The public flogging has gone on long enough, folks. Kramer is no Klansman.
Michael Richards, the quirky and affable comic actor who played Cosmo Kramer on NBC’s “Seinfeld,” has been bashed, denounced, condemned and pilloried for a tirade of racial slurs he directed at a couple of black hecklers during a recent performance at a Los Angeles comedy club. A popular online T-shirt vendor has introduced a shirt portraying Richards as a robed, hooded Ku Klux Klansman under the words “KKK Kramer.”
Richards has apologized profusely and has been doing all he can to make amends for his on-stage hissy fit, including seeking forgiveness from prominent African-American leaders like the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Fine. Good. But when I heard he was meeting with the hecklers to apologize in person — and that his apology likely will include a hefty cash settlement — I realized how ridiculous this whole melodrama has become.
Richards’ tirade, which included the N-word and references to slavery, was shameful. The comic should have known better, and he was right to apologize quickly and contritely. But he’s no racist, and the public outcry that persists despite the man’s plea for forgiveness is baffling and unjustifiable.
Performance art, including stand-up, is inherently personal. Heckling a comedian is tantamount to shouting curses during a Broadway musical or piano recital. Being heckled made Michael Richards feel insecure, and his knee-jerk reaction was to lash out at the hecklers.
Since he didn’t know them, he grabbed the first trait he could observe — race — and exploited it like a cheap knock-knock joke.
Don’t think for a second he wouldn’t have done the same if the hecklers were Hispanic. Or Asian. Or Scandinavian. Or any race besides his own. It isn’t racism we’re seeing when we watch the Michael Richards video. It’s rage.
And, while the hecklers didn’t deserve to be taunted just for being African-American, they certainly earned a reprisal for publicly scorning a man sweating under fluorescent lights to make them laugh. I don’t think they’re victims. I don’t think they’re heroes. And I don’t think they deserve any financial compensation for the emotional distress they suffered.
What ever happened to “don’t dish it out if you can’t take it?”
