Another Take on Michael Richards's Racist Rant

[Amianthus]

That denial = admission?  That's how it could work with certain audiences.

Pretty sure you've used that logic before. Went something like "Austrians denying that they were Nazi sympathizers are sure to have been sympathizers, just because they denied it."

[Lanya]

http://www.cnn.com/video/partners/clickability/index.html?url=/video/showbiz/2006/11/21/anderson.intv.sinbad.richards.cnn

Sinbad, the comedian, was backstage at the time and he talks in an interview. Interesting.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Thanks, Lanya. You're right, this was very interesting. Sinbad hit the nail on the head on every point.

The only problem was that the link informed me that I needed to download Windows media 11, which I did, and after I did, it did the same damned thing, but CNN poppud up beneath the message, but I could not access Sinbad's interview there.

So I googled Sinbad Michael Richards and it popped up on YouTube.

On the original Richards excerpt, there doesn't seem to be any heckling at all. Certainly nothing even remotely sufficient to bring out Richard's outburst. I still don't understand the "Upside down with a fork up your ass" bit. Although ,any unpleasant punishments have been inflicted on Black people in the US, inversion them and buggerment them with forks has never been a common practice.

All I can say about Richards is "WTF?"

He is a great comic, but this just doesn't fit in to the impression that he has projected, at least so far as I am concerned.

It seems that he is not so much a great original comic, but simply very good at getting the most out of some rather wacky material, such as the drugged out pharmacist on Fridays, Kramer and perhaps the hum men who hum hum between hum words, also on Fridays. Or was that him?

[domer]

I find Michael's "PR prescription" to embody a phoniness, a manipulativeness, a tawdriness and the moral bankruptcy that is antithetical to what this situation actually needs.

[Diane]

I think he should just get on with it.... one for sure is that 'whitey' will not be happy until he throws himself on that proverbial fork. 

He made a mistake and has apologized.

And for the record if a black person refers to themself or any other black person as a niger then all bets are off.  It is a passive aggressive ploy to make whites uncomfortable period.

[Xavier_Onassis]

And for the record if a black person refers to themself or any other black person as a niger then all bets are off.  It is a passive aggressive ploy to make whites uncomfortable period.

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The use of the N word by Blacks is a pretty complicated thing.

I think you are right, that SOMETIMES if Black people refer to another Black person as a ni883r, the goal is to make said Whitey uncomfortable.

This is not always the case. An old girlfriend of mine, who is black, and who I chat with at least one per month on the phone, often says things like "the ni883r" just can't get it right" when talking about some less than brilliant brother who screwed up yet again.

Once I stayed in a faculty meeting after a it was over, grading papers. A couple of my Black colleagues, a coach and a sociology teacher were discussing the bb team and the coach said. after referring to the loss of the team due to a lack of a couple of players having missed practice, "you know how them lazy ni883ers are". Then he realized I was in the room and apologized to me: 'Sorry Dr. Onassis" he said.

"No problem", I said, not knowing how to respond to something that was in no way insulting to me.

The thing is that "ni883er" is what is called a taboo word. The rules for using it are unclear to pretty much everyone, ecxcept for one certain rule: White folks are NEVER to be permitted to use it in anger.

Black folks can use it in situations they feel comfortable with. The more "country" they are, the less a taboo word it is.

[BT]

The rules for using it are unclear to pretty much everyone, ecxcept for one certain rule: White folks are NEVER to be permitted to use it in anger.

Does that mean white folks can use it in casual converstion?

For example would the sentence " niggers don't like wetbacks, because wetbacks work" be appropriate?

[Lanya]

I don't see a problem with black people referring to themselves by the n word.  That way, they own that word. They can use it any way they want--as an expression of fondness, or anything else.  Other people called them that as an insult.  They can use it however they want: They EARNED that right. 

[BT]

They EARNED that right.

How so?

[Diane]

X -

while I appreciate that the word nigger is a complicated word (note that I am not afraid to spell it).  I cannot fathom how anyone using the word has license.  Just because I am white doesn't give me permission to speak disparagingly of another white person.  There are so many wonderful and colorful ways of insulting, downgrading, and disrespecting a person that one has to wonder about the need to bring in ethnicity.

Lanya -

I think you are being very naive about 'the word.'  We don't "own" words nor do they give us a pass so that someone else might not use that word on us.  In fact, I will reiterate my original post and that is it is used to make whites feel uncomfortable and furthermore, even when being used among blacks, it is equivalent to slashing a razor across our thighs and saying it doesn't hurt.  To wit, this very action will keep racial disparity alive and well in America.

Diane

[Michael Tee]

<<Pretty sure you've used that logic before. Went something like "Austrians denying that they were Nazi sympathizers are sure to have been sympathizers, just because they denied it.">>

Nope.  Not me.  You're probably thinking of something more along the lines of "Austrians denying that they were Nazi sympathizers are probably full of shit because the most of them were Nazi sympathizers and lots of them were even Nazi war criminals."  Not my exact words, but much more in keeping with my exact thoughts than the bullshit you tried to put in my mouth.  Nice try.  Not.

[Lanya]

I think you are being very naive about 'the word.'  We don't "own" words nor do they give us a pass so that someone else might not use that word on us.  In fact, I will reiterate my original post and that is it is used to make whites feel uncomfortable and furthermore, even when being used among blacks, it is equivalent to slashing a razor across our thighs and saying it doesn't hurt.  To wit, this very action will keep racial disparity alive and well in America.

Diane

 I disagree.  I contend that we do in fact own the words that others have used against us, and when we re-take those words and use them to each other, we rob the former "owners" of the power they had over us to hurt us with a word.

I am not sure whether its use among blacks has the effect you describe. From what I've heard from black people, it does not. 
I have heard black people say it is used as a form of endearment, from one black person to another.   So it does not make me uncomfortable. 
I may very well be naive.  Ah well.

[BT]

I contend that we do in fact own the words that others have used against us, and when we re-take those words and use them to each other, we rob the former "owners" of the power they had over us to hurt us with a word.

If the power to hurt has been negated by the retaking of the word, what is all the fuss about?

Why the demands for apologies and redress against the unbearable hurt caused by the word?

[Michael Tee]

<<If the power to hurt has been negated by the retaking of the word, what is all the fuss about?

<<Why the demands for apologies and redress against the unbearable hurt caused by the word?>>

I am shocked - - SHOCKED, I tell you - - to find traces of cynicism in BT's post.  It's almost as if he were accusing someone of posturing.

[Amianthus]

Not my exact words, but much more in keeping with my exact thoughts than the bullshit you tried to put in my mouth.  Nice try.  Not.

I don't have to put any bullshit in your mouth. There is plenty there already.

For instance, your assumption about Austrians.

Totally ignoring evidence to the contrary, such as the voting patterns for Anschluss in areas where German troops were stationed in comparison to areas where there were no German troops.