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"N"-Word Hypocrites in Bizarro World Steve Malzberg It's a sad irony that the Michael Richards debacle has evolved into an episode with a similar storyline to an actual show from the "Seinfeld" series.
Fans of the TV sitcom should recall "Bizarro World," where Elaine meets up with the polar opposites of Jerry, George, and Kramer. Each character looks like their original counterparts, but they act in a totally unfamiliar manner.
That's what comes to mind as I view the lengths to which Richards has decided to go in an attempt to make amends for his recent racist rant at an L.A. comedy club. As he makes the rounds with the self appointed leaders of the African-American community I can't help but feel that we are all living in Bizarro World, and it's facilitated by a media that is extremely forgiving, if you are of the proper political persuasion.
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First, Richards turned to Al Sharpton for forgiveness and help. You know the good reverend . . . or do you?
He's hailed by the media as a civil rights leader. Of course he is a former presidential candidate. But what about his role in the Tawana Brawley hoax?
Tawana Brawley was a black teenage girl who, in 1987 said she was raped by a group of white men including Stephen Pagones, an upstate New York prosecutor.
It never happened, and Sharpton was found liable of defaming Pagones. To this day Sharpton refuses to admit the whole thing was a hoax even though the grand jury said it was.
In 1991 a young black boy was accidentally run over by a car carrying Hasidic Jews in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. At the funeral, Sharpton reportedly referred to Jews as "diamond merchants." Riots followed and a young rabbinical student, Yankel Rosenbaum was chased down by a crowd chanting , "Kill the Jew!" and he was killed by a gang of black thugs.
In 1995 Sharpton led protests against a Jewish business owner on 125th Street in Harlem. He denounced the owner of Freddies Fashion Mart as a "white interloper." That store was later burned down by a gunman, killing 8 people. Sharpton, as in the Crown Heights murder, was never found to be legally culpable.
Sharpton has also referred to Greeks as, "homos", and once claimed that David Dinkins, the first black mayor of New York City, had a malady he diagnosed as, "the only Nigger problem."
He said of Dinkins, "He thinks he's the only 'nigger.'"
Oh yes, the Rev. Al did not accept Richards' apology.
Next, Michael Richards went on Jesse Jackson's radio show. You know the good reverend . . . or do you?
What best qualifies Jackson to sit in judgment of Richards in Bizarro World are his own racist remarks made during the 1984 presidential race. The reverend was running for the democratic nomination when he was overheard calling New York City, "Hymietown," and the Jews who lived there, "Hymies." Jackson first denied it, and later apologized.
Jackson has told Richards that he needs help.
He probably does.
But Jackson has gone beyond Richards racist comments and has used incident to blast the republican's for re-electing Sen. Trent Lott to a leadership position. Jackson has once again raised objection to Lott's remarks made at a birthday party for Sen. Strom Thurmond which were racially divisive, forcing Lott to resign as incoming Senate majority leader back in 2002.
Lott apologized back then, but let us assume apologies are not sufficient for Jackson, unless he's making them.
It's curious that Jackson would chose to reignite the Lott story. After all, I fail to recall Jackson's outrage when in in 1993, at a birthday party for former Sen. William Fulbright, President Clinton gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the segregationist.
Fulbright was against the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education, against the Voting Rights Act and against the Civil Rights Act.
Ah yes . . . Bizarro World at its best.
Also weighing in on the Michael Richards fray was actor Alec Baldwin. You know Alec, Kim Bassinger's ex . . . or do you?
Baldwin was asked by Larry King what he thought of the "rant" by Michaels. Baldwin's answer? Priceless: "I-I don't know. I have to think sometimes that people in that line of work; that maybe they think that that was funny and maybe he thought he was joking. And obviously it wasn't funny, but it was breathtaking to me to see in this business how some people, in a single day, you can flush yourself down the toilet."
I say his response is priceless because it was back on Dec. 11, 1998 that Baldwin made a jackass of himself on NBC's "Late Night With Conan O'Brien." His tirade was so severe that some urged the secret service take action against him. Baldwin lost it while expressing dismay at the impeachment of Bill Clinton: "I am thinking to myself, if we were in other countries, we would right now, all of us together [starts to shout] all of us together would go down to Washington and we would stone Henry Hyde [Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee] to death! "We would stone him to death! [the crowd cheers] Wait! Shut up, shut up, no, shut up, I'm not finished. We would stone Henry Hyde to death and we would go to their homes and kill their wives and their children. We would kill their families . . ."
The Media Research Center's "Media Watch" points out that at the time Baldwin claimed it was all a parody, and he regretted that Congressman Hyde "took it poorly." The Washington Post reported that the president of the Motion Picture Association of America Jack Valenti ripped into Baldwin saying, "However it was said, it's not something you use as a joke, it's not something you parody. This is incendiary."
Now you know why Baldwin's answer to King was priceless. Now you know what a bunch of hypocrites run the news media. Now you know all about Bizarro World even if you never saw a "Seinfeld" episode.
Editor's note:
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