Kramer Unleashes Racist Tirade

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
yolland said:


Do you think lack of social experience with those groups might have something to do with it?

Actually, I think it's the opposite. It's being around the different groups for so long that seems to have engendered the prejudice. It's kind of like working through a second, and much more deep-seated ethnocentricism that comes after the initial culture shock has worn off. It comes out of THINKING you "know" or "understand" the ins and outs of another culture, but in reality that "knowledge" or "understanding" is still viewed through my own cultural lenses. It's the kind of thing where you say "Oh, I know how these people work." What makes it all the more tricky is that it's based to a degree on "experience." Perhaps you've been let down multiple times by the rampant inefficiencies of the local government or it seems that every indigenous person you know has a government job and pretty soon you start to feel you've got them "figured out" and prejudices and stereotypes begin to harden. It's no coincidence that the "negative" aspects of the culture are what you "learn" and so after awhile, when something bad happens it's easy to find yourself saying, "Those damn (you fill in the blank)."

And the irony is that I have good friends in those cultural groups and I tend to give them a "pass' while still blanketing "everyone" else in the ethnic group with same prejudices. This is, I think, what happened with my white friends when I was growing up. When they'd go off on "n-ggrs", they'd always have to add the disclaimer. . "Oh, but not you Sean."

I've often joked that years overseas tends to make you scornful of the different ethnic groups you live with (the "colonial" mentality I call it) and at the same time scornful of all the close-minded, culturally unexposed Americans back home, which leaves you quite a misanthrope!

Obviously, I hope that being aware of all this helps me combat my own racist tendencies that much better.


yolland said:
That must be a pretty discomfiting feeling--I can sort of, very vaguely, relate to it but not much. Knowing that someone is trying unnaturally hard to like you for any other reason than that they just do like you--not a good feeling.

I don't think it was so much that they were friends with me BECAUSE of my race. It's just that they were able to use their friendship with me to prove (often to me after some inappropriate comment) that they weren't racist.

The whole "I'm not a racist" thing can be a bit worrisome because often what's implied in that statement is the follow up: "It's not racism. I'm just telling the 'truth.'"
 
MrsSpringsteen said:
tmz.com

Did Michael Richards attack the Jews? Two Los Angeles residents have come forward and said that's exactly what happened last Spring at L.A. comedy club, The Improv.

Carol Oschin and J.P. Fillet say they were at The Improv on April 22 when Richards took the stage. They say that in the middle of Richards' skit, a man in the audience said something to the comedian, when Richards allegedly launched into an anti-Semitic rant. According to Oschin, Richards screamed at the audience member, "You fucking Jew. You people are the cause of Jesus dying."


Oschin says the rant continued and Richards stormed off the stage. Oschin and Fillet say that, at first, they thought Richards' tirade was part of his act, but claim that it quickly became apparent it was not.

Richards' publicist, Howard Rubenstein, confirmed to TMZ that Richards did make derogatory comments about Jews, but says it was part of his act. Rubenstein says Richards told him, "I'm not anti-Semitic. I was playing a role and poking fun at the rednecks."

http://us.video.aol.com/video.index.adp?mode=1&pmmsid=1775870

if this is, indeed, true, then it sounds as if this is all part of richards' act when he is heckled, and that he's simply just not very good.
 
and of course, we all know how the media jumps all over someone when they're down.

i heard richards actually kills babies and eats their mothers, guys.

oh, and i bet he hates midgets too. you could tell by the way he was looking at micky in those episodes that he had something against him cause of his height or lackthereof.
 
But it's also right that you shouldn't just believe every single word said in the media.

People often come up stating something that's not true, and media jumps on it to make some more money out of it.
 
I saw the tape, and I still think my wife may be on to something. There is a moment where he breaks out of his tirade....Where it seems that he is in character. He gets heckled again, and then loses it...He also seems shocked that people are leaving, which makes me think even more, that at the start of it, he was in character mode.

Still, he was wrong. There was no excuse for it.
 
Dreadsox said:
I saw the tape, and I still think my wife may be on to something. There is a moment where he breaks out of his tirade....Where it seems that he is in character. He gets heckled again, and then loses it...He also seems shocked that people are leaving, which makes me think even more, that at the start of it, he was in character mode.

I think you're right. He was trying to be with-it, like the kids, but it just went horribly wrong. Things tend to go that way when you have limited talent.
 
Vincent Vega said:
But it's also right that you shouldn't just believe every single word said in the media.

People often come up stating something that's not true, and media jumps on it to make some more money out of it.

