posted
It wasn't that the "n" word was used that this was racist. It was that the "n" word was used over and over again, along with the allusions to lynching and other racist imagery that made this a racist issue.
I don't know whether he's a racist or not, but I concur with the hotheaded asshat assessment.
-------------------- "When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty."--George Bernard Shaw Posts: 19266 | From: Nashville, TN | Registered: Jun 2002
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posted
I've actually been in a suitation freakishly slimlar to his. My freshman year of high school I was on the bus and this two black girls started, out of the blue, seriously insuliting my friend and I. I got way too upset and tried to beat them up while throwing various racial and non-racial statments, including the n-word.
I'm probably one of the least racist people out there, and I never seriously felt that way about anyone. People do and say stupid things when provoked, stressed and pressured. The only difference between my situation and his was that I was a young and stupid freshman, sick of getting picked on so much, on a high school bus. While he's a grown man on stage in front of a live audience of other adults.
I just hope this doesn't tarnish my image of his Sinefeld character, Kramer was one of my favorites. Well, the funniest of the bunch anyway. But I tend to like the oddball characters.
-------------------- "I was in one of those rare states where you curse someone else's misfortune."-Rikudo Koshi Posts: 125 | From: Villa Park, IL | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
What I find most disturbing about this whole thing is the venom with which he verbally attacked the people in the audience. Another thing I find deeply disturbing is that, from the Youtube comments I have read, the news coverage, and other comments I have read elsewhere, people are so completely caught up with Mr. Richards use of the "n-word" that everybody seems to forget the very first thing he said, "Fifty years ago we would have had you upside-down with a f****** fork up your a**!"
For me, that statement, along with the venom with which it was yelled out, says it all. That kind of anger/hatred is far worse than calling a person a name - no matter what that name signifies. I mean, it's one thing to call somebody a name. But the violent, descriptive reference to lynching a person goes much further than calling somebody a name - no matter how insulting a name might be.
For instance, somebody can make reference to my weight problem by calling me fatso - which would hurt- but if you say something that calls up imagery of a roasted pig on a platter (please don't ask where I got this) then it becomes almost frightening. To me, Mr. Richards reference to lynching is frightening whereas the name calling is just wrong and uncalled for.
I cannot judge wether or not his appology was heartfelt or just a desperate attempt at damage control. Judging by what I saw of his out of control rant - I cannot help but suspect it was just an attempt at damage control.
Either way, Mr. Richards needs to take a good long look at himself to understand why he would attack somebody with the anger and venom that he attacked the person with that night.
-------------------- If you have to ask you'll never know Posts: 31 | From: Highland, CA | Registered: Aug 2006
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quote:Originally posted by DaphHime: I've actually been in a suitation freakishly slimlar to his. My freshman year of high school I was on the bus and this two black girls started, out of the blue, seriously insuliting my friend and I. I got way too upset and tried to beat them up while throwing various racial and non-racial statments, including the n-word.
Did you start out your tirade with explicit references to lynching? If not, it's hardly the same thing as what Richards did. See the posts on this page by AnglRdr and fading_dawn.
-------------------- How homophobic do you have to be to have penguin gaydar? - Lewis Black Posts: 8322 | From: Columbus, OH | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I don't think Richards is a gazillionaire but it seems like when celebrities screw up they should do some self flagellation in the form of a lot of money, such as a charity donation or setting up a foundation. Having no idea what Richards is worth I'd still say it needs to be in the $50,000+ range at least. For someone like Mel Gibson it should be in the millions. It's way too easy & non-invasive to go on Letterman & say "I screwed up - please keep supporting my career."
-------------------- No man has a right in America to treat any other man "tolerantly" for tolerance is the assumption of superiority. -Wendell L. Willkie Posts: 3833 | From: Virginia | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
I'd rather see them give up their time than their money: they have less of that, and it would affect them more. But no giving speeches at synagogues or making anti-prejudice PSAs: I'm thinking more like scrubbing bathrooms or washing dishes (by hand, of course). Something behind-the-scenes and physically arduous.
On second thought, the money would do more good, so maybe they should do both.
If I were Queen of the World, this would be my sentence for Mr. Richards: A $50,000 donation to a charity* chosen by the target of his heckling, and 100 hours doing chores (not publicity or fundraising) for the same charity or another one also selected by the target of the heckling. And a thorough medical and psychological evaluation.
*Must be a 501(c)3 organization.
