Get over it people. Move on! It’s really no big deal. I’m pretty sure that Kramer is not the next Grand Wizard in waiting. (He is Jewish afterall.)
Is Michael Richards a racist? Maybe… I dunno. I’ve never met the man. But, I do know that I haven’t seen anything that would cause me to suspect so. Is everybody in this fucking hemisphere perpetually ten-years old? Has nobody any fucking life experience, or any inkling as to how people act in general? Listen: Sometimes people become angry, upset, or distraught for whatever reason. When they do, they often become petty and attempt to hurt whoever they see has caused this state in them. Directing racist comments toward a person who belongs to some ethnic minority group is a cheap, easy and usually fairly effective way to hurt such a person. When we become angry, quite often, our better judgment goes out the window. It’s not any kind of solid evidence of any sort of underlying, deep, hidden racist personality trait. It’s a person being petty and trying to be hurtful. It’s not right. It’s not an excuse, but it’s also not necessarily racism. And, it happens to be a weakness that we’ve all possessed at some time in our lives. I’d like to meet the person who hasn’t uttered their own particular version of “Oh yeah? Well, you’re fat!” We all have at some point. We’ve all tried to hit people where they were vulnerable at some time. Does that mean that deep down inside we hate anyone who has a weight problem? Perhaps, for some of us… but, for most? Probably not.
So, for all of those people now saying things like “I can’t believe Michael Richards is a racist bastard!” WHAT GIVES YOU THE FUCKING IDEA THAT HE IS?
What he did was wrong. He was malicious and petty toward another person. He shouldn’t have said the things that he did. I’m not trying to justify it. He definitely owed that person a sincere apology. But, it doesn’t damn well mean he’s a fucking racist! If you keep up with asinine, immature, thoughtless accusations like this you’ll undermine any serious efforts to battle real racism in the world. You’re fucking over the REAL victims of real racism with your idiocy by trivializing the subject. So, just stop it! You’re doing damage for fuck sakes!
And, while we’re on the topic, I’d like to point out something: There isn’t much that offends my sensibilities more than the common usage of the term “The ‘N’ word.” Listen to me: The word “nigger” is not offensive. Ok? Got that? The word “nigger” is a word, and words possess no inherent qualities of offensivness. It is impossible for a word to be, in and of itself, offensive. What is offensive is the manner of its usage, and the intent of the speaker. The word itself is nothing more than a series of meaningless sounds, strung together in a certain fashion. Words are not offensive — IDEAS; thoughts are offensive. So, if I simply speak, or write the word “nigger” without directing its usage at another person with the intent to commit harm, then there is nothing that is offensive about that word — at least not to any reasonable person. If you think there is, then you are small-minded and petty.
So, here we go… I’m about to put Michael Richards to shame: (The following is not directed at any person or group of persons, and there is absolutely no intent to harm anyone — it’s just letters on a page — black pixels arranged against white pixels in a certain order – nothing more, nothing less)
NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER! NIGGER!
There! And, you’ll never never see me appear on Letterman to apologize for that. Because, I have committed no wrong against anyone who deserves an apology from me. If you were were offended by that, then you are being small-minded, unreasonable, irrational and petty. And, I can’t, nor shouldn’t have to be, concerned with offending the small-minded, irrational and petty people among us. Jesus! If everybody had to tailor their speech and actions in accordance with how idiots might take it, we’d never get anything done.
2 Comments
We become “engrossed by what is written” merely by what meaning we personally attach to the words – not by any inherent meaning or quality of the words themselves. If you were to give that same book to someone whose only language was Chinese, I doubt they would become as engrossed as you had been – Because, of course, they wouldn’t attach the same meaning to the same series of sounds. All qualities of any word reside solely within the person or persons reading, hearing, or speaking the word, and not within the word itself. So, since a word can possess no inherent qualities, a word can not therefore, on its own, be offensive. The only thing that can be offensive is the intent of the speaker or writer of the words. The word “nigger” (or any other word), spoken or written without direction, is not offensive. If someone finds it offensive, it is because they are mistakenly, and falsely projecting their own misplaced displeasure with the common intent behind the use of the word on to the word itself.
As I’ve written before, I happen to find the usage of the term “The ‘N’ word” offensive. I regard it as an affront to my intelligence. When someone says “the ‘N’ word” to me in the course of a conversation, it appears to me as if the speaker doesn’t believe that I possess the intellectual ability to separate the word itself from their intended meaning behind its usage. That is offensive to me. So, are you going to cease using the term “The ‘N’ word”, because at least one person finds it offensive? My guess is: probably not. And, I guess that you’d likely find my request for you to do so to be absurd. So, the question then becomes: What are the rules? How many people need to find a word or phrase offensive before courtesy dictates that the use of that word or phrase should be halted?
Since I find the phrase “The ‘N’ word” offensive, would you then argue that the phrase itself is inherently offensive? Or, does the offensiveness lie only in my personal view of the phrase? If your answer is the latter, then what is the difference between the two? Does it make more sense for me to be offended by the usage of the term itself, no matter its context? Or, would it make more sense for me to attempt to distinguish whether the speaker’s choice to use the phrase was predicated on either their judgment that I’m not smart enough to recognize the intent behind the usage of the word that the phrase is substituting, or because they themselves were uncomfortable with the usage of the word they were substituting, and then apply my reaction appropriately?
“Obscenity is not a quality inherent in a book or picture, but is solely and exclusively a contribution of the reading mind, and hence cannot be defined in terms of the qualities of a book or picture.” ~Theodore Schroeder
Hmm..while I respect the dissection of your analogy about letters and sounds and words I disagree with you.
Think about this for a moment.
We read books.
Books have words written throughout and we become engrossed by what is written. By the ‘words’ we conjure up sights in our minds, sounds, emotions. Words are very powerful.
I do agree with you on the aspect that the manner in which something is said, can be the offensive finger, I do believe that even the word used, in this case the N word, IS offensive all by itself. It conjures up images does it not? Especially of a time where slaves were not considered human but animals. Just a thought.
We all have moments of rage and yes, can say hurtful, spiteful things (especially to a spouse hah!). That is human nature. But, the problem I had with the Michael Richards thing was …..where the heck was the owner of that Comedy Stage? MR should have been taken off stage before the words flew as far as they did. The damage to his career was done in a matter of moments. People will NOT forget this. He may very well be racist. Maybe not but I sure hope no ones sticks a fork in his ass someday.