Richards, better known for playing Kramer on the show Seinfeld, apologized last night on the David Letterman Show

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dufHYw-W6j4


he sounds like hes really upset about and i have to hand it to him for being one of the only celebrities to apologizing for some stupid thing they did and actually sounding sincere. he sounds like hes really depressed over this and may even off himself because of it. *knock on wood*

it was a terrible thing but i have to hand it to him for apologizing for what happened, and in case you dont know what im talking about, heres the clip of what happened at the comedy club (be warned, there are a lot of racial epitaphs)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p5BD036Kdo

I'm not sure if an apology will save him. He went way too far.

true, there is no excuse for what he said, but hey, how many celebrities actually apologize from the heart?

I'm not sure Jackie Chiles can get him out of this.  

Actually it's sad to see Richards lose it.  I'm not sure what kinda career he had left (he put pretty much all of his talent into Kramer).

Maybe he'll become a villain now--at least give him some work.  Star in a movie with Mad Mel.  

I guess the one good thing to come out of this is that racism is definitely not funny--it's ugly and mean and dehumanizing.  And Richards showed everybody that.  

Seinfeld always danced around race and racism as if it were "over" and we could all laugh at how ridiculous it is.  I think Richards' episode stabs that notion in the heart.

Looks like Richards stuck a fork up his own a**.

He looks like a fool.

He went way too far. Just because he apologized, that won't take back the hateful things he said. he could have just ignored the hecklers, or teased them back, like ANY PROFESSIONAL COMEDIAN WOULD HAVE DONE.
I'm sorry, there's just no excusing the things he said.

you're also assuming that hes a professional comedian, ive heard some of his material...kramer really was all he had

what an a**hole

The apologies have been removed from YouTube...

Alright, I've just watched the vids on YouTube and I think it's not OK to go into a rage like he did. But on the other hand racism is quite an extensive subject and there will always be some people who get offended. The Afro-Americans surely have a large lobby and are obviously well organised.
Sadly enough everybody's allowed to call the Germans "nazis" although the 2nd world war has been over since more than 50 years.

BTW here's the link to Michaels apolgy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3l-gRHjUNk

ya, CBS is pulling off all their material from youtube.

as for racism, Kate makes a good point. its gonna happen, and at least hes torn up about the whole thing. id rather have that than someone that thinks they're justified in saying that and refuses to take back what they said.

kate, i know where you come from. i'm half-german and i spent 1st-8th grade with numerous nazi slurs.

but if you listen to the video, the black guys were almost as bad as richards. i mean, you go into like New York or Boston and you will hear the n-word like everyother word. so where do you draw the line? thats the sad part about all this is that one white guy says the "n" word and everyone flips out but you get a bunch of "inner city youth" and you got the "n" word all over the place. isnt that racism?

Quoted from somedude210

ya, CBS is pulling off all their material from youtube.

as for racism, Kate makes a good point. its gonna happen, and at least hes torn up about the whole thing. id rather have that than someone that thinks they're justified in saying that and refuses to take back what they said.

kate, i know where you come from. i'm half-german and i spent 1st-8th grade with numerous nazi slurs.

but if you listen to the video, the black guys were almost as bad as richards. i mean, you go into like New York or Boston and you will hear the n-word like everyother word. so where do you draw the line? thats the sad part about all this is that one white guy says the "n" word and everyone flips out but you get a bunch of "inner city youth" and you got the "n" word all over the place. isnt that racism?

Yeah i'm completley with you on the blacks callings themselves n****rs but when a white person say's it, in ANY context, they get persecuted. But just about here is when you draw the line..like they said on the video there was absolutley no need to have ago at them anyway, but their skin colour was completley irrevelant in the matter! This was a pathetic outburst from what seems like a fairly sensable, mature 50 year old bloke, so that's why this is so shocking..It's just about the most stupid thing you can do in your career to be honest with you, and i wouldn't be surprised if he loses A LOT of his fans, because it was pretty ridiculous.. it's all ok him saying the 'n' word and the black person flipping out, somedude it's in the way he used it..innapropriatley and stupidly..your right about them being as bad as him by speaking that way back as well, because it's not like he was the only white person there, so the hecklers also made a mistake there.

