WTF?: "Seinfeld"'s Michael 'Kramer' Richards in Weird-o-Rama Onstage Meltdown

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you can have any emotional response you like and as a fucking sociopath i'm sure you will but you can't pretend there's any context in which cracker is a deeply bigoted and offensive term without being either disengenous or ignorant. ilxor's get emotional when someone says 'golden grahams' to them so the cracker precedent's been set. just don't pretend it's something it's not.

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:59 (nineteen years ago)

like i said, he's kind of a lousy comic. i still judge his rant in the context of a comedy club setting though. people often go to comedy clubs to be mock-offended/shocked. and plenty of people walk out of comedy clubs when they think an act sucks or is genuinely offensive. and obviously a lot of comedy is based on saying things that you aren't supoposed to say/wouldn't say out loud. kramer just blows at it.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:59 (nineteen years ago)

which black comedian had/has the best white guy voice? pryor is the gold standard but my pick is eddie murphy

Eddie will always be my favorite.

― Beth S. (Ex Leon), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:00 (nineteen years ago)

er, that was an x-post to something. i forget what's going on. x-post to chaki, i think!

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:00 (nineteen years ago)

This isn't my fault! Your Nana is in trouble because she went around town passing bad checks and pissed off the wrong person!

― stoked for the madness (nickalicious), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:00 (nineteen years ago)

what race would golden grahams be?

― Noilly Prat (kenan), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:00 (nineteen years ago)

Say what you will about Dave Chappelle, he sure can do a white guy voice.

― stoked for the madness (nickalicious), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:01 (nineteen years ago)

but you can't pretend there's any context in which cracker is a deeply bigoted and offensive term without being either disengenous or ignorant.

Stupid fuck, it's all about intent. It is used specifically to be a deeply bigoted and offensive term.

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:01 (nineteen years ago)

so you don't think that this is even slightly indicative of a problem? what kind of behavior would it take to alarm you? if it comes out that he ran into the audience with a rope and fork, would you change your mind?

Actually, probably not: it would suggest to me that whatever happened before the tape started was someone shooting his mother or something! You know: running into the audience with the rope doesn't make him a racist -- it's why he does it. The guy's a comedian. To get to where he is, he has to be good at handling hecklers. What makes him break down and show his true colours this one night?

that his response is indicative of a problem? hell, yeh.

― stet (stet), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:02 (nineteen years ago)

I couldn't see how a white would be offended by "cracker" unless they were some cousin-fucker from West Virginia.

― Dr. Alicia D. Titsovich (sexyDancer), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:02 (nineteen years ago)

or casual mockery, either of which is offensive and racist.

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:02 (nineteen years ago)

I couldn't see how a white would be offended by "cracker" unless they were some cousin-fucker from West Virginia.

Let's say you're on the subway and you walk past someone who pushes you forcefully and says, "Fuck off me, cracker." Would you laugh?

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:05 (nineteen years ago)

Do anglophiles call each other digestives?

― Beth S. (Ex Leon), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:06 (nineteen years ago)

I'd be more concerned by the "fuck off me." People say that? In that format?? Weird.

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:07 (nineteen years ago)

yeah i have to say echoing scott it looks pretty clear kramer was going for some edgy lenny bruce thing and failing horribly, this is the first i've heard of any bizarre racist behavior w/ kramer so i don't really have any reason to believe he's more racist than say stet nevermind nude spock, there's no pattern of behavior established unlike w/ mel gibson and he doesn't seem to be specifically endorsing any concrete bigoted ideology unlike trent lott.

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:07 (nineteen years ago)

If they said "fuck off me" I would be doubled-over with gigglefits

― Dr. Alicia D. Titsovich (sexyDancer), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:07 (nineteen years ago)

My girlfriend works in Harlem. Apparently, a lot of white people are moving in and the rents are going up, so some of the people who've been there for years are resentful of all white people. She regularly tells me stories of being asked, "How you like it up here, whitey?" and being assaulted on the bus, etc. Cracker and whitey are the terms used. I'm pretty sure it's not a nice joke. And I'm quite sure it makes her feel bad!

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:09 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, I dunno, I've been told that fuckin' white people got some fuckin' nerve and that I was lucky he didn't take me off the train with him. Would that have been worse if he added "CRACKER!" to the end? Eh.

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:09 (nineteen years ago)

I'd be more concerned by the "fuck off me." People say that? In that format?? Weird.

Showing your relevance in this issue.

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:10 (nineteen years ago)

"Fuck off me" is pretty funny.

― Beth S. (Ex Leon), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:10 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.cepolina.com/freephoto/f/other.food/cracker.snack.bread.jpg /= http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/Digestive_biscuits.jpg/250px-Digestive_biscuits.jpg

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:11 (nineteen years ago)

there's no pattern of behavior established unlike w/ mel gibson and he doesn't seem to be specifically endorsing any concrete bigoted ideology unlike trent lott

Yeah, I keep thinking that, along with the very valid point that things get crazy in comedy clubs, but I keep coming back to the fact that he angrily and menacingly started yelling "nigger" and referring to lynchings. Which is off the fucking map.

― Noilly Prat (kenan), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:11 (nineteen years ago)

Proving context is an issue. Thank you!

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:11 (nineteen years ago)

screaming "nigger" over and over and making angry 'you're lucky we don't live 50 years ago' allusions to lynching doesn't make you a racist per se. but come on, who but a schwartze-loathing hollywood racist would try to pull that off and think it funny? (BTW, I'm aware Richard's isn't Jewish, back off.)

