KKKramer?

[Ibby]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Movi....ap/index.html

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Michael Richards said Monday he spewed racial epithets during a stand-up comedy routine because he lost his cool while being heckled and not because he's a bigot.

"For me to be at a comedy club and flip out and say this crap, I'm deeply, deeply sorry," the former "Seinfeld" co-star said during a satellite appearance for David Letterman's "Late Show."

"I'm not a racist. That's what's so insane about this," Richards said, his tone becoming angry and frustrated as he defended himself in a clip from the show played on CBS before "Late Show" aired Monday night.

Richards described himself as going into "a rage" over the two audience members who interrupted his act Friday at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood. Richards responded to the black hecklers with repeated use of the "n word" and profanities.

Jerry Seinfeld, who had issued a statement saying he was "sick over this horrible, horrible mistake" and calling it offensive, was scheduled as a Letterman guest Monday. He encouraged Richards to make a satellite appearance to talk about the incident, a CBS publicist said.

"I'm sure Michael is also sick over this horrible, horrible mistake. It is so extremely offensive. I feel terrible for all the people who have been hurt," Seinfeld said in a statement.

Richards, 57, who played Seinfeld's eccentric neighbor Kramer on the hit 1989-98 sitcom and whose major credit since was a failed 2000 comedy, hadn't spoken publicly about his remarks before the "Late Show." Calls to his representatives were not returned Monday.

A video posted on TMZ.com shows Richards launching into the tirade after two black audience members started shouting at him that he wasn't funny.(Watch Michael Richards spew racial epithets to the audience at the Laugh Factory Video)

Richards retorts: "Shut up! Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a f------ fork up your a--."

He then paces across the stage taunting the men for interrupting his show, peppering his speech with racial slurs and profanities.

"You can talk, you can talk, you're brave now mother------. Throw his a-- out. He's a n-----!" Richards shouts before repeating the racial epithet over and over again.(Watch Harvey Levin of TMZ.com talk about the incident Video)

While there is some chuckling in the audience throughout the outburst, someone can be heard gasping "Oh my God" and various people "ooh" after Richards uses the n-word.

Eventually someone says: "It's not funny. That's why you're a reject, never had no shows, never had no movies. `Seinfeld,' that's it."

On Monday, about a half-dozen community activists gathered at the club to denounce Richards' remarks and demand an apology.

"These kind of comments hurt all of us," said protester Lita Sister Herron of the Youth Advocacy Coalition. She called Richards' comments "hate speech."

The protesters also demanded an apology from the Laugh Factory. At a news conference a short time later, club owner Jamie Masada expressed remorse and said Richards will not be back at the club until he says he's sorry.

"This is one thing we don't tolerate. ... I personally apologize. I apologize from my heart," Masada said Monday.

Richards did appear at the club Saturday, without incident, but that was because he had told the club he intended to apologize, according to a Laugh Factory statement Monday.

Calls to Richards' representatives were not returned Monday.

He refused to comment on-camera when reached by CNN, but the network reported he said off-camera he felt sorry for what had happened and had made amends.

Comic Paul Rodriguez, who was at the club, said he thought Richards' remarks crossed the line.

"Once the word comes out of your mouth and you don't happen to be African-American, then you have a whole lot of explaining," he said. "Freedom of speech has its limitations and I think Michael Richards found those limitations."

Rodriguez, also at the news conference, said: "I kept expecting a punch line. It didn't come."

Veteran publicist Michael Levine, whose clients have included famed comedians George Carlin, Sam Kinison and Rodney Dangerfield, called Richards' remarks inexcusable. Comics often face hecklers without losing their cool, he said.

"It's never seen anything like this is my life," Levine said Monday. "I think it's a career ruiner for him. ... It's going to be a long road back for him, if at all."

Daryl Pitts, a Laugh Factory audience member interviewed by CNN, compared the incident to another recent celebrity controversy.

"You think about Mel Gibson and what he said, and put that in the context of this, it's very upsetting," Pitts said, referring to Gibson's anti-Semitic outburst during his arrest for drunken driving.

Scrutiny of Richards' remarks likely will continue but won't match the level prompted by Gibson's behavior because Richards is far less famous, Levine said.

