One is never too late to chime in on something like Kramer going
bizerk in a comedy club. So, although this is finally old news, allow me to
resurrect it for a moment.
First off, the fact that more than a few of my
afro peers react to this situation by, in return, calling white people crackers or categorically denouncing the whole race is disturbing and just plain corny. If there was ever a time to find some moral high-ground and take the high-road, this is one of those instances. Getting dirty with Kramer just defeats the purpose.
He needs to lie in this mud all alone. It's only right. And I'm not in that camp that says he needs to get into all these public displays of contrition and start reaching out to the black community and what not. To me, it would just be disingenuous and insincere. Homeboy is lost. If he wants to find himself, be a real-person (not a celeb) about it and handle your biz with some sincerity. Don't media-blitz your way back into the
public's good graces. He was on Jesse Jackson's show and he's been meeting with black leaders...and...I don't know, it just all seems so pathetic. Cause
thats not what this is about. I mean, I don't know Michael Richards, but one would be fairly stupid to surmise anything other than he's a closet bigot with a superiority-complex. Because, what you saw was a white man that pretty much
doesn;t respect his darker specie-mates. Why else would you make a comment about yesteryear in America?
I can see how it went down. Let's be real, Kramer's comedy is not targeted to the Afro-American comedic sensibilities at all. So he goes to spots like Laugh Factory, fully expecting to perform in front of primarily euro audiences...people that watched his show faithfully. And it was public knowledge that blacks were a small portion of Seinfeld's record-setting audiences,
naa mean? When I would come to school the day after
Sein episodes, it was usually just me and a couple other black classmates yucking it up with a table full of white kids about what George did the previous night or how Kramer slipped on the wall modeling Calvin Klein underwear. So, as far as Kramer is concerned, black faces in his audience are welcomed...but only if they behave.
And these young dudes probably
weren;t being the most respectful. Word is they were being disruptive. Not heckling, but holding audible
auxiliary conversations...like someone
wasn;t performing. That's annoying. So Kramer says something -- probably in an irritated manner -- and the dudes respond in kind, most likely devoid of any contrition and go on to tell Kramer that his stand-up act isn't funny...which it
isnt.
Now, at this point, it's clear that Kramer immediately thought in his head: "How dare you spooks, intrude on my show and my audience and not sit there like good boys and either be quiet or laugh at my lame jokes? What I'm doing here isn't really for you, so if you're gonna crash our party, be inconspicuous about it." There's definitely a way to convey this in a funny way. Some have made the excuse that because Kramer is a
comedic actor and not a stand-up comedian, he
wasn;t equipped to deal with this situation. But that's corny. Any halfway witty person, especially with a mic, should be able to shut down some loud patrons.
Kramer's problem is that he's clearly a bigot. Dude immediately
hearkened back to the days when white men like him, used to lynch black men like the comedy-club patrons. That comment was so disturbing. It's like Kramer disliked America's slow march toward racial equality, like dude thought it was not only
unnecessary, but unwarranted. And he's not alone, tons of white people are upset with some perceived hijacking that's taken place. It burns them up. So some black dude that
doesnt know his place...that sets them off.
I mean, think about what Kramer has to go through these days in LA. Dude can't even get a slice of pizza not made by a Mexican or Korean. That's gotta hurt a dude like him. A porch-monkey can shop on Sunset Blvd if he/she wants to. Since it's clear -- to him -- that's white people are (as Nacho
Libre would say) "
de baysssssss", some spook crashing his stand-up party was just too much for him. And sadly, he didn't disguise his disgust well enough.
That's what it's all about for most Americans: disguising their various racial
prejudices and not allowing them to dominate your interactions and control your every thoughts. And that goes for the bigots, too. No matter how much you dislike or disrespect other
ethnicities, try not to publicly show it. Kramer, for some reason, was so overcome with hate and anger, that he couldn't hide it. Sad, really. Because, I can easily see a black comic like
DL Hughely or Mike
Epps or Bernie Mac getting similarly angry in similar circumstances, but just handling it different. Same for a Jeff
Foxworthy or Dennis Leary or George Carlin. Their retorts would have most likely been hurtful and tinged (or dripping) with some version of deep-seated hate, but just cloaked with jokes and wit. Be real about it. Kramer got caught out there because he's not exactly funny, just a weirdo.
And lets not bypass what I like to call Great Black Audacity. As a people, we got a huge collective pair of
cajones. Real talk. Can you imagine a group of whites at a predominantly black comedy club, being anything other than consciously respectful during a black
comic's set? I really can't imagine them being loud or then telling the comic he
wasn;t funny after the comic addressed the situation, because the white patrons know that would get them embarrassed...and I mean really embarrassed, like, make a grown dude cry embarrassed. And trust that the black
comic's retorts would ONLY deal with the white patrons ethnicity and, most likely, the comic would dispense with ANY inclination to be politically correct or racially sensitive.
But in the Kramer situation, you got some Great Black Audacity. And not just the disruptive behavior, but their response that basically said "
Nigga Please", feel me?
That just made Kramer snap, like, "The nerve of these spooks." Did I suspect this type of thinking from Kramer? Hex no. But it
wasn;t surprising. All his ignorance and hate came rushing out...he
couldnt control that venom. And you could tell, too, because toward the end of his diatribe, his voice lowers and he says something to the effect of, "You see, those words, those words...they still have that power over us." That was him snapping back to reality and realizing that he
spazzed out and revealed his true self. So he tried to clown us and act like he went on this pathetic tirade to give us some civic or social lesson. It was a load of baloney, but revealing
nontheless, cause he realized he effed up . He even dropped his mic and just walked off the stage, almost like he was in a trance. And I don't think it was because he sorry or disgusted with himself, it was more embarrassment, like, "Wow, my hatred is really naked right now."
I'm happy this happened, because it reminded everyone what's at the core of most Americans. I have a good amount of white friends that are my age and many of them like to dismiss or downplay the amount of hate and bigotry in the present country, like all this history and conditioning is just getting washed away at rapid rates. That thinking really mystifies me. So when we get a beloved character like Kramer, going off, its like that cold bucket of water. Wake up!
So, thanks, Kramer. And, no, I'm not boycotting Seinfeld. That clown Michael Richards is not about to impact my life in that manner. If I start taking these stances (a bit trivial in my eyes), I should just swear off all things Hollywood, because it's crawling with bigots. They're just better actors.