I've watched and rewatched the initial incident and the apology.  What seems really sick about the incident is the lynch-baiting tone of Richards.  Would an Hispanic or White heckler deserved to be hung upside down with a fork up his a**?

I know it may seem ancient history--and Richards is Canadian, I think--but from 1890 to 1940 a black man or woman was lynched in the South on average EVERY THREE DAYS.  Lynchings were not only instances of horrible violence that the govts sanctioned, but also rituals in which body parts, teeth and bones (often after burning) would be kept as souvenirs.  A sick history.  

So we're not just talking about some "get over it" mentality on the part of black America.  We're talking about something as horrific as the Jewish holocaust (but one that lasted several hundred years).  

Would Richards have said to a Jewish heckler, "You deserve to be gassed!  Jew!  Jew!  Jew!  He's a Jew!"

And then Richards lamely went into some faux-Lenny-Bruce routine about racism still being alive inside his audience (but not apparently himself).  That was the crucial moment.  If he had just stopped and said, "Oh my god, what the hell am I saying?"  He might have made it out of this.  But he seems to have no self-realization to say he's not a racist, because when his buttons gets pushed how does he react?  He fits right in with Bull Connor or Gov. Faubus.  

A sad, sad commentary on the state of American affairs.  

Lets put things in better perspective, first of all Richards is not a professional comedian. He is a comedic actor, he started doing stand-up because he was out of work and needed a job probably. So its understandable that an inexperienced stand-up couldn't take the heat from two bastard hecklers. I honestly don't think he is racist. He was so steamed and angry that he wanted say the worst possible thing to hurt those heckler's feelings, it was unfortunately two black hecklers. Put yourself in his position(in a similar one where you are angry at someone), you want to say the most horrible thing to have the most long-lasting effect. So I really don't think he is a racist. Something that pisses me off is how the black people are reacting to this. They are the most hypicritical people ever. If you watch the video, the two black hecklers call him a "cracker'' which is almost the equivilant to the N word. It just doesn't have the past the N word has. The hecklers weren't considered racist...and "Cracker" is a racist term. So many black comedians like Martin Laurence always center their act on racist jokes against whites...and yet its alright? This is a sick unfair world we live in.

So some forgotten actor trying to do stand up had a melt down.....boo-phuckin-hoo. I bet his residuals from Sienfeld keeps him comfortable. All this falls in to the I couldn't care less about the next anorexic actress, Nichole Ritchie,  Paris whaterver her name is and Lyndsay Blowhan, Tom and Kate, Anna Nicoles baby's father............ if you keep stirring it, IT WILL NEVER GO AWAY FOR GODS SAKE! If these people would drop off the face of the earth all they would do would be to put some paparazzi and tabloid writers out of work, oh and some fat old women sitting under a hair dryer at a hair salon nothing to read or gossip over leaving them with  nothing to read or talk about. Lock them all in a room with all the drugs and food they can stand and let's see who the last standing is. If they don't make , Oh well ! It's not like they have to get up and and go but their a$$e's everyday just for enough money to keep the power on and supper on the table.
Bitter?????????? Maybe, but I am sick of all these Hollywood loosers tearbagging about one thing or another ! Grow up and be productive members of society, not what ingorant people make rich by feeding in on this sh!t !

Quoted from RICKENBACKER325

So some forgotten actor trying to do stand up had a melt down.....boo-phuckin-hoo. I bet his residuals from Sienfeld keeps him comfortable. All this falls in to the I couldn't care less about the next anorexic actress, Nichole Ritchie,  Paris whaterver her name is and Lyndsay Blowhan, Tom and Kate, Anna Nicoles baby's father............ if you keep stirring it, IT WILL NEVER GO AWAY FOR GODS SAKE! If these people would drop off the face of the earth all they would do would be to put some paparazzi and tabloid writers out of work, oh and some fat old women sitting under a hair dryer at a hair salon nothing to read or gossip over leaving them with  nothing to read or talk about. Lock them all in a room with all the drugs and food they can stand and let's see who the last standing is. If they don't make , Oh well ! It's not like they have to get up and and go but their a$$e's everyday just for enough money to keep the power on and supper on the table.
Bitter?????????? Maybe, but I am sick of all these Hollywood loosers tearbagging about one thing or another ! Grow up and be productive members of society, not what ingorant people make rich by feeding in on this sh!t !