Comedian George Lopez told Los Angeles television station KTLA he thought Richards' lack of stand-up experience may have been a factor.

"You have an actor who is trying to be a comedian who doesn't know what to do when an audience is disruptive," Lopez said. "He's an actor whose show has been off the air, he shouldn't ever be on a stand-up gig."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[lumberjim]

"I'm not a racist. That's what's so insane about this," Richards said, his tone becoming angry and frustrated as he defended himself in a clip from the show played on CBS before "Late Show" aired Monday night.

if you're not a racist, it wouldn't occur to you to use a person's enthicity as an insult. you wouldn't see it as a negative attribute to be ridiculed. even if you did 'lose your mind' you would have no reason to go there at all.

what he should have said was that he doesn't want to be seen as a racist. that he understands that it is a failure of his.

People are raised with the memes of their parents, peers and role models. If immersed in a bigoted environment during the period of life when you establish your values, it stands to reason that you will take on aspects of the environ. Knowing on a conscious level that it is an illogical and mainly reprehensible position to be 'racist' does not change the fact that your perceptions of other races, religions, and even genders are constructed on a foundation that are skewed by the flaws of your teachers.

The stress of being onstage, afraid, and terrifyingly heckled has simply cracked the thin veneer he has used to conceal from himself the ugly nature of his racisim. guess what Mike? you're a racist.

[wolf]

This was a primary topic of conversation at work tonight.

Since we watched the video earlier this evening youtube has put an age restriction on it, so you can't view it without logging in. Is he blaming the tirade on drug or alcohol use yet? My money was on "exhaustion," but I tend to back the longshots.

[Sun_Sparkz]

yes he crossed a line but should this really be headlining news?

& is everyone just not hearing that mr roberts was also called a "white boy" as an INSULT as well?

[xoxoxoBruce]

I really don't want to defend Richards or what he did/said. I just want to make the point that if someone loses it, the remarks they make don't necessarily reveal hidden bias or hate.

LJ, I know you don't like to be called a car salesman. I understand why and that's cool. But I also know if I want to hurt your feelings/piss you off, that will do it. That doesn't mean I secretly think you are a car salesman, but don't say it the rest of the time, to be politically correct.
Not the best example but I hope you follow me drift.

Racist remarks? Certainly. Racist? Not necessarily.
When someone gets aggravated to the point they snap out, completely lose their cool, they will likely say anything they can think of to hurt the target's feelings. They will seize on anything discernible about their target, color, ethnicity, sex, size, clothing and distinguishing marks like tattoos, birth defects or religious medals. Anything to make the insults as personal as possible.

You don't have to be a closet racist to be aware of racist insults. As a matter of fact, a true racist, would be less aware the remarks are insulting.
During a tirade, all the things you've learned are politically correct, become ammunition when turned around.

[Undertoad]

I watched the video. This is not a case of racism; it's a case of trying to address hecklers in a crazy/ranty way and failing to engage the audience correctly in order to do it. It's inexperienced standup comedy.

Remember this guy is a comic actor, not a comic.

When standup comics evaluate each other, one key question is how long they have been doing comedy. This is because it's rare to see a comic who can handle any crowd correctly without doing it for 10 years, to experience every kind of crowd.

If you are going to rant like that and engage in a shocking sort of line to get their full attention, the crowd has to be on the comic's side. And they have to know it's an act, so there's this weird line a comic walks to let the audience know it's not serious. And they have to be in full control of the show and the reaction.

People are linking to Bill Hicks' masterful heckler handling. Hicks was unafraid to confront any audience, and the audience knew it. That's how he could scream here at the top of his lungs at hecklers "Hitler had the right idea!" but you know it's all part of an act, and he seems out of control but he is completely in control.

[Shawnee123]

I paralleled this, in my wacky little brain, with the whole taser/cop/student thing.

How far is too far? If you are at a comedy show, heckling, you expect the comedian to react...that is your goal. Did Richards OVERREACT? Absolutely, just as Taser Cop did...only Richards did it with words.

I hate that word. I can't bring myself to say that word. And I am of the belief that a word is just a word. Whoever decided that the combination f-u-c-k was obscene, whereas fornicate is not? It is the underlying meaning behind the word that makes it obscene; it is culture which dictates "good" and "bad" words.