-------------------- How homophobic do you have to be to have penguin gaydar? - Lewis Black Posts: 8322 | From: Columbus, OH | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Jimmy Jive: All I'm saying is, it's rather premature to accuse someone of being racist, when there's been no history of it (I believe?), and all he did was shout the n-word and play into the role of, while having "snapped".
Nope. Why would it be? That to which you resort under stress (or under the effects of alcohol) is the truest measure of what lies beneath the surface of your being.
I agree with you on this, people can show their true colors under these circumstances. I for one hate the "n" word and never use it, and would never think of using it. If I am updet with someone I may call them alot of things but never a racial slur.
-------------------- And always remember....when life hands you Lemons, ask for tequila and salt and call me over !!!!! Posts: 521 | From: St. Louis, MO | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by desertdweller: Senator Byrd (D-West Virginia) was a member of the KKK
That's a pretty well-known fact, actually. What does it have to do with Michael Richards?
-------------------- How homophobic do you have to be to have penguin gaydar? - Lewis Black Posts: 8322 | From: Columbus, OH | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by desertdweller: Senator Byrd (D-West Virginia) was a member of the KKK
I want a pony.
-------------------- "When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty."--George Bernard Shaw Posts: 19266 | From: Nashville, TN | Registered: Jun 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Syllavus: Everyone gets angry and loses it once in a while, but the fact that his anger was almost instantly manifested in the form of such nasty racial thoughts is quite telling in my opinion. Had he spouted off by calling the guy an asshole, a prick, etc. I would have thought, "Well, the guy just got pissed off." It's the fact that he immediately pulled out the racist terms that makes me think there's some racist ugliness that it's stemming from. Whether it's something that he would normally say or not, it's still worrying. This wasn't just anger, this was specific anger that was directed at this man's skin color.
Not necessarily. If the guy (or guys) was fat he would have called them fat bastards or something of that nature. He picked on the first thing he saw. If it were women he may have called them a cunt. This has been mentioned before but he went after the one thing that would piss these guys off.They were black so let's pull out the nigger slur. Of course if it were other physical attributes Mr. Richards used instead of nigger we would never had heard of this. Because the 'N' word was used,however,this has become a 'racist' issue. This incident doesn't confirm Richards a racist it does however show him to be a hot headed asshat.
You have no way of knowing what Richards would have said if the hecklers had been anyone other than black men - although from what I understand some of the hecklers actually were not black men - what we do know is that he did not "just" throw around the N word. It went much deeper than that where he talked about lynchings etc. This isn't a case of a guy getting into trouble for using an inappropriate word. The very first thing he said was "Fifty years ago we would have had you upside-down with a f****** fork up your a**!" Do you seriously contend if he had not used the N word that he wouldn't be in trouble now? I don't believe that.
-------------------- If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it's just possible you haven't grasped the situation. - Jean Kerr Posts: 18428 | From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Nov 2001
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posted
According to Michael Savage, Kramer's outburst is proof that liberals are racists.
Because Richards' political views are so well-known.
quote:Under the surface, if you got them in a room alone, I guarantee you they'd say this same kind of hateful things about Catholics and about Jews and about straights and about soldiers
Yes, the liberal agenda: mocking Catholics, Jews, straights, and soldiers. I can't wait until tomorrow, when I attend a Thanksgiving dinner with representatives from each of these four groups; so that I can insult them to their faces. Posts: 763 | From: Chicago | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Originally posted by desertdweller: Senator Byrd (D-West Virginia) was a member of the KKK
I want a pony.
Speak up, please. I can't hear you over the farting aardvarks.
-------------------- How homophobic do you have to be to have penguin gaydar? - Lewis Black Posts: 8322 | From: Columbus, OH | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by candiru from strangers:
quote:Originally posted by Lainie:
quote:Originally posted by candiru from strangers: I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree here. I will continue to think that telling someone that they could've been lynched 50 years ago, calling someone a n*gger and implying a Black man should not interrupt "The White Man" makes someone a racist, and you can think...whatever exactly it is that you're thinking.
OTOH, Candy, you and I can agree to agree.
I like that better
I join both of you in agreement. Hell. Being a little bit racist (Using racial slurs is not exhibiting racism? You could have fooled me.) is like being a little bit pregnant.
Jumping on the agreement wagon.
Here's the thing: I think many, many people who try very hard not to be racist or to extinguish their prejudice still have some remnants of prejudice in them. This prejudice may come out when they are angry. Someone who really wasn't racist wouldn't even consider using a racial slur when they were angry, because to them there's nothing inherently bad or insult-worthy about skin tone. So while Michael Richards may be ashamed of his racism and may want very much to not be racist, he still seems to have prejudice in him. If he's truly committed to getting rid of it then good for him.
