Krammer

[King Rat]

Surely everyone has seen or heard of the Micheal Richards (Krammer) meltdown the other night. In case anyone hasn't, he was being heckled at a comedy club and went on a tirade calling the two black hecklers a word that starts with "n" and can only be used by blacks.

Sidenote: Isn't it odd that it is acceptable to say GD on television but not the N word?

Last night Krammer was on Letterman (via satelite) and spent about five minutes apologizing profusely. I heard the clip this morning on Supertalk and he sounded pretty distraught.

No doubt about it - what he did was out of line. I'm not about to defend it. My only interest is in how the media, and society, handles it compared to other instances of foot-in-mouth.

Suppose you were Krammer's advisor. What would you tell him to do? Personally, I think he did the right thing with the apology. It sounded sincere and unscripted. Whether he works again, I guess, will just be up to whether or not people want to give him another chance.

Had Chris Rock said the same thing we would not even be discussing this but, then, Rock is black. Rock, however, could have carried on a tirade like that against any ethnic group and gotten away with it.

Should he take the Dixie Chicks approach and keep making such statements - making them a centerpiece in future shows while claiming freedom of speech?

Should he take the John Kerry approach and say it was a bungled joke and apologize "if anyone misinterpreted his remarks"?

Should he take the Robert Byrd approach and run for the senate?

[mustangfan2003]

maybe he went too far, but if black people can say the n word and call white people crackers then why can't we say anything at all without being called a raciest?

[Frey]

Oprah, on her show, said that she found it hard to believe black people were offended by the use of the word but were comfortable using it themselves. This is a great point. Just because someone is black does not give them the right to throw it around casually. I cannot tell you how many times, in my job, I have had to deal with this problem of young people referring to themselves and others as ..... The fact of the matter is that popular culture portrays it as acceptable slang; some people really do not understand what that word represents, though the original word was not intended to be used in such a way. Let's all stop using it.

[TF Admin]

I watched the whole thing on Youtube. He had a complete meltdown. I've been to a lot of comedy clubs and listened to a lot of comedians explain their "art". One of the things they stress is that a comic has to "control" a room. Kramer obviously failed in that aspect. He has no busines doing stand-up. If he cannot handle a couple of hecklers then he might as well quit now.

He just completely lost it, could not get things under control, and just dropped the mike and left. His apology on Letterman while sounding sincere, was also very strange in it's own right. I can't fault the guy for trying to find a new niche, but entertainment is out. He has wrecked any chance of popping back onto the radar.

As far as using the "N" word. Patrice O'Neal (Hilarious Stand Up Comic that appears on XM's Opie and Anthony Show) said it best on Hannity and Combs, "White people should use the "N" word in every day language so that black people will STOP using it. The only reason black's use it is to intimidate whites and reverse the roles and stereotypes from that time. It's payback!"

While I still frown upon any racially divisive language in everyday talk (white or black), I sense a grain a truth to that statement.

TF