Kramer snaps

I dont get it. So he starts throwing out "nigger" left and right but no one is upset that the black guy is throwing back "cracker-ass" and the like?Not that I think Richards was correct in simply throwing it out there the way he did - that was just stupid - but the idea that people are MORTIFIED that he dare say a RACIAL SLUR in the year 2006 is fucking absurd. It's not like the guy was Mr Rodgers or Captain Kangaroo.

I'm sure this wouldn't be news if Richards just called him an asshole or a shithole - but even then, it could be construed as racial since he's white and the guy was black.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Skexis

The kind of soundbyte shit that people can't respond to and explain with a soundbyte of their own.

Exactly. While there is a bit of missing footage from this "homemade video", theres a CNN blurb on YouTube where they interview someone who was in the audience. Not only is the person interviewed BLACK - but he also gets a number of things wrong (by design or not, who's to say?) CNN also doesn't run any of the actual footage from the club, either.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Devoxy

I think the real question is whether or not "Kramer" is a big enough celeb that a lot of people will care.

I think a better question is if a "morally certain" American public will ever let him live this down.

I bet you most people in that audience were white anyway; I don't see Richards crossing a lot of racial barriers.

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Originally Posted by Spike

But to be on topic, he's an idiot for using racial slurs to get back at someone else being an asshole.

I think that if he used NIGGER as a point of topic - if he threw the EXPLAINATION of his use - into the crowd, it would've been a victory like the internet has never seen.

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Originally Posted by a lurker

one can only assume that darkies understand that insults are contextual,

Assuming that all blacks are not savages, of course.

Seriously though, one cannot deny that the word has a certain disgusting levity to it. You curse people out when you say nigger. Not nigga but nigger.

However, it should also be said that the word was used properly. Michael Richards wanted to insult those people and struck at a base nerve with a lot of people - not just blacks. The word is there to be insulting, obviously and it's a great, gallant thing that we're able to have the choice of flinging racial slurs at anyone we chose (thought the effects of that are ours to reap, obviously)

The whole thing boils down to White Man's Guilt in the audience and wouldn't be such a big deal if it wasn't from a celeb. I bet you dollars to donuts we wouldn't have seen this if it was Bobcat Goldwaith screaming about chinks.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Minion

For once, someone says the n-word and black people aren't overracting to it.

Try turning on the news. It's all people are talking about, apparently.

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Originally Posted by ElectricSheep

Shit, you can hear on a CD when someone was making too much noise and heckling Dane Cook, he didn't totally flip out.

The major difference is that Dane Cook is never, ever funny.

George Carlin memorablity ripped a heckler apart during one of this stand-up acts, screaming that he would kick the guy's ass, fuck his mom in the ass and hope his kids died in a car fire. Yet NOW or children's rights advocates didn't flip their shit over this in the 70s.

Know why? Just like those guys in the balcony - they deserved what they got. The only stigma is that Richards called them EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE, sadly. "You're a nigger" is a terrible thing to say - but BLACK PEOPLE who are in CHEAP SEATS and TALKING SHIT is pretty goddamned stereotypical of NIGGERS just like BEING HORRIFIED about a racial slur not pointed at them is stereotypical WHITE.

God help us. A jew berates a black man. At this pace, dogs and cats will be living together in no time.

FELIPE NO

The two guys who Richards called out were on the Today show this morning. Apparently, they're attempting legal action against him, using a screaming hatchet-faced female lawyer that looks so lesbian she could chase most lesbians away.

Matt Lauer, who I find entertaining but pretty cloying, brought up the point that as terrible as Richard's outburst was - wasn't it free speech. And one of the two guys said "I think free speech needs to have a limit".

I find that infinitely more offensive than someone screaming racial slurs.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by rocketdog

I think the problem isn't Minion but the fact that you are all kids (and yes I'll name names here, Deni, Lehah, Lurker) and are still moved by words, like nigger.

I'm pretty sure that the only people on this board who are older than me are Julia, Alice and someone on staff. How old are you anyway?

As for that word, I throw racial slurs out like beads at Mardi Gras. Perhaps you haven't been paying attention to my posts in the past. I'm not moved by the words myself - but to say them is to obviously make a reaction. Thats the reason we have a spoken language - to get a point across. And if screaming "N" is one of them - then so be it.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Minion

Is there really anyone ou there who actually deserves to be called a nigger?

A nigger is to a black man as white trash is to a white man.

There are many black people who are worthy of respect - these are people that work hard, go to their jobs every day, have the self-respect to look presentable and try to do their best.

A nigger is someone who stands in line for food stamps, who's cheap with money and generous with his dick. He's tasteless and classless. He cares more about his clothes than he does about his child support check. Similarities with white trash are very obvious.

Certainly, there are various shades of grey to this but in the end, I think everyone knows the difference between the two.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Skexis

when he could have called them a variety of other, more accurate insults.

Black people buying cheap seats, talking shit and then playing victim? Jesus Christ, all you need is a welfare line and it's the very definition of nigger!

Originally Posted by Skexis

I think you know that, in the end, these two are intrinsically not the same. People don't call each other white trash when they have nothing else to fall back on.

As a retort - you're correct in that I've never called a black man white trash. He is obviously NOT white, hence the word NIGGER.

They are very much the same thing, though I suppose racial class may make "white trash" a little less insulting than nigger.

