How not to handle a heckler

[Seadawg]

In the last couple of days at my pool league, bridge club and daughters high school friends, I have heard some pretty scathing comments about his actions.

General consensus is he committed career Hari Kari.

In fact shirts have sprung up with K K Kramer....Ouch.

[Butterfly Man]

Nigger Please!

The word nigger has gotten a bad rap ... no pun intended.

I have and will continue to use the word frequently but only with close black friends.
For example, I just called my friend Patrick and he told me he just bought a house ... I said "Man, oh man ... don't that put you in the top 1%? ... a nigger with a mortgage!"

Patrick laughed ... why?

Because it was funny.

Will I use the word onstage? Probably not.

I have been heckled by blacks (one late show in Washington Sq. Park in NYC comes to mind), but I never uttered the (ooo) evil word. Why? Because I didn't have to ... they tried to fuck with the wrong guy and they were humiliated accordingly. Believe me, I did much worse stuff to those 5 guys ... I talked about their mothers ... their sisters ... where they lived ... on and on. I actually felt sorry for them after it was over. It was probably hard as hell for those street thugs to take that kind of abuse from a skinny little white boy.

Michael Richards is probably not a racist ... I think he just might be stupid. Getting mad at a heckler never works ... the audience will sense your hostility and will not enjoy themselves.

After all, it's about them, the audience ... not you or your act. So do what you need to do ... but calling someone a nigger with anger is just as bad as calling them anything else. The word ain't bad ... it's you fucking up by ruining the one reason you are doing what you do ... to make people happy and laugh.

To label anyone a racist because they use a certain word shows ignorance too. How they use it (and when) is what matters. Michael Richards fucked up, that's all.

[Seadawg]

Robert, you hit the nail squarely on the head in terms of taking his eye off of the "entertainment" ball.

And as you are well aware, there are ways to completely destroy someone in a verbal tirade. but anger on the performers part is a no win situation.

Unfortunately, all performers live in the eye and opinion of the public . Michael has given him self a serious black eye that he may not be able to overcome.

It may not have been cool, but turning off the mike, waving "Fuck you very much" to the assholes and an exit stage left would certainly have saved him a few million PR brownie points.

[Evan Young]

ditto what robert said, and.....

vast quantities of americans don't even know what racism is all about. They look at the south and point a racist finger.... but they have never even met a black person.

You don't know anything about racism unltil you walk down the street at night and pass a black man, or a group of black men, and feel fear. Why do you feel that fear? Would you feel the same thing if that person wearing similar cloths wasn't black? And don't say anything until you have been there.
Grow up going to school with poor black kids who wouldn't pay attention in class and then call the teacher a racist when she tried to repromand them?
Ever been to see a movie in a town with a majority of black people?
have you ever worked a job along side a black kid who grew up the the getto?
Ever done street shows in baltimore?
Did you say anything when you noticed that major pollitical party that just put Strom Therman (a man who built his career on real racism) back in a major party leadership position? And if you did say anything, why did you say it? Was it partisan mudflinging, or a real concern for human rights?
Ever lived with a nazi flag waving skinhead who served in the marines with black people they would take a bullet for any day?

Racism is a weird thing.


people think that due to the fact that they are PC, dont wave a confederate flag, own a jazz album, watched the cosby show, and ate some fried chicken in atlanta they arn't racist, but they have no idea.



I like to think I have some experience with real racism, and I didn't see it in that video; I just saw a performer having a really really bad night.

[em]

hmm

The word itself is a term of abuse, but i wonder if over here in the Uk its racist connotations are even deeper, we just don't use it here if you have any sense as a white person. The word is used amongst the black youth all the time in my area, but if i used it i would run a high risk of getting seriously injured...
Why use it if you are not a racist? the word is abusive because it attacks somone because of the colour of their skin. And it hurts....No amount of anger justifies it i'm afraid....If it had been a fat white woman he wouldn't have said "You fat honky cunt!" would he?
i'm not particularly PC, but over here we would not even discuss if he was racist or not, there would be no question that he was. But i am aware that it may be less clear over there....
This whole subject is a massive can of worms......
(although i did laugh at the term "gave himself a serious black eye" and "brownie points")

[Seadawg]

Damn, I use two colloquial expressions and didnt even realize the colour connotations.