I'm not condoning what Mr Richards did, I condemn those actions. But do I condemn him as a full blown all-out skin-headed racist? No.

I couldn't listen to all of it very well, but I'm glad someone pointed out that he was being called a white boy. How is that any different? Just words, again, but the meaning was clear, the attitude was coercive. There's just not a word that is viewed with the disdain the "n" word gets; honkey doesn't really come close.

Perhaps they should have been tasered? Perhaps Richards should have been tasered?

[lhatcher]

I want to know why it's all about what Mr Richards said and no one is looking back at the heckler and telling him heckling someone is very, very rude. To me, heckling is nothing more than trying to put someone off his game and set him up to screw up. I think that behavior is just as bad as the reaction he got from Richards. Why is it okay to be so rude to someone and then get upset at the normal human reaction?

[Shawnee123]

"Once the word comes out of your mouth and you don't happen to be African-American, then you have a whole lot of explaining," Rodriguez told CNN. "Freedom of speech has its limitations and I think Michael Richards found those limitations."

So now Paul Rodriguez is in charge of the "limitations" of freedom of speech? There isn't a smiley with an eye roll big enough for me to insert here.

(Excuse the pun above, it just kind of came out.)

:::braces for inevitable flames:::

[DanaC]

& is everyone just not hearing that mr roberts was also called a "white boy" as an INSULT as well?

'White boys' were never held as slaves, discriminated against with Jim Crow laws and strung up by blacks if they crossed the line. It is not an equivalent.

If he'd just called them Nigger then maybe, just maybe that wouldn't actually make him a racist, but to call on imagery of the violent repression of African Americans during America's ugly past makes it deeply racist.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by DanaC

'White boys' were never held as slaves, discriminated against with Jim Crow laws and strung up by blacks if they crossed the line. It is not an equivalent.

True enough.

However, whoever's been oppressing them for 300 years must be much older than I.

My people were just killed, raped, and driven off their land...put on reservations where they belonged so the "white boys" could have their land to keep their slaves. I don't often go to COMEDY venues and call out people based on their race, however.

[DanaC]

That's because you have more sense. Calling someone out on their race is pointless and insulting. As I said, if he'd have just called them niggers, it would have been insulting, but not necessarily indicative of true racism on his part...more a desire to hurt/insult. That he made reference to them being strung up however, is a step beyond that. That he makes reference to them being so much braver now (as opposed to back then when they were presumably kept in a state of fear, the clear implication being that that was a better state of affairs) is a step beyond.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by DanaC

That's because you have more sense. Calling someone out on their race is pointless and insulting. As I said, if he'd have just called them niggers, it would have been insulting, but not necessarily indicative of true racism on his part...more a desire to hurt/insult. That he made reference to them being strung up however, is a step beyond that. That he makes reference to them being so much braver now (as opposed to back then when they were presumably kept in a state of fear, the clear implication being that that was a better state of affairs) is a step beyond.

He totally overreacted. It was horrible to watch. And I concede that would those particular comments come from just nowhere? In some ways I think no way...you would have to have some deep rooted racist beliefs for those words to come out of your mouth.

But I know in anger I have said some horrible things, things that made me sick even as I said them (not racist things, but still bad things)...and wished for all the world I could take them back...but those incidents were bourne of confusion, hurt, anger, defenselessness, or whatever equally horrible emotions I felt at the time. People strike out in ways that I think scares even themselves; where did that person come from?

I just hope everyone gets beyond this issue. When the media frenzy dies down, are we going to care what Michael Richards really believes? Did we care before? No.

[DanaC]

Oh I totally agree. We are after all only human and as such capable of surprising ourselves at times, in unpleasant ways. I don't necessairly think this means he is a dyed in the wool racist. But it does suggest he harbours at some level a racist consciousness.

It'll die down. We have a saying in the UK....today's newspaper is tomorrow's chip paper.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by DanaC

It'll die down. We have a saying in the UK....today's newspaper is tomorrow's chip paper.

I love that. Chip as in "cow chips" or chips like fish and chips? :p

Yep, the newpaper is only so much fish wrap!