Yes, i agree with you here

Quoted from Wordno

If you watch the video, the two black hecklers call him a "cracker'' which is almost the equivilant to the N word. It just doesn't have the past the N word has. The hecklers weren't considered racist...and "Cracker" is a racist term. n.

Which is precisely the point  People of all ethnic groups are capable of prejudice. It is (unfortunately) part of our human makeup. Prejudice becomes really dangerous when it allows one group to dominate another.  A black can call a white all the names he wants, but it is unlikely that he will ever be able to inflict the degradations that whites have historically (and to a degree maybe still do) inflicted on black people.  This is why the connotations of a white person using the n word are vastly different from when a black person uses it, and why society (rightly IMO) treats it differently.

As for the German thing, it was only in my parent’s generation that the German people inflicted their monstrous regime upon Europe. Tens of millions of men woman and children died as a direct result of the actions of Germans (not just Nazi Party members). I think you may have to live with the nazi jibes just a little bit longer yet.

History is more than just words in books.  We have grown fat and wealthy on the actions of our forebearers.  The consequences of history - both good and bad- permeate through our entire lives. You can’t just turn it off when it doesn’t suit.

Germans are never called nazi's over here. They're usually called 'Germans', because that's what they are.

Quoted from Kevin

As for the German thing, it was only in my parent’s generation that the German people inflicted their monstrous regime upon Europe. Tens of millions of men woman and children died as a direct result of the actions of Germans (not just Nazi Party members). I think you may have to live with the nazi jibes just a little bit longer yet.

Pity. If only people weren't murdered when trying to rebel against  said regime, I remember my Grand Dad used to tell us stories from that time and how they rather got with it, than to get killed. There wasn't much you could do about it other than to keep quiet and hope for the war to end.

Quoted from Kevin

History is more than just words in books.  We have grown fat and wealthy on the actions of our forebearers.  The consequences of history - both good and bad- permeate through our entire lives. You can’t just turn it off when it doesn’t suit.

Correct. Unfortunately that's what certain current political headmen do. What's history about, other than to learn from it and make things better. People tend to forget their own history (if they know something about it) but point their finger at others.

As said before - it's a wide range and human kind obviously isn't willing to draw conclusions from all our history. Depressing.

Quoted from Kate

Pity. If only people weren't murdered when trying to rebel against  said regime, I remember my Grand Dad used to tell us stories from that time and how they rather got with it, than to get killed. There wasn't much you could do about it other than to keep quiet and hope for the war to end.

.

I thought about this at lunch. Most (maybe all) of Germanies anti-jewish laws weren't any different from the anti-black laws in the Southern States in the US or South Africa or Australia. Nor was it the only state to build an empire and then inflict misery and death on its inhabitants. (Belgium managed to take out thirty million Congolese and noone mentions that.)  
I think the reasons the German regime is singled out are complex. It seems that it's not what you do, but who you do it to, is a real issue.

mm, many also forget about the japanese during the same time period and what they did to china and manchuria (now Korea). i mean, there are some things that they did that go leap and bounds above Germany. read some stuff about the rape of nanking, they were much more public than germany in their treatment of non-japanese.

maybe we dont hear about the japanese and their inhumane treatments because we weren't very accepting towards asians anyway, or we had ancestors from germany.

I don't believe there's many nations that can say they're innocent throughout history. The people from Tibet maybe, although they were quite though before they turned to Buddhism.

Quoted from Bobber

I don't believe there's many nations that can say they're innocent throughout history. The people from Tibet maybe, although they were quite though before they turned to Buddhism.

The Chinese claim that they overthrew a despotic fuedal regime that favoured the few over the many. They proclaim it as a liberation, not an invasion. Sound familiar?