:huh: What's the not true part? Did someone dub the words over the video?
 
i reckon there's dirt on all of you, and could EASILY be exposed if the cameras were on you as much as they're on celebrities.

people see stories like this and they jump on it because it makes them feel better about themselves. "oh, at least I'M not like that!"

bullshit.

you might not be a racist, but the way people go on and on about this (the fucking winnipeg sun of all newspapers decided to do their feature editorial on this, tell me this isn't overblown) tells me they're not interested in racism itself but rather the fact they get to fling shit at someone new.

it's possible for one to be truly sorry for something, you know.

no matter how horrible the crime or offence, it IS possible the instigator feels complete remorse.

... but then again, it wouldn't appear the lot of you give a shit.

your hands are clean of all that's wrong.

none of this makes what he said right, however, but the mob mentality is ridiculous.
 
Yes I share your concern Zoomerang96. Fairly clearly neither of us supports racism, but the sheer spectacle is over the top at this point.

As I think I said on an earlier page (ha!), even if Richards was entirely insincere in going on television to apologise, he nonetheless did apologise. Appearances have been preserved.
 
martha said:


Did you see the tape?



Yes, and I didn't mean this incident in particular.

BonoVoxSupastar said:


:huh: What's the not true part? Did someone dub the words over the video?

Sorry that I didn't make it clear. I have seen the tape, believe what there is to see, and think it's an awful incident that shouldn't happen ever.

My comment was meant more in genera and not to the ideo, but to quotes in newspapers published laterl. It's easy now for everybody to come up and say Michael Richards said that and did that. And the media will write it down immediately and publish it.

I don't want to insinuate (hope that's the right term) anyone to be a liar. But I also would like to raise the question if we can believe every single word said in every single newspaper? We shouldn't jump on everything and make it a fact only because it is written in the newspaper or told on CNN.

Here in Germany it's pretty obvious with a recent debate about video games. Two weeks ago a 18-year old went amok in his former school injuring 37 people.

He wrote diaries, made movies and published texts on the internet about his feelings, his view on society and his reasnos for the amok.

First politicians, and then media jumped on the train that he played computer games and said more or less single voice that egoshooters were the one and only reason for the amok. They totally ignored what he gave as reasons.

Then RTL, the biggest television company in Europe with the biggest market share, published his last statement on their website, stating it was the unvorrected original.

What they obviously didn't know , or simply forgot, is that the original statement was available on the internet, and that several other media has published the text as well.

Comparing the text on the RTL page with the original showed that RTL just cut out many sentences. The very first one was a sentence in which the amok-runner criticised the media.

They also cut out other sentences and even whole text passages.
Remember, they said on their page this is the original text, uncorrected. They didn't say they left it uncut in particular, but they should have mentioned that they did cut out some passages.

So the uncomfortable criticism of the media and other parts were just left out, presenting another picture of his thoughts.

Still they go on saying that the reason for that amok have been computer games.

I don't want in any way either excuse what the amok-runner did, and his reasons were just sick, nor do I try to excuse what Michael Richards said.

I just wanted to say more in general that we shouldn't blindly follow the words written in newspapers or said in TV news.

I also always have to think of the fortuneteller who came up in about the middle of 1998 saying he saw the dead of Lady Di two years ago.
 
Last edited:
I don't think anyone here is saying that their hands are clean or that they are perfect by any means or that they don't have prejudices and express them - I'm certainly not by a long shot, nor do I ignore his remorse over it.

I merely think it's worth discussing when someone uses overtly racist language in public and the effect and power that language still has, so shoot me :shrug: I don't want to hang Kramer or stick a fork up his butt...

Maybe, possibly something to think about. Whether she's right or wrong about it in one's personal opinion, still worth thinking about. Speaking for myself as a white person who will never know what it's like to be a minority, it's their perspective that truly matters to me.

boston.com

If Michael Richards wants to get right with the black community, he'll have to do better than beg for forgiveness from Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. So says Janet Langhart, the former Channel 5 newsgal who knows a thing or two about bigotry. "His comments really struck a nerve with me," Langhart told us yesterday, referring to the "Seinfeld" star's torrent of hate speech. "We're only a word away from going back to the dark ages of Klansmen." Langhart, who's African-American, has been married for 11 years to former defense secretary Bill Cohen, with whom she's just written a book called "Love in Black and White: A Memoir of Race, Religion, and Romance." Due out in February, the book includes a play, written by Langhart, about a mythical conversation between Anne Frank and Emmett Till. "If Richards could read it, he might say, 'Whoa, what did I do?' " says Langhart. "As a culture, it seems we don't learn our lessons." Much like Mel Gibson's rant and Senator George Allen's "Macaca" moment, she said Richards's slurs have stirred powerful emotions. (No kidding. Actor Jamie Foxx has threatened to beat Richards to a bloody pulp.) "When people who're highly recognizable say [ racist or anti-Semitic ] things," said Langhart, "it sends a message like an electric shock that it's OK to treat people any kind of way."
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom