Flogging the dead horse

A couple of weeks back, Michael Richards (of Kramer fame from the hugely popular and successful Seinfeld sitcom series) lost his cool during his stand-up show at The Laugh Factory comedy club when a couple of African American dudes heckled during his routine.

Richards responded by going into a racial tirade and repeatedly used the N-word. What he did not count upon was the fact that there were people in the audience with phone cameras who knew how YouTube works.

Within a day, enough people had seen the video of incident and the outrage followed. And rightly so.

But here's the thing. Please don't get me wrong. I am not in any way siding with what he did. It just became news because of two things: One that he is a white man saying all these things and two, he was captured on video saying it.

Now I have seen quite a few stand up shows by Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Martin Lawrence, Eddie Murphy, Chris Tucker and the likes. Their entire show is racist...Chris Rock amongst the most. There are so many times when so many digs are taken at white people, but everyone in the audience (including white people) are laughing about it. That's cause it is expected of them to say these things.

And also the fact that since they are Black, it's OK for them to refer to other Black people using the N-word.

If the Black community does not like being referred to with the N-word, there should be no distinction on who utters the word in the first place. Be it Black or White. Or in my case, Brown. Oh, don't even get me started on the Brown racism. Being Indian (which is neither Black, Brown or Asian) is a different thing altogether.

So here's the thing. Racism in any form is still racism. No matter who says it and in what context. So if people don't want to get these tirades from stupid people like Michael Richards, they should not accept this kind of behaviour from Black people as well. I agree with what Rev. Jesse Jackson and others have to say. If the N-word is derrogatory (and I am sure it is), it should not be used by ANYBODY! No exceptions.

But that would mean a lot of stand-up shows will lose their punch. I can almost see the expressions on the faces of people like Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle.

In the meantime, the media can stop putting up news articles claiming that Michael Richards is "shattered" by the tirade. Enough is enough. He's been an ass. He knows it. His career is over.

Let's move on.