What do you all think of Kramer now?

[lizbud]

Is there anyone in the civilized world that Richards hasn't apologized
to? Geeze. Shut up allready.

[mugsy]

Yep, he apologized on Jesse Jackson's radio show (OMG that frightens me) and now the morons that were heckling are demanding an apology in person and financial restituion. Yep, just as I figured, all they wanted was the almighty dollar. This world is screwed up.

I think it's time we let him down from the cross and move on already.

[Catsnclay]

Yep, he apologized on Jesse Jackson's radio show (OMG that frightens me) and now the morons that were heckling are demanding an apology in person and financial restituion. Yep, just as I figured, all they wanted was the almighty dollar. This world is screwed up.

I think it's time we let him down from the cross and move on already.

The Hecklers are demanding an apology and $$$$$. ??????? Huh?! What's wrong with this picture?!


Hmmmm..........me thinks they did this in the first place to get the $$$$$. (just like the muslims that were not allowed on the flight to Phoenix - pretty much the same thing. Everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame )


We are NBA fans, and one thing I always notice: the person who starts the "fight" never gets caught, it is always the one who retaliates that gets caught.

Michael Richards reactaced and got caught. He apoligized for it, no harm - no foul. Lets move on. Please!

And to those of you out there looking for a quick buck: Jeez, go to work and earn your money the way we all do!!!

[lizbud]

I saw an interesting news article on the subject of apologies.


Hurt feelings won't be soothed
Apologies not enough for wronged parties

Published November 29, 2006


The republic would seem to be in good health, if not sound mind, when hurt feelings and public embarrassment are the picadors of public passion.

The past few weeks have provided a surfeit of sensitivity challenges:

- A group of "lactivists" staged a nurse-in to protest an airline's insensitivity to a breast-feeding mom.

- Two African-American men hired a lawyer to sweeten an apology they're demanding from a racial-epithet hurling comedian.

- Six Muslim imams, in an impressive demonstration of cultural assimilation, cried racism when airline officials removed them from a flight for mimicking the behavior of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists.

The common thread throughout these events is hurt feelings and humiliation. Kill somebody in America and you might get a stint in the brig. But make a person feel bad, and watch your head as the gates of purgatory fly open.

The offended African-American men were in a Hollywood comedy club when "Seinfeld" co-star Michael Richards suffered a nuclear meltdown and launched into a racist rant. He later said the men and others in their group interrupted his monologue.

Meanwhile, attorney Gloria Allred has entered the fray. She is seeking an in-person apology from Richards before a mediator who, she and her clients hope, might order some monetary compensation for their suffering. Not that this is about money, of course.

Nevertheless, if we start attaching monetary reparations to insults, the country will soon be bankrupt.

On the other hand, columnists will become billionaires. My feelings are hurt not just daily, but by the minute, so perhaps I speak too soon.

The imams, likewise, are demanding an apology from US Airways, and staged a protest Monday at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The Muslims claim they were merely praying in advance of their flight, though we can bet they weren't praying as much as their fellow travelers were.

While we can all feel their embarrassment upon being escorted from the plane in handcuffs, can't they also appreciate others' discomfort under the circumstances? Once on the plane, the imams reportedly took seats to which they were not assigned, pairing off to sit near the exits. The two seated in first class requested seat-belt extensions, which they placed on the cabin floor. One needn't be Islamophobic to go, "Hmmmmmm."

Finally, the erstwhile gentler sex of the lactating variety suffered grievous insult when another airline asked a nursing mother to exit a plane for "indiscreet nursing."

Emily Gillette was sitting by a window in the next-to-last row, with her husband planted between her and the aisle, when the attendant proffered a blanket. When Gillette declined to cover herself--and her 22-month-old child--a gate agent asked the family to deplane.

Gillette has filed a complaint with the Vermont Human Rights Commission against both Delta Air Lines and Freedom Airlines, which was operating the Delta flight from Burlington to New York City.

Insult one lactating mom and you insult all breast-feeders, apparently. Some 30 parents and their children demonstrated their solidarity with Gillette by staging a "nurse-in" at the Burlington airport.

To all, of course, apologies are due--and have been delivered. But shouldn't they also be accepted without our having to clutter courtrooms with weeping couches?