The Friggin PC Nazis are going to climb out of the woodwork and be all over my ass like a Fat Kid on a Smartie. (PC Cops----Kiss my A$$)

[jesus]

I think the man was having a bad show and made a huge mistake in the way he dealt with the situation.
As for the racist element:
I think that all Americans of a certain age have the seeds of racism deep within themselves as we grew up in an America where expressing racism was accepted and so we heard these ideas from parents, friends and neighbors and took them in.
(This may in a broader sense be true of everyone on the planet as there seems to be a natural fear of things that are different, but that is a much bigger conversation)
While most of us have learned that basing your feelings about a person simply on their appearance is just as nonsensical as a child not wanting to eat something they have never tasted, there are times when these base emotions that we were exposed to rise to the surface and show themselves without our intention to do so.
Personally I don't believe that having these words "slip" out show someone to be a racist. Being a racist is a result of a combination of actions and words becoming a pattern that affects the lives of the people around you and yourself.
These "slips" however do remind us of how recent the history of racism is and also that there is still work to be done to be sure we keep walking away from that racism.
I don't know Michael Richards so I don't know about his words or actions of the past, but I will pay attention to his words and actions in the days to come.

I would also like to add that in my very personal opinion everyone on this planet needs to be a bit less sensitive about almost everything.

But what do I know? I am a white heterosexual American male and am therefore responsible for the repression of every person upon this planet as well as the destruction of the planet itself.
(Please note that in an effort to make up for this I did marry a Jew.)

[Stephon]

Originally posted by jesus
I am a white heterosexual American male and am therefore responsible for the repression of every person upon this planet as well as the destruction of the planet itself.
(Please note that in an effort to make up for this I did marry a Jew.)

I'm afraid that only makes you a collaborator; remember, according to Mel, the Jews (even us lapsed ones, I suppose) are responsible for all the world's wars.

[jesus]

What a relief

Thank god.

Since it has come up, why does Mel get slammed for Anti-semitic statements and Krammer for racist statements while everyone (read Penn Joilet, Bill Mahr, Jon Stewart etc) else is free to lampoon and speak out against conservative Christians at will? Is teasing only alowed from the bottom up?
(Meaning that we can only pick on the ones in "control".)

I'm not a believer by any stretch, but inconsistencies make me curious.

[Stephon]

I think it's because Jillette, Mahr, and Stewart's commentary (right or wrong) is critical of behavior done in the name of a belief system, and is usually presented as humor.

Gibson and Richards simply made uninspired insults against people's skin color or religion--they weren't teasing.

[Seadawg]

hey Swami, just checked out your website....
you do some weird ass shit dude..

Nice job.

[Evan Young]

Re: hmm

Originally posted by em

Why use it if you are not a racist? the word is abusive because it attacks somone because of the colour of their skin. And it hurts....No amount of anger justifies it i'm afraid....If it had been a fat white woman he wouldn't have said "You fat honky cunt!" would he?

I think he probably would have. That's my assumption. If I was having a bad night and were to lash out like that at some jerk in the crowd I would be much more likely to say that then the N word because I don't consider fat white women anywhere near as potentially dangerous. Is that racist of me? or just realistic?

Like Eric pionted out, there is no footage of what happened before the explosion. I wish there was.

[Guest]

Heeeeeere's Bill!

A set by the late, great...wherein he loses his temper with a female heckler. Audience seems a bit more behind him most of the way than they were with Richards.

Chris

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8821778916602801508&q=%22bill+hicks%22&hl=en

[Stephon]

Originally posted by Seadawg
hey Swami, just checked out your website....
you do some weird ass shit dude..

Nice job.

Thanx, 'Dawg.

[spehar]

Nice one (Bill Hicks).
A few of us in Edinburgh this year were lucky enough to catch one of Dave McSavage's sets in the Tron where he had a similar event. Wasn't a heckler but a very proper lady sitting dead smack in front of him. He was having a bit of a rough time with her just sitting there silently staring at him, her poor mind probably melting down completely at his material, much of which he was directing at her to try to diffuse the shyte energy she was putting out (it was fucking hilarious). She finally gets up and starts to leave and he goes mental. It was awe inspiring. While his shows are already all about stepping over the line so to speak, in this moment he ACTUALLY stepped over the line. Apart from maybe a stray audience member here and there we were all with him, pissing ourselves. Somehow he managed to wig out completely at this woman, keep us laughing in disbelief, and then continue with his show calling back the incident from time to time. Masterful.

Looked as though Richards was going for something like this but just shit the bed big time. What a painful video.