« Distribution of the Insensible | Main | The year was 1965 »
michael richards
Michael Richards is the latest to say something racist or anti-semetic and then says "I am not a racist." I think we come across this kind of reasoning a lot. I am a college teacher and students will say, "I'm not the kind of person who gets a C." I know the example I have just mentioned is light years different from the Richards example, but I think something important unites them. There's absolutely nothing 'wrong' with a student saying "I'm not the kind of person who gets a C," even when that student has just received a C (from me). A little more seriously: "I'm not a cheater," is something a student will say . . . after being caught cheating.
That is, lots of people want to distinguish between "the verb" and "the noun." The verb is the thing they did, the noun is the thing they *are.*
Jon Stewart, and perhaps not just him, had a joke about this same tendency when news came out about us torturing inmates at Abu Gahrib. He showed a clip on his Daily Show of Mr. Bush saying "America does not torture," and Stewart had a funny line (which I can't accurately reproduce) where he said something along the lines of: "It doesn't matter so much if we actually torture people, along as we're just not the kind of nation that tortures people." Again, people want to distinguish between what they *do* and what they *are*.
People want to distinguish between an ideal vision they have of themselves and protect that even from actions they commit. The ideal vision is not touched. 'Denial' is precisely 'denying' that one's actions or observable behavior can affect or degrade the ideal 'me.' And so it is actually this strange and quite 'philosophical' notion -- one that does not require having actually read much or any philosophy -- that our selves are somehow immune from our own empirical, real-world actions that prompts these kinds of ridiculous claims that go against all 'evidence.' But it doesn't work the other way! If Michael Richards had managed to handle the hecklers (though I have no proof he was heckled; the tape doesn't start with that), had turned their heckling into a classic Kramer moment and even supercharged his bit with it, two things would have resulted. First, we never would have heard a word about Mr. Richards' appearance at the laugh factory, and second, Richards would have said to himself, "I'm such a great comedian," that is, the action 'making people laugh' would have been judged to coincide with, and be an expression of, his ideal self-image as a comedian.
By Swifty | November 22, 2006 in Current Affairs | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/361357/6910641
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference michael richards:
Comments
Hey, in the age of democracy, it's not just the King who gets to have two bodies--we all do these days!
Posted by: The Constructivist | Nov 24, 2006 12:32:07 AM
http://home.earthlink.net/~rdmadden/webdocs/Nigger_Nigger_Nigger.html
http://www.laweekly.com/film+tv/film/schmuck-fuck-and-nigger/1348/
http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:LkSXU_xJdD0J:members.aol.com/dcspohr/lenny/original.htm+lenny+bruce,+nigger&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=4
Posted by: Screw the Liberal Dogmatists | Nov 24, 2006 9:12:54 PM
It's impossible *not* to be racist, today. We're all racists.
Just sayin.
Posted by: Matt | Nov 24, 2006 11:38:42 PM
Not to *excuse* anything in particular (or for that matter anyone) - obviously.
Posted by: Matt | Nov 26, 2006 2:19:11 PM
His comments were uncalled for an offensive, but the other party has no right to sue. It was free speech, wrong albeit, but free. If he did not like it, he can boycott Mr. Richards or badmouth him online, but suing is just pointless.
Posted by: Kai! | Nov 28, 2006 10:32:33 AM
I am reminded of President Nixon's prescient comment:
"I am not a crook."
Posted by: flotsam | Nov 29, 2006 11:08:12 PM
Being a human born in 1961 to a White mother and African American father, I can tell you that my life’s experiences have taught me that my beloved Kramer is in fact a racist that places himself above other humans. The “N” word did not upset me as the two brothers walking out called Kramer a cracker-black terminology for stupid/ignorant white boy-the same definition for the N word. If America feels no injustice for slavery then why is the N word a death threat? Look in the dictionary-it states that nigger is an uneducated or ignorant person. It does not define color. ( present new books) African Americans refer and call each other NIGGAR-not in the book and generally used as a term of friendship. Both Michael and the brothers in the audience were wrong and maybe (as I did not see the proceeding part to Kramer going off) justified-as we are all humans and when hurt; hurt back. However, when Michael said, “this is what happens when you mess with a white boy on stage” this opened him up as he has properly never even looked at himself.
In later interviews Michael expressed that he was raised in a black area-this is the anger-poor, white, picked on, beaten ECT… We as humans do on to others as has been done to us-color does not separate that… The mind responds to hurt in the same way it was hurt and to the comment about “that’s what happens”-yes, Kramer came out off a poor predominately black area full of rage-when he achieved something in his life he felt empowered and better then others-especially those blacks that lived in that poor area he is ashamed of and hated. … Why-because our society recognizes and gives praise to those who achieve what is perceived to be fame and most importantly money…. African Americans/Blacks have dealt with the inability to climb this social ladder for hundreds of years-creating children that see no hope or chance for a future and therefore hurt others.
