Michael Richards Apologizes; Fans are Faced with Another Decision

I'm so angry with Michael Richards right now.

Not just because the former Seinfeld star was crazy enough to call a black audience member a nigger several times when he thought the guy was heckling him. But because now I have to decide something I don't really have enough information to conclude.

Do I remain a fan?

This happened earlier this year with Mel Gibson. I'd always been a fan of the guy -- for his fearless enthusiasm in directing Bravehart; his quiet competence in Signs; his scenery-chewing, action-guy theatrics in the Lethal Weapon movies.

Then he goes and shows off his anti-semetic side in a drunken rant, and those days are suddenly over. I can't be down with somebody who hates someone simply because they are Jewish.

Richards is somebody I noticed a long time before Seinfeld. He was brilliant in this Saturday Night Live rip off on ABC called Fridays -- a late-night, live sketch comedy show which aired, well, you can guess when it aired. He would meet a guy named Larry David there who would eventually co-create one of the best urban comedies on TV.

Even then, Richards had a gift for physical comedy, playing this man-child who would try playing with plastic Army guys only to wind up covered in sand. He also had  memorable moment picking a fight with guest host Andy Kaufman -- a prank that sparked a backstage brawl which reportedly only he and Kaufman knew was staged. Check one of his better stand-up gigs here.

So when I saw the footage on TMZ.com revealing the depth of Richards' explosion, it literally made me ill.

""Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a f------ fork up your ass," he said while on stage."You can talk, you can talk, you're brave now motherf------. Throw his ass out. He's a n-----! He's a n-----! He's a n-----! A n-----, look, there's a n-----!"

Though he dodged initial opportunities to apologize, Richards taped an apologetic appearance on David Letterman's Late Show today, appearing by satellite in an interview arranged by his friend Jerry Seinfeld in New York.

"For me to be at a comedy club and flip out and say this crap…" said Richards. "I'm deeply, deeply sorry."

But for people of color like me, trust comes hard. Life in 2006 has already become a game of working hard to decide who you can trust on matters of race. Figuring out who is merely tolerating you and who is really in your corner can be a matter of life and death.

One advantage they had in the old days was that prejudice was in your face, like a skin of scum at the top of a putrid waterway. Now, its much harder to know who you can trust, and when the mask falls, it can be a shocking experience. (And please don't trot out that old defense that black people use the n-word, too. there's an obvious difference between people who are part of a group using a charged word and people outside that group using it; just think of the difference between a stranger calling your brother or sister an idiot and you doing it.)

Los Angeles journalist Nikki Finke has lamented that comedy clubs have become a haven for racist, sexist homophobic ideas. But that's nothing new; the unfortunate consequence of the success geniuses such as Richard Pryor, Chris Rock and Bill Hicks have built on exploring the edgy explicit terrain of raw race and class issues, is that lesser lights will wind up trafficking in empty stereotypes and BS. 

Already, I can't buy gas at Texaco, can't eat dinner at Denny's, can't watch Bob Schieffer on the news and can't watch a Lethal Weapon movie without fear of putting my hard-earned dollars in some racist's hands.

Now Richards wants that trust back. He wants people to assume that his tirade was some awkward slip of the tongue -- a lapse which can be papered over by an apology and an earnest face.

I don't think so, Kramer.

You can almost see Seinfeld's calculation in this as well. He's got a DVD collection of the show's seventh season hitting stores Tuesday, just in time for Christmas. And one of the few criticisms which constantly dogged the acclaimed series was its lack of black people in prominent roles -- despite its location in the most diverse town in America, New York City.

So what is this black fan of Richards and Seinfeld supposed to think now?

 

Comments

[Jonathan Cohen]

I was horrified by what Richards said, and I'm white.

That said, I hope people of color (right term?) don't immediately jump to the conclusion that huge swaths of white people are racist in private. I really don't believe that's the case.

[erik Libby]

I think that the language that Michael Richards used is and was tasteless. It is in poor taste to deal with hecklers or the paying audience member by degrading and making fun of people for their skin color, religion, and political party.
A true apology from Richards will outlast his financial motives or face saving for his carrer. A true apology will be demonstrated by his on going positive behavior in the future.

[Tracy]

I want to clarify about my ealier post...I am not racist, I just think that this whole thing is being blown SO far out of proportion and I think it is a really sad example of the state of our country that we are so transfixed on this. Anything that happens that is white on black gets so magnified but yet when a black man says something vulgar to me about my race, I am supposed to and expected to ignore it. I just think that it is a double standard. There are just as many rude white people as there are rude black people so why do only one of them make national news?

[Tracy]

I am so irritated with black people feeling so persecuted...a white cop shoots a black kid who was trying to RUN HIM OVER with his car which was filled with stolen guns and drugs and there are riots that make nat'l news, a black cop shoots a white kid and it barely gets mentioned. Can you imagine if there was cable station called White Entertainment Television? Yes, what Michale Richards said was blatently wrong but get over it and move on...who really cares? I have been called much worse by black men (I am white female). Is this really national news?????

