Bill Cammack

response to: RE: Michael Richards by Vondra Cornell

The hecklers don’t receive a “free pass”. Unfortunately, we don’t know what they said to him. Kramer may have been reacting to ‘just’ the fact that they were interrupting his show, or he might have felt personally insulted by whatever they were saying. Heckling is something of a sport in comedy clubs, and I’m sure there are people that go there SPECIFICALLY to mess with the performers, if they can. I don’t know what they said, or why, but if someone’s performing and you’re interrupting, be prepared to hear something you’re not going to like. To a degree, I feel like Kramer accomplished what he wanted with what he said, because you could tell from the heckler’s voices that they felt hurt and upset. They ‘attacked’ him, verbally, and he ‘attacked’ them back, verbally, and they left the club feeling hurt. Chalk one up for Kramer. :)

Unfortunately…

The way Kramer CHOSE to defend himself or attack them was by insulting them based on GENERAL characteristics, not SPECIFIC ones. He didn’t talk about the ?guys’? shirts or their haircuts or how their girlfriends looked. He insulted them by bringing up things that happened to people ONLY because their skin was a different color. So… not only did he offend the ?two? hecklers… Kramer offended everyone who knows ANYONE that had ANYTHING happen to them because they were considered to be different. At some point, every new ethnic group that arrived in NYC was considered to be the bottom of the barrel. Italians were the bottom. Irish were the bottom. Puerto Ricans were the bottom. Blacks were the bottom. Mexicans were the bottom. Things happened to people STRICTLY because they were Italian or Jewish, or even PERCEIVED to be something, based on visible, supposedly stereotypical characteristics, like a large nose, for instance. We don’t even have to get into how women were/are treated because it’s visibly clear that they’re ‘different’ from men.

To paraphrase Kramer, :) “Throw them out because they’re [Black]” reminds everyone of when someone said “No Jews allowed here” or “Don’t pay her as much as you pay him for the same job” or “Kick his ass because he’s homosexual”. The “Reginald Denny” beating was as egregious as the Rodney King beating. They’re both GENERALLY offensive situations. You can’t say “ha ha ha… someone got dragged out of a car and beaten up” without offending EVERYONE that knows someone that got dragged out of a car and beaten up, OR had it done to themselves.

Kramer ALSO offended everyone that knows people are going to use this as “evidence” of “what lurks beneath” or whatever he was incoherently rambling about. :D There are lots of people that aren’t gloating about “the good ole’ days” of segregation and free passes for critical beatdowns and killings. There are lots of people that will take this Kramer thing and run with it as if it’s proof of “what lurks beneath” in Whites in general…. or, on a global scale, since that video is viewable all over the world, in Americans in general….

Anyway… Kramer either said what he felt or temporarily lost his mind. :D Do the hecklers get a free pass for that? Nope. However, it’s up to Kramer to represent himself authentically. When he felt like he wanted to upset the hecklers, he dug into his bag of tricks, and all he came out with was [basically] “skin color”. wow. original. some comedian! :D

That’s like Mel Gibson rambling about Jews when the cops stopped him. What does someone being Jewish have to do with YOU drinking and driving? :D :D