-------------------- Officially Heartless Posts: 3065 | From: The Montgomery County of the West Coast- Berkeley, CA | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I was unable to get back to the board for awhile, but I can see that many have stated more eloquently what I was probably about to add.
I would like to offer this, I've seen quite a few celebrity apologies and am often willing to point insincerity, blame-shifting and petty excuse making.
IMHO, as celeb apologies go, this was a pretty good one.
- P
Posts: 1856 | From: Milwaukee, WI | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Now anything can be recorded and verified," said Todd Boyd, a professor at the University of Southern California who specializes in race and popular culture and is the author of Young, Black, Rich & Famous: The Rise of the NBA, the Hip Hop Invasion and the Transformation of American Culture.
Boyd was especially irked at Richards' claim, during his apology on the Late Show, that he is not racist.
"What do these people think, that anything short of putting a Jew in a concentration camp or lynching a black person is not racist?" he asked. "The assumption is that these are just words, that it's not a big deal."
Coverage also shed light on the nightclub that allowed Richards to perform again after the incident -- a move that surprised Ivy Kennelly, an associate professor of sociology at the George Washington University. Kennelly said the apology on late-night television added to the drama and had all the trappings of damage control.
"On Letterman, [Richards] says he's not a racist," she said. "Well, if this isn't what a racist does, I'd hate to meet a racist. We seem to have this strange idea that to be a racist is to be someone who's filled with hate. It's so insidious in the way we think about things and the reasons we get angry."
-------------------- Officially Heartless Posts: 3065 | From: The Montgomery County of the West Coast- Berkeley, CA | Registered: Nov 2005
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I saw an interview with some of the people Richards lashed out at on the news yesterday morning. While I think his actions were deplorable, one thing in the interview struck me as funny. The two men were so offended that Richards made comments like, "I can buy you and sell you", yet when the interviewer asked what Richards could do to make the situation better, their lawyer, who was also being interviewed, said money.
Posts: 1128 | From: New York | Registered: Oct 2003
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Wow. Just wow. I wanted to see the video for myself before making a judgement. Just wow. Not safe for work. Not safe for children. He really needed his ass kicked for that. Just wow.
Posts: 24 | From: Kansas | Registered: Jul 2006
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-------------------- No man has a right in America to treat any other man "tolerantly" for tolerance is the assumption of superiority. -Wendell L. Willkie Posts: 3833 | From: Virginia | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Hazed: *Dons flame proof suit*
I saw an interview with some of the people Richards lashed out at on the news yesterday morning. While I think his actions were deplorable, one thing in the interview struck me as funny. The two men were so offended that Richards made comments like, "I can buy you and sell you", yet when the interviewer asked what Richards could do to make the situation better, their lawyer, who was also being interviewed, said money.
And they've already got Gloria Allred. I think it's pretty lousy to demand money from him. They certainly have grounds to demand an apology, but can they really sue him for being an asshat?
-------------------- "One original thought is worth a thousand mindless quotings." -- Diogenes
"Vote Republican! We won't burn you at the stake for your religious beliefs or slaughter your family and steal your land." -- Ramblin' Dave Posts: 3555 | From: Florida | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by trollface: Ah, you can judge for yourself, as that joke, in context is here
What is interesting as an irrelevant aside is that she discusses the word "nigger" and it's use in her act. Of course it's hard to tell how much of something that someone says in their act is true and how much is stories, but I get the impression that this is true. She used to do a joke that used the word "nigger", and she got a lot of flack for it. So she changed it to the word "chink", and had no more problems.
In fact, she went on a talk show to discuss this, and the producers asked her whether she could avoid using the word "nigger", and instead say "the n-word". She said sure and said that she was going to tell a joke that used the word "chink" and asked what she should say instead, and the guy said "just say 'chink'".
Funny old things, language and attitudes, aren't they?
I seem to recall that she caught a lot of grief over the "chink" joke from Asian-American groups. She eventually ended up on a few talk shows defending the usage of such epithets to highlight the absurdity of stereotypes, and bigotry in general.
I'm a little short on time today so I can't provide any cites to support my recollection. I will endeavor to do so at a later date, however, if for no other reason than to make sure I'm not misremembering the matter.
