Unforgiven

Yeah, I saw it. It made me sad. And it was uncalled for. He just about started a riot.

Michael Richards. Kramer. From Seinfeld. Couple nights ago Richards was on stage at a comedy club in LA, heckled by a couple of black audience members, and off he went on a rant about niggers and mother fuckers. Sorry to be graphic. It's a graphic subject. Caught on tape. YouTube. And an apology via satellite on Letterman. He was all hunched up and awkward. Kramer, it seems, wasn't so much a character as an alterego. Does anyone else understand that?

As for the two Afro-American hecklers, they've hired Gloria Allred (Discrimination Attorney & Feminist Lawyer (that's what she calls herself (did you ever notice that she wears all red? (Isn't that clever? (She frightens me. (I'm afraid she'll castrate me.)))))) and are taking legal action against him. So let me get this straight -- they interrupt his act with very insulting comments ("you're not funny" to a comedian is about as invalidating as you can get) and when this high-strung performer engages them in his intense and free-association way, and after they in turn respond by calling him "cracker" and suchlike -- after all this, they not only don't like the result, but sue him?

There is an implicit contract in such venues. People go to laugh, and performers try to make them laugh. Sometimes the performer isn't funny. People feel cheated. The proper response to that is to ask for a refund. Not attack the performer. In turn, performers should maintain professional standards. Both parties broke the contract. The party that started the conflict, is suing. Hmm.

I've paid attention to Richards' career since 1980. I knew his aunt then (she owned the royalties to the first crossword dictionary, as I recall), and he was on a Saturday Night Live ripoff called Fridays. It was really bad. I remember a skit that was a parody of the Three Stooges, as coke heads. Ho. Ho. Richards did a recurring scene where he was a weird kid in a sandbox, melting toy soldiers with a magnifying glass or matches or something. Slow and not at all funny. At all. There was a voiceover of a mother who always yelled at him -- "Just you get in here right now, little mister." There was a scene of Richards at the door of his father's apartment, begging to be let it. "I have no son," said the father. "I don't know you." Turned out that Richards was at the wrong door. It wasn't meant to be funny.

And of course there was the time that guest host Andy Kaufman refused to read his lines, and Richards angrily got the cue cards and slammed them down in front of Kaufman -- who threw a glass of water in Richards' face. The cast got into a brawl. The show was live, mind you. The scene was reenacted for the movie, Man on the Moon. Turns out Kaufman and Richards hatched it up beforehand. Kaufman pulled the same water stunt with a wrestler on Letterman, I recall. That was also a hoax. That Kaufman. That Richards.

After Seinfeld, Richards' career tanked. Failed sitcom, reported nervous breakdown, failed movie. And a couple nights ago, he made another bad career choice.

So what.

I saw Paul Rodriguez, the fat spick faggot comedian, acting as spokes-hole for the comedy club. "Michael Richards will not be allowed on this stage, until, until ... he gets permission from the African American community." And the tone of pansy indignation dripped from his lips like ... well, you know. He was winging it. He didn't know how long Richards wouldn't be allowed to appear. What sounds good, Paul? Oh, how about "until he gets absolution"? And be sure to sound really disapproving. A little vocal tremor, maybe, like the PC pussy you are.

Rodriguez is a hypocrite. I've heard his racist act. Racist? My race is good, yours (mine) is bad. Now laugh. To me, that's racist.

A hep radio station played a clip of some black comedian ranting about whitebread cracker turkeys. Not talking about some kind of sandwich. Nobody appeared on BET to apologize about that. Entertainment Tonight didn't have a word to say. Hmm.

I could not care less about racist black and Mexican comedians. I know they're racist. Don't care. They mean nothing to me. What I do care about is the double standard. You don't get affirmative action, plus an eternal sense of grievance. One buys off the other. That's the deal. You're being bought. Bought and paid for. Like chattel. Like a slave on the block. (Pretty funny, huh? I'm a white racist comedian, and very insensitive.)

So there it is. Richards is an emotional man with issues, and lashed out at people who were lashing out at him. The lash he used is, historically speaking, unfortunate. But if Paula Poundstone can feel up her pubescent foster daughter and friend and be forgiven, I should think Richards need not be ruined.

How soon he might be absolved (partially) will be a measure of the emotional IQ of the "African American community" -- to cite the phrase of a wetback queer. People are offended, in such cases of impersonal racism, because they feel vulnerable. The racist words of a racist black, or Mexican, comedian mean nothing to me, because such words are about the speaker, not about me. But not everyone has that perspective. This is why blacks can call each other nigger til the sun sets, but I'd better not. The anger/fear emotion kicks in, and takes shape as anger. In the past, fear would have been appropriate. I understand, in the general. This is another reason that I don't even need to forgive. There is no offence.

What. What. Oh ... "fat spick faggot" ... "wetback queer." I, I ... I've been on edge lately. I'm just angry. I don't know what happened. I don't understand.

Oh god, what have I done.

*****

Once upon a time, as I have sometimes said, there was a man who was a teacher. Generally he taught teens, but one year he had a class of little ones, mostly Spanish-speaking background, but that class had some black children. (It’s okay to say “black”, right?) One little boy did have some pretty aggravated behaviour problems, but the man was a patient man, and the boy made good progress. One day the man had the child stay in for recess (remember recess?) and the little boy was extremely sad that none of his protestations or excuses could get him out of this. And then he said, “It’s because I’m black.” The man squatted down, and took hold of the boy's hands, and looked him in the eyes, and talked to him a bit. And the child threw himself into my arms like he’d never let go, and sobbed to break your heart.

Gentleness matters.

Here’s the point. Some stupid adults had taught this child a very evil excuse. I suppose they’d never heard that most famous idea of Martin King’s -- about the content of a man’s character. Perhaps they were preoccupied looking about for throwing-sized stones to hurl at racists. May the Lord rebuke them.

*****

We are all fools.


J