For the NNPA
LOS ANGELES (NNPA) – The actions of the former “Seinfeld” star who was caught on tape last week hurling the N-word at African-American members of a comedy audience has sparked an often angry discussion on just how far comedians can go to get a laugh.
Michael Richards, best known for playing Kramer on the long-running sitcom, stunned a crowd at The Laugh Factory on Friday evening by screaming racial epithets in response to being heckled during his set. His rant was filmed by an audience member on their mobile phone, and was later posted on the celebrity gossip Web site TMZ.com.
Audience member Kyle Doss, told TMZ that he and a group of friends were playfully heckling Richards when the comedian suddenly lost it in a three-minute outburst. The camera began rolling just as Richards began his attack, shouting at one of the men, “Fifty years ago we’d have you upside down with a f—ing fork up your ass.”
Richards continued: “You can talk, you can talk, you’re brave now motherf—er. Throw his ass out. He’s a nigger! He’s a nigger! A nigger, look there’s a nigger!”
On the tape, members of the crowd are visibly and audibly shocked. Richards responds by saying, “They’re going to arrest me for calling a Black man a nigger.” One of the men who was the object of the tirade was outraged, yelling back, “That’s uncalled for, ain’t necessary.”
The tape of the incident, which was posted Monday morning, created a media sensation. Black activists staged a protest outside the club and managers invited them inside and apologized. The meeting came after a Richards reportedly failed to follow through on a promise to apologize during an appearance at the club on Saturday night.
“BET Comic View” regular Luenell, currently starring in the hit movie “Borat” and on tour with flamboyant comedian Katt Williams, appeared with Richards in the in the 1993 film “So I Married An Axe Murderer.” She called her former co-star’s outburst the act of “a racist and a loser.”
“I was absolutely appalled at his racism,” she said. “He was in a movie with this ‘nigger’ … He also had a lot of ‘nigger’ fans until last week. Just because he got heckled is no excuse for him to fly off the handle and gleefully delight in Black people being strung up.”
She added: “I think Richards and Mel Gibson should form a support group for losers.”
Laugh Factory owner Jamie Masada did not return calls for comment, but a spokeswoman said the club’s official position “is that Michael Richards is not welcome back at the Laugh Factory.”
Pressed on whether this meant he was banned forever, she replied: “Forever is a long time.”
Richards tried to repair the damage by making an apology Monday via satellite to the “Late Show with David Letterman.”
“I, uh, lost my temper on stage,” he told Letterman, who was joined by Richards’ onetime television co-star, Jerry Seinfeld. “I was at a comedy club trying to do my act and I got heckled and took it very badly and went into a rage. I’m really busted up over this and I’m very, very sorry to those people in the audience — the Blacks, the Hispanics, the Whites — everyone there that took the brunt of that anger and hate and rage and more anger coming through.”
In Black comedy circles, it appeared the apology fell mostly on deaf ears. Enns Mitchell, owner of the Comedy Union club near South Los Angeles, blasted Richards and the Laugh Factory.
“I’m outraged that he was able to go back to this club and perform the very next night,” said Mitchell. “What was the owner thinking? What can an apology do? He should be made to sit down with a group of Black comics and explain what he meant because that kind of hate has to live inside of you.”
Promoter Pookey Wigington, who hosts two weekly nights of comedy at the Laugh Factory, said that Richards has appeared in his own Sunday “Chocolate Sundaes” lineup. He insisted that there said there were no issues or problems with Richards when they worked together, and he defended the Laugh Factory, which he said handled the situation in an “appropriate manner.”
He explained: “What was Jamie [Masada] going to do? Michael Richards is a star and a name for the club. They hoped to handle it internally but when he failed to apologize as promised it went to a whole other level.”
He added: “As it was, I was blown away in shock. To think that in this day and age he could get up and say that in front of 200 people is unbelievable. Richards will never perform at any of our shows and hopefully never appear at the club again.”
Nichelle Murdoch, who runs the urban-themed “Crack ‘Em Up” Thursday night in the Belly Room at the Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip, called it a “disgusting” display.
“I was really shocked. He was so carefree with his hatred. We are a forgiving people but fifty years ago he would have shoved a pitch fork up our…? Are you kidding me?”
Richards’ career aside, in a small way the incident has re-ignited the intense debate about the use of the N-word and especially in the context of artistic expression.
Wigington argues that comics like Richard Pryor and Paul Mooney took away the power of the word in reclaiming it for “ourselves.”
“That’s why so many young and older Black comics embrace it,” he said. “But just like Black people shouldn’t go ‘round calling White people ‘rednecks’, if White people are going to use [the N-word] they’d better be prepared to defend themselves verbally or physically.”