Originally Posted by Skexis

If you call someone a nigger, then it says you've stopped thinking in terms of individuals, and are looking for class labels, the same way you might call someone poor.

I call people poor all the time. I also call people WTP all the time (White Trash Poor).

From a first person account, I can tell you that I'd much sooner call a black man a nigger than I would call him a bitch. Black men HATE that word and I can tell you they reacted way worse to being called that then the "N" word.

I call people poor though. Obviously, I may be an exception because I try to use every racial slur I can find - nigger, wetback, slant-eyes, zipperhead, Carl Winslow, paddy wagon - because its as empowering to use those words properly as it is to use words like apotheosis or dodecaphonicism. Obviously, talking about twelve tone and shouting PORCH MONKEY are not the same in the eyes of others - but they both show you know what you're talking about.

Originally Posted by Skexis

It's not just derrogatory. It's a way of saying to a person, "You are insignificant because of your position."

I think if you're getting called out on a stereotype class issue and you're getting offended, you don't have any right to leave your house. People judge people anyway, they may not say it but we're all guilty. Why do you think so many white women have an automatic aversion to blacks? (I can't say, but I've seen it way more than I can think of)

Originally Posted by Skexis

When all Richards had to say was "Nigger," he was essentially telling the audience that that's all he needed to say. And I don't think for a minute that's true.

No. No no no. See, while Richards was probably wrong in SCREAMING that word, he was absolutely right in calling them nigger. If you were to do a farce about black people - how would you do it? Cheap black people with 6 kids, living on welfare and food stamps and driving a brand new Audi.

As an aside, after seeing the two gentleman who were called "nigger" on the news this morning, they actually were NOT very "niggerish". The one who talked more was very well spoken, even though I largely disagreed with his remarks about victimization. Both were well dressed and you can tell that it wasn't that someone gave them a collared shirt.

However, the idea that blacks are bitching about victimization from a JEW of all people is not lost on me. Outside of the Irish, is there any other culture in history that has been more shit upon than the Jews? Don't get me wrong - I am not attempting to play down slavery or what-have-you - but have we gotten to the point where two victimized races are going at it? Isn't this one of those things that you'd find at the ends of the universe or something?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Denicalis

Especially considering neither Lurker, LeHah, or myself said the word nigger was as offensive as these two men are making it out to be.

Frankly, I'd be pissed off too if I were them - for being caught acting like the racial stereotype. It's embarassing but all they were doing was acting like every idiot racist makes blacks out to be. "Lets sit in cheap seats and talk loudly amongst ourselves and heckle the white guy from that show."

Maybe Richards should've used another word - but maybe their mothers should've raised them better.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Balcony Heckler

I myself never support using that word period for what he used

Please tell me a time when its appropriate to use the word nigger. Because, see, you can't say theres a time for racial slurs and theres not a time for them. Obviously, they're there to get a reaction, so saying them at any point would be inappropriate.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Capo

Calling someone a nigger takes no comedic skill, and even less values.

I disagree. I think it depends on the situation; it was obviously okay to say nigger 140 years ago.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Capo

As far as I can tell from the terrible quality video, this stand-up act didn't take place on a plantation in the 1830's.

That doesn't defeat the point I made. As with any word, its all about using it in the right place and context.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by knkwzrd

Unless you provide a "right place and context" besides 140 years ago

How about in the south? How about amongst friends whom you feel comfortable with? How about in the privacy of your own home?

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by a lurker

There are many people making statements about the time and place for racist terms, about the shock value of hearing it out of an unexpected mouth and about devaluing the term entirely, but that's not what Richards was doing. He was trying to insult them. There's nothing postmodern or clever about it, it was pure anger.

Fucking A, man. Fucking A.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Capo

A bullshit apology only after international criticism shows nothing.

True, to an extent. I think an infinitely more appropriate response would've been "I said it and I won't take it back" - but the man does have his career to think about.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Denicalis

I hear the easiest way to kill something is to put it in a burlap sack and drown it.

BLACK PEOPLE BREATHE IN WATER. Didn't your parents ever teach you they only die from fire?!

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Denicalis

I have no idea they'd adapted GILLS.

It's a side effect from their culture drinking so much malt liquor. Kinda like how white people turn into the Hulk when exposed to Gamma Radiation.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by ArrowHead

Thanks for not checking.

I don't remember you ever being important enough to have that attitude, buddy. Check it at the door.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by ArrowHead

I mostly stick to Behind The Music and I think it's time you move on with your life.

To coin Auden: "I smell an era of blood and prominent banning"

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Brent

Well, Seinfeld got funnier as the series progressed, too.

Don't forget that people are recognizing these episodes now. The show didn't catch on till later in it's run - so now that we have The Soup Nazi on DVD, things are bound to pick up, thanks to the more casual viewer.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by ArrowHead

We'll all miss you.

Somehow - I was missed when I was banned.

You post and no one seems to know who you are.

This brings into question as to your worth.

Quote:

why is it so hard just to say "you know what? yeah I fucked up, and badly"

I'm waiting for the day when someone just says something utterly terrible - and then refuses to take it back. Kinda like Marlon Brando's rant about Jews running Hollywood; he never took that back and he was still a big star.

And by "big" I mean fat and full of Wendys Double Cheeseburgers.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by ArrowHead

Good thing I have a life outside of the internet.

I'm sure everyone else here is thankful that something - even a shallow lie such as that - keeps you away from the rest of us.

Jam it back in, in the dark.