by Stefan Rogenmoser

Created on: January 10, 2007   Last Updated: October 22, 2011

As far as I can tell Michael Richards was doing stand up at a comedy club, not giving a serious academic philosophical lecture of any sort. If this is so, there's a possibility he was using sarcasm, albeit racial sarcasm. I guess the bigger issue is everyone wants to say everything is racist. But if everything is racist, then racism seems to lose its meaning.

This incident on both sides was inappropriate for sure, but two wrongs never made a right. Richards was wrong for overreacting, and the hecklers were wrong for interrupting his performance so rudely.

The audience members he spoke to were being hecklers. Comedians make fun of hecklers because comedians are out there to make us laugh. I've seen a number of comedians offend hecklers. Zach Galifianakis consistently gives his hecklers a hard time, but he makes it much funnier than Richards did. They're different comedians with different styles, and that's just an opinion.

Other famous examples of racial satire (these are more clever and thoughtful than Richard's reaction while being caught up in the heat of the moment) are Mel Brooks' film "Blazing Saddles" and Randy Newman's song "Rednecks." Of course both of these examples are from the mid 1970s when people still understood sarcasm and jokes about race could still be funny, even if they weren't racist. They actually make fun of racists, but that's often overlooked by the shock value of the "N word."

But Richard's incident was in 2006, a time when most people are too easily offended and don't think enough before they act, and then their actions are blown out of proportion by the sensationalist media.

Note: As of this writing, an update in Oct. 2009, the incident has disappeared from the public's consciousness because nobody cares and much larger issues are at stake. Besides, we're so overloaded with information and messages on a daily basis that the new messages erase the old ones from our memory. If I hadn't stumbled across this old article I would have completely forgotten the incident. It's funny how memory works that way. We tend to forget what's not immediately in front of us, and facts and memories slip into the the dark voids of our minds, occasionally something will shine a light on it, briefly or not, and the door to that memory can be re-opened.

The racial debate has come forth again over the last two years due to President Barack Obama, but the debates started on the campaign trail, before he was elected. We're told he's the first black president, but does skin color really matter in 2009? Why does racism still exist, and why its definition getting more obscure and blurred?

Learn more about this author, Stefan Rogenmoser.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.