If you looked at me you would think I am white-but there are two things that destroy that picture;
1. If I was standing next to my father, you would see his eyes, lips ECT-everything but his skin tone…..Everyone one that knew him (even if they were scared or disagreed with him being with a white women in those days) immediately knew I was his daughter. They did marry before I was born & I have an older brother from the same parents born in 1959.
2. If you were a racist person then my full lips, curly hair, big brown eyes and wide nose would be enough to tip you off that I am mixed with something. Then you would place me below you-that was and is America.
Believe me I speak from experience-my father told me that being so light was a blessing as I could walk thought doors other could not. Once in I could bring others in-I have spent the majority of my life doing just that.
However, the anger of being the little white girl in the area I grew up in never left me- I was unable to finish high school because I was so violent and fought so much.
I never excepted to become successful and only did by the grace of God answering my prayers. However, inside of me the anger is still there. Not just against the whites that judged me but the blacks that told me I was not black.. I fit no where-to summarize this entire country is racist in my opinion against some form of the human race-to hate your self is to die-we are all humans .
The statement Michael made is clearly read-I am a white man and you (black people) put me through hell when I was growing up-so how dare you interrupt or speak back to me –I given you my dues now it is time you recognize I am a better human then you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That is society-we all own this-step up and realize we are humans it is the situations you live through in life and your parenting that screw you up. Every child deserves to have a childhood regardless of where they are-take that away and this is what you get-a man that made it out of the ghetto whom is angry for ever being there and is not strong enough to blame the correct people so he choices the easiest… Don’t we all??????????
To summarize Seinfeld was my favorite show for years- I got all kinds of crap about how there were no blacks and the show dealt with upper class white people and what did I like about it. I liked it because it was a show about four friends that were living their life and made me laugh. I defended and will still defend the show as the stories always made me feel that I was not that screwed up and life was not that bad.
Michael I will pray for you- as the only one that can forgive you is you and God… Nothing more matters-explore your self and except responsibility and use this situation to grow not seek shelter-please make me proud not ashamed…
I still love you-we all have issues…
Posted by: Leasha | Dec 2, 2006 7:20:53 AM
I confess that I only skimmed this entry when it came up. I thought Michael Richards was some Canadian politician and only got that he was Kramer last week because of something on the daily show.
Posted by: Jodi | Dec 9, 2006 10:38:25 AM
Hi Jodi, that just shows you the news value of the Daily Show. In fact, there was some study that reported that people who watched the Daily Show were just as or more up on important events from the news as those who watched, say, NBC news with Tom Brokaw. Also, the people who didn't watch Tom Brokaw could talk better.
Posted by: Swifty | Dec 9, 2006 11:21:27 AM
5 minutes of Michael Richards preferable to 5 hours of Comrade Beatty , his multi-millionaire carny-on-acid pal Jacko, the latest corp. space opera, or Scorcese tearjerkoff, or thug or bimbo blockbaster...............Chesty LA RUE in Earthgrrls are E-Z IV?????????
Posted by: Grifty | Dec 9, 2006 11:33:50 AM
Jodi's post: "I thought Michael Richards was some Canadian politician" may be the funniest line I've read in years. At a long ago computer magazine, where I was once an editor, we used to publish an April Fool issue with a fake "data processing" conference in it. We always had lots of experts from take-offs on RAND and MIT and IBM etc., with full CVs and corporate credits. And then, we'd add: "...and someone from Canada."
Posted by: Wendy Lestina | Dec 12, 2006 2:39:36 PM
To offer a belated follow-up comment (the "we are all racists" line, while very sincere, being also somewhat pithy):
I have to say, I think the manner in which Richards quickly became a 'sacrificial victim' (I mean that in the strictly Girardian sense, as an object of fascination at once sacred and profaned), is most noteworthy for the manner in which it functions almost to absolve the rest of us (perhaps one reason why we are drawn to such purging indemnifications).
Both movements are a theological cop-out - both his paranoid/egotistical becoming-cipher for societal racism tout-court, *and* our willingness to push the spectacle (even and especially if it's just by further condemning Richards, without aknowledging the kernel of truth in this burden he has suddenly, if perversely and egotistically, taken on).
Derrida's conception of radical forgiveness also comes to mind (forgiving' in its strongest sense only 'the unforgivable', also forgiving someone as opposed to forgiving someone something)...or, in a similar vein, the distinction he insists upon re: love, between "the who" and "the what" at the heart of philosophy.
Would the strict existentialist always insist that there is no division between specific, finite actions, and one's being? Does it not cheapen the absolute, irreducible singularity of the other (the stakes of that relation) in some sense, to reduce them definitively to their characteristics, qualities or traits? Aren't these two things rather always in a kind of tension?
Just some questions that your post provoked upon reflection. Thanks, Swifty.
Posted by: Matt | Jan 28, 2007 2:31:02 PM
Post a comment
Please note: comments are published at the discretion of the post's author and will not appear immediately. Do not submit comments more than once.
