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Previous columns:

A Great Darkness Fell on the Land 

An Open Letter to Fellow Libertarians and Non-Aligned Voters

Coulter Kerfuffle

ROAD TRIP!

Flying the Incarcerated Skies

Intergenerational Corporate Welfare

Fraud is the Bottom Line

When TV Actors Go Bad


I don’t watch television, so I had no idea who Michael Richards was. Apparently, he played a popular character in a now-defunct sitcom. Recently, he was doing a standup routine at a comedy club called the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles, before an audience of somewhat over one hundred people.

A couple of hecklers interrupted the show. Mr. Richards who, in the manner of standup comics, engaged the hecklers and tried to shout them down. The two hecklers were black men, and Mr. Richards repeatedly referred to them as N-words. Now, this would have been very cool and funny had Mr. Richards been a black man as well. He was, and is, not.

This has caused much disgust and hand wringing from coast to coast, enough so that Richards made a rather pathetic apology on the David Letterman Show. It was pathetic in that it tried to draw attention away from what he actually did by talking about everything from foreign policy to Hurricane Katrina. It was a clear case of pull-out-the-stops damage control.

The interesting thing is that he did not, as reported, lose his temper and go on a tirade. He was performing the whole time. He never put down the mike, left the stage, or even drop the vocal affectations. Unlike the Kerry kerfuffle, this really was a botched joke, a way of dealing with the hecklers that proved wildly unsuccessful.

Had he been black, it might have worked. As it is, he may never work again, which is probably just as well.

By the way, if you go to You Tube, you can see the whole sordid incident and judge for yourself.

 
"Now, this would have been very cool and funny had Mr. Richards been a black man as well. He was, and is, not."