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

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i agree with jaymc. it's dangerous to call kramer a racist on the internet for screaming "YOU'RE A NIGGER!" at some guy nineteen times at the top of his lungs in a video on the internet.

― ath (ath), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:10 (seventeen years ago) link

"Yeh, I mean, I'm Britishes so clearly don't have yr cultural sensititvies on this one, but fuck me is it always so knee jerk whenever anyone says nigger?"

What the fucking hell? Are you brain-damaged or something? Did you watch the video? He said a hell of a lot more than just that!

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:10 (seventeen years ago) link

i wonder how long it took for the red light to go on

― cousin larry bundgee (bundgee), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:11 (seventeen years ago) link

Apparently he's 33 now.

http://www.srmason-sj.org/web/journal-files/Issues/sep03/casalou.htm

Not that I have any idea what that's supposed to signify.

― Noilly Prat (kenan), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:12 (seventeen years ago) link

What Michael Richards said is completely racist and unjustified.

I agree with this, for the record.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:12 (seventeen years ago) link

One of the men who was the object of Richard's tirade was outraged, shouting back "That's un-f***ing called for, ain't necessary."

^^^ i love this part

― anticon jemima (ooo), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:12 (seventeen years ago) link

a) the idea that this was an improv routine that 'got out of hand' is patently ridiculous
b) perhaps the people who are seeking an explanation for his actions other than that he is a "racist" are trying to do something other than "mitigate" his behavior?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:13 (seventeen years ago) link

I know, seriously. most measured response to racial slurs ever.

xpost

― horseshoe (horseshoe), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:13 (seventeen years ago) link

jaymc, for the record, I understand your argument's theory, though I think it has no relevance to the case at hand.

― Allyzay Eisenschefter (allyzay), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:13 (seventeen years ago) link

so you can be an object of someone's tirade as well as subject?

― 2 american 4 u (blueski), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:14 (seventeen years ago) link

a) the idea that this was an improv routine that 'got out of hand' is patently ridiculous

people were just joking about this right?

― deej.. (deej..), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:14 (seventeen years ago) link

my nitpicking knows no bounds!

― 2 american 4 u (blueski), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:14 (seventeen years ago) link

he's not a racist, his lawyer is black!

http://www.1115.org/archives/jackie.jpg

― gear (gear), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:14 (seventeen years ago) link

steve, don't bring grammar to this thread, the grammar threads are bad enough without their virus spreading.

― Allyzay Eisenschefter (allyzay), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:15 (seventeen years ago) link

he seems like the sort of secretly bitter racist who occasionally explodes in a fit of i can't be the only one seeing this, these people don't know how to act!!!

― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:15 (seventeen years ago) link

What the fucking hell? Are you brain-damaged or something? Did you watch the video? He said a hell of a lot more than just that!

See, this is what I don't get. Is your experience so limited that you've never seen non-racist people behave this way? I know a guy from Texas who loves black people to death. When that racial transmogrifier was posted on ILX I put his picture through it and sent it to him. He said his dream of finally becoming a black man had come true. Etc. Yet, he will say some of the most racial shit you ever heard right to a black man's face and they will laugh together. He's a blues musician and I'd say 70% of his music is by black artists. But, that doesn't stop him from making chicken jokes while he watches a video of James Brown sweating his ass off.

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:15 (seventeen years ago) link

http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/5483/kramburgergg2.jpg

can someone photoshop neil hamburger in there?

― ath (ath), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:16 (seventeen years ago) link

jaymc, I know you don't want to discuss this anymore, but saying you don't know what someone believes after they've had an outburst like Richards's=anti-essentialism at the point of absurdity.

― horseshoe (horseshoe), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:16 (seventeen years ago) link

jaymc, for the record, I understand your argument's theory, though I think it has no relevance to the case at hand.

I don't think it's IRRELEVANT, but it's probably not worth making a big deal about.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:16 (seventeen years ago) link

I know a guy from Texas who loves black people to death.

― deej.. (deej..), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:16 (seventeen years ago) link

that bobby ganush post is INSANE

― deej.. (deej..), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:17 (seventeen years ago) link

Sorry, horseshoe, that's kinda how I roll.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:17 (seventeen years ago) link

i watched it again. i really do think he was just trying to be "outrageous" and "edgy" and it backfired miserably. he tries to keep it going! and the whole "wait, they're leaving?" is crazy too. hey, i'm just trying to be funny, where ya going???

i mean, yeah, he probably is racist, most people are. but unfunny race shit is screamed in comedy clubs every night.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:17 (seventeen years ago) link

it is irrelevant! sucking dick is not comparable to believing things that allow one to say the things Richards said!

xpost

― horseshoe (horseshoe), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:17 (seventeen years ago) link

my mind is blown

― deej.. (deej..), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:17 (seventeen years ago) link

deej, that was intentional. you were baited.

