in this particular scenario, the “N-word,” calling Doss a “nigger” numerous times.
One can see from the video that the crowd was visibly and audibly baffled and upset. When Richards finally notices this, he shouts, “They’re going to arrest me for calling a black man a nigger?” After the horrific 3-minute racial rant, most of the audience had dispersed in disgust because of Richards’ uncanny behavior.
This entire debacle obviously has the nation in an uproar. Jerry Seinfeld appeared on “The Late Show with David Letterman” the following night and tried to help his co-worker apologize to hurt “Seinfeld” fans across the nation. Although the idea seemed like a good one at the time, Seinfeld clearly didn’t understand how deep Richards’ racism was.
At one point in the painfully awkward satellite interview, Richards said, “I lost my temper on stage. I was at a comedy club trying to do my act and I got heckled and I took it badly and went into a rage and said some pretty nasty things to some Afro-Americans, a lot of trash talk and uh…”
Did he just say that? The term Afro-American is obviously politically incorrect and it demonstrates just how ignorant Richards is. The entire show is hard to watch, with Richards repeatedly trying to move the subject off of his racism and onto his own personal issues. The audience back in New York obviously isn’t clued in and laughs at inappropriate times, causing Seinfeld to say, “It’s not funny, stop laughing.” Painful. That’s the word to describe Richards’ so-called apology and the entire controversy.
Obviously, this whole fiasco has created an enormous uproar in the black community. Everyone from the Rev. Jesse Jackson to Al Sharpton and other leaders in the black community have congregated together, discouraging “Seinfeld” DVD sales and discussing banning the “N-word” in the entertainment industry altogether.
This should be a lesson to us all. Whoever said racism is gone was clearly mistaken. It is painfully prevalent in today’s society, no matter how optimistic you are about life. Minorities are still not getting paid enough and they’re still not getting the recognition they deserve. But most importantly, they are still being called names and being abused due to the color of their skin. That, my friends, is entirely unacceptable. We must put an end to all this racist nonsense and realize that if people like Richards are still out there – we haven’t come very far at all.