----------

[Pam]

Liz that is a mouthful and I couldn't agree more. In fact I am sure we could fill volumes with stories of how people have been insulted and just have had to take it and move on. When did society decide that insults need to wind up in a courtroom? Personally I blame the attorneys (sorry Johanna ) who take on every case that comes down the pike. Also people need to grow up and just deal with things.

[lizbud]

Liz that is a mouthful and I couldn't agree more. In fact I am sure we could fill volumes with stories of how people have been insulted and just have had to take it and move on. When did society decide that insults need to wind up in a courtroom? Personally I blame the attorneys (sorry Johanna ) who take on every case that comes down the pike. Also people need to grow up and just deal with things.

Isn't it nice to see some common sense every once in awhile

I did have to snicker a bit at this part of the story.......


"The imams, likewise, are demanding an apology from US Airways, and staged a protest Monday at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The Muslims claim they were merely praying in advance of their flight, though we can bet they weren't praying as much as their fellow travelers were."

[lizbud]

Some posters in this thread wondered why blacks can & do use the
dreaded N word but object to it's use by whites. I saw this article by a
black columnist on this very subject. It's interesting to see his opinion.
You just might be surprised.


Richards' rant might merit a thank-you
--------------------

Leonard Pitts, a syndicated columnist based in Washington:
McClatchy/Tribune Newspapers

December 5, 2006

The N-word has had few friends better than comedian Paul Mooney.

Put aside that the word was long a staple of his act. Put aside the
promotional pamphlet he once sent out that screamed the word in big, fat
type. Consider instead what he told anyone who argued that blacks should
stop using the word. He replied that he said it a hundred times every
morning: "It keeps my teeth white."

The selfsame Paul Mooney joined Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rep. Maxine
Waters (D-Calif.) in a recent news conference asking black folks to stop
using the N-Word. In other news, there are unconfirmed reports of pigs
flying above Times Square.

Mooney says he was "cured" of his N-word addiction by Michael Richards'
infamous meltdown last month at the Laugh Factory. I tend to think he's
not the only one. From strangers online to my neighbor down the street,
everywhere I turn lately, I find black folks debating the stubborn
insistence some of us have on using this word.

Which leaves me as much vexed as pleased. More power to them for
belatedly getting religion. Still, are you telling me that nearly 20 years
after hip-hop made that word unavoidable, it takes some white TV actor
losing his mind to make black folks see what should have been obvious all
along?

I mean, what do we learn from Richards' rant that we should not have
already known from Snoop Dogg or Ice Cube? That the word is ugly? That is
it hateful? That it demeans, denigrates, diminishes and denies? So
where was black outrage when black rappers began putting that word into the
minds and mouths of black children? When we--African-Americans--began
hating ourselves to a beat?

And if I hear one more Negro offer one more pseudo-intellectual
justification for that self-loathing, I will not be responsible for my actions
afterward. Don't give me the it-means-something-different-because-we-
spell-it-with-an-"a"-on-the-end speech.And for mercy sake, don't subject
me to the addled argument proffered by John Ridley in December's
Esquire. He says that, as whites feel no particular solidarity with their
impoverished racial brethren in Appalachia, it is time for "ascended
blacks" to bid farewell to, as he puts it, "niggers."

Don't tell me any of that because it quails in the face of historical
fact. We are talking about the word that was used as Gus Clarke's back
was split open with a whip and salt was rubbed into the wounds. The word
that was used when Mary Turner's baby was cut from her womb with a
knife and stomped to death in its birth cries. The word that was used when
James Byrd was tied to the back of a pickup truck and dragged until his
body was torn to pieces.

To the people who did these things, it did not matter how it was
spelled. They knew precisely what race they were referring to. And they saw
no difference between "ascended blacks" and any other kind.

Nor should that last surprise us. In the calculus of race, I am not my
brother's keeper. I am my brother. Individuality is the first casualty
of bigotry.

Black people, like other Americans, tend to flee from the burdens and
demands of history. History, ours especially, hurts too much.

But what Michael Richards taught and what blacks may belatedly be
learning is that history doesn't care. Not about your feelings, not about
your rationalizations, not about your subtleties of spelling.

Because they don't realize that some blacks, Paul Mooney prominent
among them, seem surprised to learn that this word still hates us. That it
always has and always will.

And if Richards is the catalyst that finally forces them to understand
this, there's only one thing I can say to him:

Thank you.