[Eric Deggans]

I already deleted the post criticized earlier, as you well know. And criminality is a part of all youth culture, not just young black people.

But that's not the point. It's time for your overtly disrespectful posts about race to stop. When you start harshly insulting people and throwing around rhetoric better suited a KKK meeting, it's going to be removed from my blog.

You and I know what kinds of posts i'm talking about. So knock it off.

Missed the post you're ranting about, but criminality is an undeniable aspect of black youth culture. Violence and drugs are glorified, the police are seen as the enemy, doing time is a rite of passage, work and academic success are frowned upon... The numbers are mind-boggling when you look at crime statistics involving young black men.

[Lyle]

Honestly, it's not the n-word that bother's me about Richard's breakdown, it's the "Fifty years ago, we'd have you..." line. That suggests more troubling beliefs than using the n-word does.

[Eric Deggans]

To the anonymous racist with an IP address of 68.143.180.81 -- i'm getting tired of your empty racism. Every crime committed by a black person is not evidence that black culture inferior or black people are inferior.

If you can't find a more respectful way to express yourself, your posts are going to start disappearing en masse.

[Jim S.]

Anonymous from above - firstly, I'm a man of color (black), not white as you have assumed. And you think white people should take responsibility for the hateful history...take charge of the things you can control. Take a deep, hard look inside yourself & resolve to pull yourself up from wherever you are into the place you want to be. You can't expect anyone (white,black,yellow, or pink) to do the things you need to do yourself. If you take a look in the mirror - and don't like what you see, fix it. But don't blame anyone else for your troubles, you can make your own way.
Sure, I've had troubles, life is hard, but it's my life. If I sat around moaning & groaning that some other man put me down...I'd never had gotten up.

[GlennS.]

I agree with what Rodney said above. I think each and every one of us have bad thoughts. Some people try to overcome them, while others are obviously trying to cultivate them.

Jim S. What you're complaining about is what Caucasians have been saying about blacks for centuries, ie the KKK and the white supremesists. Are any of you complaining about that? It is not one sided. White people should take responsibility for your hateful history and admit that it was your greed and spite that made fellow human beings lives so unbearable, thinking that freedom would never happen for blacks. Your ancestors should've dispensed with that idea, and now you blame us for everything including the sun not shining. You brought it on yourselves.

[Dee]

Oh yeah. Think about when someone "misspeaks" something hurtful to you next time. Right then I would love to tell you to move on and forget about it. If that was a black man throwing racial epiphets to a white you people would make an even bigger stink. We are here..YOU GET OVER IT.

[mr cynical]

i dont know what happend w kosmo. its very strange. its doesnt match the image we have of him from the show. but then, hes been flailing ever since. who knows why he cracked? what pressures hes been under? what abuses hes indulging in? you just never know with entertainment people. ill still be a fan. he evidently misspoke. he said he screwed up. id urge all to move on and forget it.

[Rodney Welch]

Well, I can't tell you how to respond, because you approach this with a different set of experiences. Personally, I think he screwed up badly and has no one but himself to blame. I also thought his apology was sincere.

Someone upthread said "you can't just come up with this stuff out of the blue - it had to be there to begin with." I think racism is there in some degree with everyone; it can't be magically purged so that no trace of it's left. All of us have bad, irrational, ugly traits that we have to keep in check in terms of race, gender, whatever.

Some of the biggest liars I ever met in my life would always utter these mealy-mouthed cliches like "I'm not racist at all" or "I don't SEE color." In their minds, maybe they didn't, but their private behavior told another story.

That does not excuse Richards' behavior, but I don't want to see him lose his career over a bad mistake. A series of mistakes, maybe, but not this one alone. I say put him on probation.

[Eric Deggans]

Don't be so sure. The three supporting players cut deals in 2004 to participate in commentary tracks and other specialty features for the DVDs which involved compensation. They had already renegotiated their contracts in the show's final seasons to get a cut of the syndication money...

[Joel]

Fortunately for Seinfeld fans, they can continue to watch the show and buy the DVDs without a guilty conscience - Richards doesn't make a cent on residuals.

[Eric Deggans]

First, I'd like to thank so many of you for some really interesting dialogue. Like so many issues, i'm not sure there is a right answer -- just an answer that feels right to me.

One thing I know for sure, the idea that black folks should "just get over" their feelings on this issue is bogus.

Thanks to evolving social attitudes and the explosion of media, our voices are part of the mainstream now. Things that offend our sensibilities get just as much attention as those which offend others.

My mother's generation, for example, hated Don Rickles. Every black person I know from that era thought he was a racist who would crack a demeaning joke one minute and then claim he loved everyone the next.

