'Kramer' Mistake

Comedian Michael Richards said Monday that he spewed racial epithets during a stand-up routine because he lost his cool while being heckled and not because he's a bigot....'Seinfeld' co-star sorry..., Lynn Elber, AP, The Denver Post,11/21/2006

When Michael Richards mistook the Laugh Factory for a street corner in Bensonhurst a couple of nights ago, he must have felt somewhat secure after his gangster rhetoric was over. Despite outraging both audience members and reporters, he must have known that people regarded as liberals "make mistakes" (i.e., acts correctable with due apologies and the invocation of liberal gods). On the other hand, people regarded as conservatives only "reveal their true selves" (i.e., not correctable without severe reprimands, public confessions, preferably in tears, and rehab -- see Mel Gibson.) But if you saw the video, what's clear doesn't look like a mistake. For one, Richards is an actor and standup comedian. Actors and standup comedians, out of professional necessity, learn to judge their audiences for what "plays" or what they can do onstage. Richards clearly thought he could get away with his outburst, that there were people in the audience sympathetic to his malicious descriptions of a few, troublesome individuals. Afterwards, the MSM generally agreed that he had made a mistake. Give it a rest. In the heat of anger, we too often reveal what we were afraid to say in a calmer mood. In a rage, when Michael Richards saw an offending black face, he acted out his racial attitudes. Don't be fooled. It was no mistake. He may get over what he feels about blacks folks, and we hope that he will, but it won't be because of an appearance on Letterman. It will because he can't deny what he feels any longer. That's where self-knowledge begins, not in begging people to accept a vicious opinion as a "mistake."

Luther