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11/21/2006: "Pop Goes The Career"
By now, you've no doubt seen Michael Richard's racist rant delivered last Friday at the Laugh Factory here in LA (if you haven't, here you go ...). Last night he appeared on Letterman via satellite, but his lame attempt at justification probably only made things worse.
Hecklers are a way of life for the stand-up comic, and how they deal with them is often the mark of a true professional. Turn the insult back on them, make them feel like crap for trying to insert themselves in your act, but never alienate your audience. I have no idea what drove Richards to think shouting the N-word at a couple of black hecklers would demonstrate any of those traits, but if attention is what he wanted, well he got it. I can remember when Richards first came to fame in the early 80s as part of the SNL knockoff Fridays! on ABC ... now I can say I'll remember the end of his career as well.
Richards will get bitch-slapped in the press for the next few days much as Mel Gibson was a few months back after his anti-Semitic DUI stop. All the talking heads will get their 15 minutes, YouTube stock will rise once again, and it'll be over. A month from now, all will be as it was.
I'm not black, and I won't pretend to understand how it must feel to be part of a once-oppressed race. But here's what worries me: it's just a word. Yes, it it was uttered with ugly, hateful intent, but it's just a word. Single out Richards as the ignornant racist he is, but don't give the word credit - or power. When you do, you give people like that the ability to use that word and all those like it to divide us as easy as a wolf culling a herd. And if we continue to allow that to happen, how can we ever hope to truly live as color-blind equals.
It's just a word - don't give it any more credit than it deserves.