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:18 (seventeen years ago) link

okay, sorry, didn't see your last post, jaymc. I'll let it go, but I kind of want to shake you right now.

― horseshoe (horseshoe), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:18 (seventeen years ago) link

"Is your experience so limited that you've never seen non-racist people behave this way?"

Haha I guess so.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:19 (seventeen years ago) link

(I mean the phrasing of that one line. The guy from Texas is a real dude)

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:19 (seventeen years ago) link

i was at the laugh factory once and there was this shitty MC between acts. at one point he was joking with the audience about how "white people can't even say words that rhyme with n***** because we're afraid!" and then he noticed there were a couple of black dudes sitting in the second row off stage right and he noticeably blanched and started joking about people in l.a. who drive while talking on their cell phones or something.

― gear (gear), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:19 (seventeen years ago) link

that guy is a loser. he has had no shows. no movies. not even seinfeld.

― cousin larry bundgee (bundgee), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:20 (seventeen years ago) link

were they sitting on a white couch? ;-)

― anticon jemima (ooo), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:20 (seventeen years ago) link

Ganush's post demonstrates exactly how tenuous a concept racist/non-racist is.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:20 (seventeen years ago) link

haha I turned on the sound on my work computer just for this. He sounds like Carlos Mencia.

― stoked for the madness (nickalicious), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:20 (seventeen years ago) link

all this is just a symptom of a deeper problem: stand-up comedy!

― jhoshea megafauna (scoopsnoodle), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:20 (seventeen years ago) link

i think awkward racial (racist?) humor from white standups is pretty par for the course, so i'm actually not at all surprised by this incident.

― gear (gear), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:21 (seventeen years ago) link

is nothing equivalent to threatening lynching
He didn't threaten to lynch the guy. He screamed out that fifty years ago blacks were getting lynched.

"What Michael Richards said is completely racist and unjustified."
So nobody here can think it possible for him to be trying to point out racist heckling, using the terms of racism to display it? Sure he's a twat, and does it incredibly flat-footedly, but motivations matter. Or perhaps not.

― stet (stet), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:21 (seventeen years ago) link

ok you ARE an idiot.

― gear (gear), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:21 (seventeen years ago) link

1. people have a god given right to heckle comedians they don't think are funny.
2. no doubt the audience was filled with seinfeld fans so heckling would probably come of like a religious offense (tho i guess the crowd in the vid didn't seem so)
3. no doubt michael richards has only seen audiences like that since forever.
4. if the heckler was white, he may have lost it a little ("the nerve!! who dares!?")
5. since the heckler was black, "omg, it's a big racial crime against me, kramer, you can make fun of me, but YOU'RE A NIGGER, i can't say that even if i wanted to! see??" richards MADE the situation racially charged by seeing the exchange racially and reacting like he'd been victimized racially, somehow. the black heckler didn't make it so by being black, or by heckling.

― geoff (gcannon), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:21 (seventeen years ago) link

See, this is what I don't get.

Well put.

― Noilly Prat (kenan), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:22 (seventeen years ago) link

if i called kramer anything i'd call him a shitty stand-up. he should stick to pratfalls. that fat-ass cracker kid from last comic standing baits people to no end and gets away with it. it's all in your delivery.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:22 (seventeen years ago) link

If you think he's vile now, you should have seen Richards in that Diane Keaton film.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:22 (seventeen years ago) link

fine, raised the specter of lynching. at the top of his voice. are you seriously telling me it makes a difference? I need to get out of this thread.

― horseshoe (horseshoe), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:22 (seventeen years ago) link

BAN NUDE SPOCK

― parsley, sage francis, rosemary, and thyme (dubplatestyle), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:23 (seventeen years ago) link

do not engage or acknowledge, ppl

― gear (gear), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:24 (seventeen years ago) link

motivations matter. Or perhaps not.

They do matter, but I've come to understand that somehow we're able to intuit motivations simply from behavior.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:24 (seventeen years ago) link

"Ganush's post demonstrates exactly how tenuous a concept racist/non-racist is."

You think that's what his post indicates? Because I think it's pretty irrelevant to this.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:24 (seventeen years ago) link

stet, there is pretty much no indication in any report of this incident that the hecklers said anything racist until they were being called horrible things and then retorted by calling him a cracker. Where are you getting this information? Or are you just assuming this and deciding to go with it?

― Allyzay Eisenschefter (allyzay), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:24 (seventeen years ago) link

geoff is 100% otm, btw.

― Allyzay Eisenschefter (allyzay), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:25 (seventeen years ago) link

reacting like he'd been victimized racially, somehow. the black heckler didn't make it so by being black, or by heckling.

OTM. He reacted like that, which makes me think he was being victimized. I could be wrong -- Americans have a good history of being right on how best to handle matters of race.

― stet (stet), Monday, 20 November 2006 19:25 (seventeen years ago) link

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