And to the topic at hand, I don't see any two ways about it; Richards is a racist. I don't care if the "hecklers" started it (for which there is room for debate), and even if those men had jumped onstage to take the microphone away from him (which they did not), his response was out of line. One simply doesn't get to allude to lynching as a justified response to supposed rudeness, nor does one get to assume the mantle of superiority by very clearly stating, "That's what you get for interrupting the white man".
quote:Originally posted by Hazed: *Dons flame proof suit*
I saw an interview with some of the people Richards lashed out at on the news yesterday morning. While I think his actions were deplorable, one thing in the interview struck me as funny. The two men were so offended that Richards made comments like, "I can buy you and sell you", yet when the interviewer asked what Richards could do to make the situation better, their lawyer, who was also being interviewed, said money.
-------------------- If you are allergic to a thing, it is best not to put that thing in your mouth, particularly if the thing is cats. - Lemony Snicket
quote:Originally posted by Hazed: *Dons flame proof suit*
I saw an interview with some of the people Richards lashed out at on the news yesterday morning. While I think his actions were deplorable, one thing in the interview struck me as funny. The two men were so offended that Richards made comments like, "I can buy you and sell you", yet when the interviewer asked what Richards could do to make the situation better, their lawyer, who was also being interviewed, said money.
posted
Yeah, but Richards screamed racial slurs, Bill Hicks was just irritated at a drunk lady. While I personally am slightly sketpical at those who denounce Richard and praise Hicks at the same time when both had rather short fuses. Meh, at least Hicks apologzies
*I do think Hicks was a very poignant comedian, but I can be put off by his short temper
-------------------- "High-Five!" - Borat Posts: 1056 | From: Racine, WI | Registered: Jun 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Freshman: Yeah, but Richards screamed racial slurs, Bill Hicks was just irritated at a drunk lady. While I personally am slightly sketpical at those who denounce Richard and praise Hicks at the same time when both had rather short fuses. Meh, at least Hicks apologzies
*I do think Hicks was a very poignant comedian, but I can be put off by his short temper
So you think there is a difference?? I betya a dollar to donuts that if it were a black person heckling Hicks he would have called him/her racial slurs. BTW-Richards did apologize. Not to the audience but to the men he made the slurs to.
-------------------- The views expressed in the above Post does not necessarily reflect those of snopes,The Infopoop Corporation,the Internet or most of society for that matter. Posts: 2474 | From: Scranton, PA | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Originally posted by pixeldust: He isn't the first, but Bill Hicks did it better (NSFW).
I don't see how that's better. I find this pretty disgusting.
-------------------- Me: "He's 19? Uh oh, I bought him a beer." A: "You contributed to the deliquency of a minor in drag!" "Sweet spell check: keeping drunks off the radar since 1995."- IND GodRe-AnimateGreenPorkBush Posts: 3986 | From: Illinois, jealous? | Registered: Nov 2005
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Jerry's Kids
I'll Be Home for After Christmas Sales
posted
quote:This is irrational, but Richards looks like he would smell of old, dried urine. ~ Signora del Drago
LOL. A couple of years ago, I was behind him in the checkout line at a market. He didn't smell. He was, however, wearing really shabby-looking clothes. His shoes looked like they were falling apart.
My two cents about the incident: When I saw he apologized, I was wondering if he'd say he had been drunk or on drugs at the time (not that it's an excuse--just that a lot of celebs seem to use that as one). Nope. Was just bein' a jerk, I guess!
He owed the people he aimed those comments at an apology, if he was truly sorry. I don't think he owes them money, though, unless they've felt they needed therapy from the experience (which to me would be understandable)--Richards should pay for it if they've undergone treatment since that incident.
And gee, wondering if the hecklers apologized for THEIR remarks and behavior that night...
I'm guessing the answer to that would be "no"...
Posts: 114 | From: Southern California | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
what does everyone think of the people suing Richards? I do think that he has a right to say what he wants if these guys were heckling him. He did go too far however.
-------------------- "High-Five!" - Borat Posts: 1056 | From: Racine, WI | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
I've always believed that anybody who interrupts a show I'm watching should be shot and then thrown out into the alley to die.
However, he would have been much better off if he'd listened to George Carlin dealing with hecklers.
(NSFW, BTW. Don't play this where your kids can hear it.)
-------------------- "Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for western civilization as it commits suicide." - Jerry Pournelle Posts: 14567 | From: Pennsylvania | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
See, now I think that both this guy and this girl deal with their hecklers well.
[Edited to add]I should probably point out that the woman in the second link seems to call everyone in her audience a "skinny bitch".
-------------------- seriously , everyone on here , just trys to give someone crap about something they do !! , its shitting me to tears. Posts: 16061 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2000
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