Now, we have media to capture exactly what peopel like Richards do. And we have a voice to challenge his disrespectful, hurtful public actions.

Of course people have free speech. I'm not saying Richards should be thrown in jail or censored by the government. But i have the right to denounce what he's done and suggest that people who opoose racism and prejudice think twice before they suport him as a performer.

turns out, this freedom thing works both ways...

[CatWoman]

It's called freedom of speech. Sometimes we hear whant we don't want to. But we all have the right to say what we want when we want. That's what makes AMERICA free.

We can just hope that the voice of reason and equality is overheard over the voice of racism and bigotry.

[Kim Brady]

He said what he said. He had reason so say something. You may not like it, but it is the real world. We try so much to sugar coat things, but it always reappears its head for it is here and it is real.

Wow, these comments that are sympathetic to Richards just blow me away. I guess this is not the isolated "Gibson" type episode I assumed it to be. I can honestly say that I do not witness these types of behaviors in the groups that I associate with, which are predominately white.

Just read that a Johns Hopkins U. frat has been suspended over Holloween party invitations that urged attendees to wear "ice ice, bling bling, and hoochie hoops." Meanwhile the community around JHU remains a cesspool of black on black crime, where only about 30% of the kids finish high school. At some point blacks have to give up the victimhood mantle and look inward. Instead some foolish actor will garner more consternation from "black leaders" than the drug dealing animals who are destroying black communities. Wake up folks. This is a non-story. It's nothing more than a way for guilty white folks to feel "sensitive," and black folks to avoid looking in the mirror.

Ron, not sure what time warp you're traveling through these days, but Seinfeld ended years ago. But maybe someone can just go through the old episodes and put a black bar over kramer whenever he's in a shot. Or maybe we can put him in prison? This whole thing is so ridiculous. It's a WORD - one used mostly by blacks themselves - GET OVER IT!!

[Ronald Mitchell]

They need to get Michael Richards off the Seinfeld show. He's a fool. The show is a real joke.

maybe it's just me, but i thought this was a really p!ss poor attempt at don rickles schtick.

rickles would have pulled something like that at a heckler, but never the n-word over and over and over again.

fyi, i saw rickles on letterman a few years ago and people were literally booing him and hissing at him, yet it was the same things he's used in his stand up act for decades.

but we live in a hypersensative time. do not mistake this as some defense of richards. richards was wrong and way over the line. my first reaction to the video (other than the quality of the video was godawful) was that he tried to pull a don rickles and failed miserably.

You pretty much hit the nail on the head, ms. v. Black culture is a culture of childishness. Wildly disproportionate crime rates, 70% illegitimate birth rates, defining manhood by how much bling one has, academic failure, utter lack of responsibility, etc.. But it's much easier to focus on some actor who used a racial slur. As usual, a couple childish obnoxious blacks acted like idiots and ruined the show for everybody else. Richards just said what I'm sure a lot of people there were thinking.

[Suzie Siegel]

Let me use this as a tangent to discuss something that never gets in either paper these days: If Mel Gibson had yelled derogatory comments about women at a female cop, or if a comedian used slurs reserved for women, it wouldn't be news. It would be normal. If a woman said she could no longer watch a comedian who said awful things about women, people would say feminists have no sense of humor.

[Jim S.]

What in the world is wrong with you folks - its over the line for Ridchards to use the 'n' word with some hecklers...
But when Cris Rock uses the 'n' word AS his comedy bit... thats ok.
But when Kamau Kambon (a professor if you can imagine it)on CSPAN (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN5StQAr7n0&NR) says that, and I quote, "We have to exterminate white people off the face of the planet to solve this problem"...thats ok.

If any other white person in the world said "to exterminate black people off the face of the the planet"...I could see the firestorm now.

Big deal - so Richards got pissed off with some hecklers, so what. It's not news - its not anything. If you're offended by Richards- check out Kamau Kambon, that should drop you dead right where you stand. Check out the bigger issues in the world folks.

[Ms. V]

To the arsehole idiot posted Nov 21 2006, 12:08am. It's a comedian's job to deal with hecklers. If one can't handle the heckling then one should seek another line of work. I've seen people of many races heckle, especially white. All the hecklers said was that he wasn't funny, saying what many were too scared to say themselves. In return they were hurled inappropriate racial name calling. Richards obviously took it very personally and wanted to lash out. The countless times I've seen white children do the same type of things and noone says anything about it. Your white children are by no means perfect, and civilized? Laughable. White kids are just as obnoxious. You obviously are one of those who expect us to be like children...seen and not heard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q8LxO4wnCQ

[Your Uncle Darnell]

Walk it off, son. You can still be a fan.

Time to move on.

[The Values Voter]

Awesome blog. I can relate. He WAS one of my favorite actors. But you can't just come up with this stuff out of the blue - it had to be there to begin with.

No more Kosmo K. Kramer for me.