― elmo argonaut (allocryptic), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:11 (nineteen years ago)

"I'm out there, Jerry.... and I'm lovin' every minute of it!"

― stoked for the madness (nickalicious), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:12 (nineteen years ago)

bernie goetz has a girlfriend in harlem??? what are the odds!

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:12 (nineteen years ago)

Digestives are like some weird halfway point between cookies and crackers, so I think it could still work.

― Beth S. (Ex Leon), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:12 (nineteen years ago)

haha you don't have a girlfriend, whatever

― geoff (gcannon), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:13 (nineteen years ago)

What about chocolate digestives? There are possibilities there.

― Noilly Prat (kenan), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:14 (nineteen years ago)

CRACKER!

http://img.shopping.com/cctool/PrdImg/images/pr/177X150/00/01/c6/07/0c/29755148.JPG

― otto midnight (otto midnight), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:15 (nineteen years ago)

i wish i could find a youtube clip of bobby hill's standup routine

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:15 (nineteen years ago)

http://john-kerry-news.newslib.com/img/logo/8.jpg

"I botched it"

― deej.. (deej..), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:15 (nineteen years ago)

hahahaha

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:15 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, geoff, it must make you jealous to imagine someone so much worse than you could have a girlfriend, which just shows how upside-down your world really is.

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:15 (nineteen years ago)

John Kerry OTM.

― Hoosteen (Hoosteen), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:16 (nineteen years ago)

i wish i could find a youtube clip of bobby hill's standup routine

I was thinking of that episode when I read through most of this thread.

― Beth S. (Ex Leon), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:17 (nineteen years ago)

your poor girlfriend! if only they had neighborhoods whites could gentrify free of persecution.

― ath (ath), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:17 (nineteen years ago)

dude of course he has a girlfriend - remember, she didnt brush her teeth or something

― anticon jemima (ooo), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:17 (nineteen years ago)

o no stet's gonna have to find another 'what's racist about racism' spin! - Comedian George Lopez told Los Angeles television station KTLA that he thought Richards' lack of stand-up experience may have been a factor.

"The question is you have an actor who is trying to be a comedian who doesn't know what to do when an audience is disruptive," Lopez said. "He's an actor whose show has been off the air, he shouldn't ever be on a stand-up gig.

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:18 (nineteen years ago)

your poor girlfriend! if only they had neighborhoods whites could gentrify free of persecution.

Irrelevant.

She works for the public school system and this is the best place she's found so far.

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:18 (nineteen years ago)

we are all jealous of nude spock and his lovely companion gentrificatrix.

― elmo argonaut (allocryptic), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:18 (nineteen years ago)

poor girlfriend then has to come home only to be berated about her teeth, after being assaulted multiple times by racists on the subway. ;_;

― Allyzay Eisenschefter (allyzay), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:19 (nineteen years ago)

My take on it is this:

Dude is doing his act, and starts getting heckled by a black man. He tries to ignore it, but the guy's persistent, gets to him. Maybe the guy calls him "cracker", and references their respective races in his heckles; maybe he doesn't.

For whatever reason -- too much alcohol, too much coke, mental illness, a bad day, bad judgment, or yes, crypto-racism -- this trips a circuit in Richards's head. He thinks to himself, This guy is fucking with me, going after me no-holds-barred, and he's doing it because he thinks I'm afraid to fire back the same way, because he's black. He can call me whatever he wants, but I have to hold back, I'm supposed to tiptoe. Well, take this, buddy.

And so he calls him a "nigger", makes a left-field reference to lynching him, because he wants that moment when the guy's mouth drops open. He doesn't think about consequences, he just wants to let loose, wants to drop the A-bomb (or, well, the N-bomb). And maybe he realizes what he's done, but he can't backpedal, he has to go with it, try to work it into something that'll tie it together. But he can't, everything he does just makes it worse.

I may be totally wrong on this, but I think it comes from the same place as Elvis Costello's infamous "blind ignorant nigger" comment -- in that I don't think the real driving force is any uncommon degree of racism in this particular person, but rather the desire to say The Thing You're Not Supposed to Say. It's the impulse that makes people in relationships go after their partner's jugular. To drop the bomb, to say "Fuck you, I'm going to deliberately escalate this past the point where either of us can control it."

This doesn't mean it isn't completely fucked-up; this doesn't mean that Richards isn't a racist. But I think the "OMG he's saying what he really thinks" argument is simplistic -- or at least I don't think it's the only explanation for the abhorrent events we saw on tape.

xpost t looks pretty clear kramer was going for some edgy lenny bruce thing and failing horribly yeah OTM

― lurker #2421, inc. (lurker-2421), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:19 (nineteen years ago)

nude spock's bumper book of heckler put-downs

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:19 (nineteen years ago)

Another King of the Hill connection! He's right, though.

― Beth S. (Ex Leon), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:19 (nineteen years ago)

poor girlfriend then has to come home only to be berated about her teeth, after being assaulted multiple times by racists on the subway. ;_;

It's true!

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:20 (nineteen years ago)

'what's racist about racism'

Racism is racist, but racism doesn't make someone a racist.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:20 (nineteen years ago)

If your girlfriend exists, maybe you should consider that she is a tool?

― Allyzay Eisenschefter (allyzay), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:20 (nineteen years ago)

bobby,

i'm no big expert on race relations, but you seem like you're sort of a shithead.

― M@tt He1geson: Sassy and I Don't Care Who Knows It (Matt Helgeson), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:21 (nineteen years ago)

omg plz to photoshop kramer's head onto 'get happy!!!' cover

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:21 (nineteen years ago)

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