Continued from Michael Richards ....
Mr. Richards may not be a racist, but he played the part well. That may be a harsh statement but it is the feeling he has evoked in me. I do believe that he feels sorry for the actions he has taken; he seems genuinely upset in the on-air apology. But it’s not enough. It’s not that he just did this meltdown. He went on-stage Saturday (a fact that is being severely downplayed) without apology. It wasn’t until the show appeared on the internet that he came out and apologized. Maybe he was advised to let it go and see if it would pass by, if so it was bad advice. He should have made a statement before the internet release, on Saturday when he took the stage, or early Monday as the news hit. He still needs to go to the Laugh Factory and apologize. All of this needs to be done by him, not with him and Mr. Seinfeld (who I understand is a good friend of his – and has done a decent job of standing by his friend as well as protecting the Seinfeld television show value).
There is no excuse for such words. For all the kids that think the N-word has no meaning or that they have taken control of it, listen to Mr. Richards’s use of it and tell me you still think that. The word has lost no power or meaning. In addition to couple this with a threat of a lynching brings up anger and rage like no White person can understand. Sympathize maybe, but understand no. And to say all of that was no accident. Perhaps Mr. Richards is no racist; I would like to think he wasn’t. But the words were chosen for their impact, meaning, and ability to inflict pain. It was his choice to use these words, and to make the threat and any sense of humor were not in them. Mr. Richards is correct when he said in his apology that there was rage and anger in his words. He needs to see someone about this because he opened a valve on that stage, and this is what poured out.
How dare he do this. He is a professional and knows better. Yes he may be a neophyte at stand-up and thin-skinned when it comes to dealing with a heckler. Yet he made the choice to go on that stage. He placed himself in a position to have to deal with that, no one else forced him to. I would have wanted to hit him had I been there. The lynching comment would have put me over the edge. Perhaps as some have said he was trying to use that as a skit, trying for humor, but few can pull of such a skit. There is a lot of pain attached to that thought. I don’t need a family tree made to know that some of my ancestors were lynched, for little to no reason, in a nation that at the time regarded them as little better than furniture. Were his family so easily discarded and disgraced for centuries I think he would be sure of the comedic potential of the joke before ever trying to broach it.
I had to stop for a while as my anger has been rising as I am writing this. While I do not use vulgar language on this site I wish I could think of an example that could convey the anger the N-word brings out in me. Especially when it is used to inflict pain. There is no equivalent for any other racial or ethnic group in English that I am aware of. It’s that bad, and thus his comments are that enraging. Perhaps the closest thing I know is in Russian, Ne Pizdi (it doesn’t translate into English, but say it to a Russian/Soviet Georgian and you will start a serious fight).
I think Mr. Richards has ruined his career, or severely limited his ability to succeed for quite some time. I don’t know what else to say. Time has not shed more light on this, nor provided a reason that makes sense to me. That may be sad, but the situation was far worse.
This is what I think, what do you think?
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