Kramer - Not so funny

The situation with Michael Richards (Kramer from the sitcom Seinfeld) and what he said at the Los Angeles Comedy show was a lot more disturbing when watched than what was reported. (Click here to watch the tirade, Warning its pretty offensive and loud).The way he used the n-word, the painful memories he brought back with comments that started with "50 years ago...." were really bad. The weird part is, everybody knows the heavy meaning of the n-word meant, everybody knows what was happening to black slaves hundreds of years ago, but ironically it took one of the funniest guys on TV in recent history to bring out the significance of the word in the most disgusting of way possible. It was tirade full of cyanide, laced with venom. To be fair Richards later apologized for his tirade.

Now as usual when any controversial event related to race pop up in the States specifically there are two groups that collide. You got the bleeding hearts, lefties, and minority groups that will yell and scream at the hint of discrimination or racism. Most of the time I think they do a disservice to the cause because when a dog barks at everything that passes buy eventually no one will pay attention to the barking even if there is a thief entering the house. People become apathetic to these minority causes because these groups make a big deal about everything. This group also ignores racist comments and attitudes thrown at white people by minorities which annoy average and civil white people. Not only that but it gives fuel to the actual racist whites. "See they act like this towards us, thats black people for you, thats Arabs for you, thats sooooo Latino man!!" they will say. Minorities should not be allowed to get away with every comment or uncivil behavior because they are a minority. Also please lets not be soooooo sensitive towards every interaction between whites and minorities, that makes everyone around tense.

The second group is the right wing, no big deal, lets keep going, don't' focus too hard on racist remarks group. I think I don't' like them even more. This is what I call the Foxnews group (its not just Foxnews but that channel is the epitome of the mindset and style used). They are so smart. Watch Fox for a bit and watch media manipulation at its best. Like in the Michael Richars situation they will not be caught dead saying something stupid like "Its freedom of speech and he has a right to say what he wants" because they know that even though technically they are right, what he did was still wrong. No, instead they will first break the shock of the comments by saying something like "Richard has some interesting remarks on stage as he breaks down because he was being heckled" so now it sounds like he said some "eye raising" comments not brutal and second it was provoked, so therefore we should not take Richard's words to be what he actually meant. The person was angry and although not justified to say what he said, he was still provoked nonetheless.

This will be followed by the argument of "Why the hell is Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle and all of them black and Latino comedians allowed to use words like 'craker, hick, redneck' with no consequence but if a white comedian uses the word 'nigger' its the end of the world??" I agree with that thought to a certain extent. It has become cool in the mainstream media (and in regular everyday life) to make fun of white people in front of white people (also white people putting themselves down and making fun of how white they are) in society today. Its not that cool. If its in good nature and there is no real implication involved then maybe. But why is Chris Rock allowed to make fun of white people and someone like Richards can't make fun of black people. The answer lies in the fact that Michael Richards a) didn't make fun of Black people...what he did was not making fun, that was a racist explosion. He just kept yelling "nigger" and he brought back history that WAS REAL. He didn't have a punchline, there was no ending, it was just a racist rant. b) Racist jokes were created equal. Thats because history hasn't treated us all equal. Its more wrong to make fun of historically oppressed people than others. Even if the level of joke is the same, making fun of the historically oppressed is a painful reminder with no real humor in it.

The closest example to how touchy the subject is jokes about women in the workplace. Imagine you tell your female co-worker who is learning a new procedure at work "This might be too hard for you, maybe you should go back to the kitchen, its more comfortable for you." Thats not funny. That hurts because it WAS REAL at one point that women were treated as such. But if you tell your male co-worker "you are just like the rest of the men, lazy, no attention to detail...." Thats more funny because it doesn't matter if men are lazy or they don't pay attention to detail but the fact is at no point in history were they treated on those basis and had to fight for their rights.

This is why Kramer's comments were ruthless. He brought out shit that hurts and it wasn't a joke. He also went back to a very touchy and hurtful part of history. Thats whats wrong with it.