Wow, it took me a while to read through all these posts but I'm glad to see that you all here are enjoying this thread and really getting into it!
To think we're nearly at 20 pages!
Someone said previously I needed to change the title of this thread because people here are posting stuff that's not YouTube related. Well, I specifically made this thread to be YouTube related because YouTube is one of the most popular video sites on the web. I would appreciate it if we kept to YouTube material.
I've also read on the whole Michael Richards controversy and I can't post my message without putting my own thoughts into this matter:
Now, Michael Richards is one of the most funniest people I've ever seen on television. His antics never failed to make me laugh on Seinfeld and even on his short lived "The Michael Richards Show". That said, when I saw the video of him losing his cool at the nightclub, I was pretty shocked. Yes, what he said was wrong and there was no excuse for him to do it even when the audience members (especially black audience members) were giving him a hard time. However, the matter of Richards being racist is something I can't agree with for the following reasons:
1. The man was angry and frustrated from being heckled by black people. Yes, the black people in the audience had no right to heckle his performance and being pushed around by black people can drive people to use the N-word as a sense of retaliation. What white person wouldn't be tempted to use the N-word on a black person should the said black person give them a hard time and put them down? Richards knew the word was wrong but couldn't hold back his anger and frustration. This lashout can't mean he's a racist because he doesn't go around spouting the word to his fellow colleagues or deliberately choosing to avoid black people prior to this incident. If he did do that, the press would've been all over this long ago.
2. The man
said he was sorry. He even went so far to go on national television and even wanting to apologize to the hecklers themselves
in person for what he's done. Now, I know that there is the argument of him not showing up to the comedy club 24 hours later after the incident to apologize in person but think about it: here is Michael Richards, a TV celebrity who just went on a racial slur tirade the previous night. The whole country, maybe even the world had just known about it. What can he do when he figured out what wrong he's done? It only takes a day or less for reality to sink into him after his anger had worn out that he knew he f*cked up. However, I don't think even Richards knew what to do or what's going to happen to him and I bet he was trying to figure out a more plausible solution. It's not something he can just fix in 24 hours because he knows that people would still be angry with him. Damage of this magnitude needs to be repaired slowly but carefully. You have to let the shit storm blow over before you clean up the shit. That's what I believe Richards felt that he needed to do. He had to let the whole shock and awe die down a bit before he can step forward and formally repair the damage. However, classic American greed is preventing Richards from doing this since the lawyer of the two black victims won't let Richards apologize in person because she won't get her money. In the end, the mole hill gets turned into another mountain.
3. As a jewish man, Richards should know firsthand about the prejudices that surround him and his people that date back to World War II. Richards understands that the jewish people were persecuted for their creed and this persecution shouldn't be any different for the black community. Richards doesn't want to associate himself with those persecuters but he knew what kind of venom they spewed and learned it. He unfortunately spewed that venom at the comedy club and now regretted what happened. He knew what he did was hypocritical and wrong and he needed to make up for it.
4. If Richards really is a pure racist, he would've done more than just spout the N-word at black people, he would've refused to work with or flat out avoid any black person. Nothing like that has happened in the past, so why should this little incident change who he is?
If the whole racial tirade incident hasn't blown over in 2006, it'll definitely blow over in 2007. There is also one other thing that Richards had said in that video that although it was spouted in anger, it does provoke thought:
"You see what lies beneath?"
What he's trying to say is that we all have the means to be racist and the means to call any black person the N-word. We keep it down in ourselves but we don't let it out because we
know that it's wrong. We
know that it hurts. We
know that this isn't the kind of behaviour that should Americans who they are. We don't use these slurs because we respect those of different colours and creed. Racism can lie beneath all of us but we have the will power to prevent it from rising up. And should it rise up, it's our responsibility to keep it back down, for the good of us and others.
