What the heck is wrong with Kramer?

Michael Richards needs a public relations person....stat!

I mean like poste haste, tout suite, expedimente!

If you haven't heard and I don't see how you couldn't have, Michael Richards (aka "Kramer" from the popular sitcom, SEINFELD) had a psychotic break over the weekend at the Laugh Factory after being heckled. He flipped out and started calling people the N-word and told the heclker "Fifty year's ago, you would have been hung up in a tree with a fork up your ass!"

and then went on Letterman to apologize saying that he was sorry to all the "Afro-Americans"

*sigh*

I reiterate: Michael Richards needs a public relations manager.

See, me? I would have had him go on Letterman and apologize and in the middle of the apology I would have had him drop a tear, not an Andrew Dice Clay tear, but a little choke up and then after a couple of seconds I would have had him utter the following phrase:

"Tito, pass me a tissue"

and THEN I'd have Tito Jackson himself come in frame left to bring him a tissue (wearing a tee shirt that said "I'm Tito Jackson" cuz nobody knows what the hell Tito Jackson looks like).


and in the middle of the apology, I'd have his cell phone ring and have it be Nelson Mandela and then Nelson would be satellited in and Nelson would say that he's known Michael for years, has prayed with him on ancient burial grounds and was at his baptism in the Nile and knows that Michael Richards is not capable of hate.


and all of this would happen while Michael wore a MLK tee shirt.

Yeah, that's what I'd do.

And I woulda told Michael that Black folks were only "Afro American" for about 3 days in 1981 and we never like to be called "Blacks" in racially volatile situations.

And I would have given him some lithium.

but since none of that happened....Michael Richards can kiss my ass.

The only person who can save him now is Oprah and she is not risking her rep for the likes of "Kramer".

And the Laugh Factory let him perform the NEXT night and then decided out of the blue to BAN him from the Laugh Factory pending an apology but then said the Letterman apolgy wasn't enough, he'd have to come BACK to the Laugh Factory, apologize to him (the owner) and the entire crowd. Ummmm, will you be charging $10 a head a two drink minimum for the controversial "Kramer" apology?

What Richards has done, though, is opened the door for discussions on race. Some of the conversations are old: "how come black people can say the n-word and white people can't" and some are not so old. I have constantly said that unless we incorporate multicultural history into junior high curriculuum, we will always have a problem with race in this country. 12 years of school and no one in your school books look like you (except Crispus Attucks ), that's not bound to do psychologically damage, oh no. And when all the "heroes" in the books are white, that doesn't give white kids a superiority complex, pu-shaw!

Most people in this country know nothing about The Middle Passage, Jim Crow, the Trail of Tears, Japanese internment camps, lynching, auction blocks or anything thing else that has contributed to our ethnic rage. Most folks think slavery was just about us picking up around White folk's houses, they don't know about auction blocks and rape. (Trust me, they don't, that's why they're so dismissive about it.) They also don't know how long slavery was, why slavery started in America or the fact that we're only 141 years out of slavery. Give most people, black or white, a pop quiz about Black history and they'd fail. I only know what I know because I made a point to research it and I'm still abashedly uninformed.

At some point during his interview, "Kramer" sounds like he's about to talk about the rage the lead him to the n-word, he doesn't get to it but I'd be interested in what he had to say actually. He can still kiss my ass but I'd like to know.

I'd like to know because on TMZ.com I was FLOORED by how many white folks had no problem with what "Kramer" said, no problem at all. They were glad somebody had said it and blamed the hecklers for opening their mouths (although I've been to a comedy club. On a date, entry for 2: $20; 2 drink mininum for both $36; tips: $12; appetizer: $15 - $83 into it and "Kramer" isn't funny???? OH HELL TO THE NAW!).

This country is begging for a conversation on race, I don't know through what medium or on whose terms but there's a storm a-brewin'.

On the "upside" though, I wish that someone would have corrected the news report that a black man stood up to "Kramer" and told him his comments were "un-fucking-necessary". The man yelling at Kramer is obviously (to me) Latino. In a city where there is so much Black/Brown tension, it's nice to know that one of the homies had our back.