Michael Richards better known as Kramer from tv's Seinfeld. This was his defense speech in court after making racial comments in his comedy act. He makes some very interesting points.


Proud To Be White

Someone finally said it.
How many are actually paying attention to this?

There are A frican A mericans, Mexican A mericans,
A sian A mericans, A rab A mericans, etc.
A nd then there are just A mericans.

You pass me on the street and sneer in my direction.
You Call me "White boy," "Cracker," "Honkey,"
"Whitey," "Caveman" ... and that's OK.

But when I call you, ******, Kike, Towel head,
Sand-******, Camel Jockey, Beaner, Gook, or Chink ...
You call me a racist.

You say that whites commit a lot of violence against you,
so why are the ghettos the most dangerous places to live?

You have the United Negro College Fund.
You have Martin Luther King Day.
You have Black History Month.
You have Cesar Chavez Day.
You have Yom Hashoah.
You have Ma'uled A l-Nabi.
You have the N A A CP.
You have BET.
If we had WET (White Entertainment Television) we'd be racists.
If we had a White Pride Day, you would call us racists.
If we had White History Month , we'd be racists.
If we had any organization for only whites to "advance"
OUR lives we'd be racists.

We have a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a Black Chamber
of Commerce, and then we just have the plain Chamber of Commerce.
Wonder who pays for that?


A white woman could not be in the Miss Black A merican
pageant, but any color can be in the Miss A merica pageant.


If we had a college fund that only gave white students
scholarships you know we'd be racists.
There are over 60 openly proclaimed Black Colleges
in the US . Yet if there were "White colleges" TH A T
would be a racist college.


In the Million Man March, you believed that you were
marching for your race and rights. If we marched for
our race and rights, you would call us racists.


You are proud to be black, brown, yellow and orange, and
you're not afraid to announce it. But when we announce
our white pride, you call us racists.


You rob us, carjack us, and shoot at us. But, when a
white police officer shoots a black gang member or beats
up a black drug-dealer running from the law and posing a
threat to society, you call him a racist.

I am proud.
But you call me a racist.

Why is it that only whites can be racists?

What are the interesting points?

Some of the main problems with that speech of his is the word "You" and the word "Us" he assumes that all people of colour think alike that we have the same thoughts, ideas. He assumes that only people of colour live in ghettos.

They very fact that it says "You carjack us." Like I have some connection with a carjacker or murderer just because of the colour of his skin.

Well there is a lot of assuming in that speech, a lot of thoughts he has that are generated by racism in the first place.

I will take the Black Colleges for Example. A lot of those colleges are historical black colleges and they were opened back in a time when black people couldn't go the same college.


His defense speech should have been just, "Hey I got angry and I'm sorry." That would have been fine but he just took it to different levels of racism and made it "us" against "them."

Racial pride is essentially like national pride. People who advance it are either deluded - probably indulging in wishful thinking, that they're somehow better than other people because they were born in this or that place or that or this colour - or cynically using it to their own purposes.

Dunno, lots of that made sense for me. I didn't seem to care about the 'you' and 'us', though some of that stuff (carjacking us) etc. is a bit too..broad.

The carjacking paragraph was a bit questionable, but the rest of it makes sense.

I'll leave it at that, because I've had enough of such debates last year in sociology while surrounded by hippies.

While I do agree with the fact that there is alot of bias, there IS still racism around. The only problem is it can depend more on location. In the states which were confederate you're more likely to find it and have things where there actually are police officers who are racist. Here's a good story I got from a U.S. history teacher. His son was raised over here in the northwest, right. He joins the army and gets sent over to one of the formerly confederate states, forget which one. While going somewhere with some other army guys he notices a good looking black woman and comments on her being good looking. One of the other soldiers response? "We don't talk that way about f'ing n****** here."

I don't see how any of it makes sense.

There is this part too.


This part assumes that because I am black I use these words and that I it is okay to say some of these statements but I don't. It assumes that because I am black that I'm just going to pass some random person on the street and start insulting them.

It isn't "okay." None of the above statements are just "Okay" to say to anyone. Just like calling someone any other insult isn't okay to just start saying to random people on streets.

I don't see why this is so hard to grasp. All the above statements are insults. When you insult someone it isn't nice. People tend to respond negatively to insults.

Anything that makes the kind of broad statements and stereotypes that this makes is problematic. It's those jabs in there about carjacking, drug-dealing, and gang members that make it pretty clear that the writer is not simply proud of being white but views other races with disdain. And therein lies the problem.

It is unfair how people do not call other races on being racist quite as often but at the same time after several hundred years of unfair and unjust repression (that is NOT over), abuse, and denial of basic human rights it will be a long time before people stop jumping on any american white that even hints at any kind of racial superiority. It was what, 50 years ago that blacks were denied civil rights? 150 years ago that slavery ended? I can certainly understand the vigilance against any kind of backsliding.

I don't think it means 'okay' in the way you do- but I agree with what you're saying.

Like..if I was being yelled at by a black man, he called me a cracker, and I called him 'N' in return..what would happen? Everyone would hate me. If it ever came to a situation of judgement, it'd be weighed against me because I'm obviously racist for calling the guy that name. (In most cases, it'll be completely ignored that he called me a cracker.)

Why would you reply to someone randomly insulting you in the street with anything other than pity or amusement, in the first place?

I think the reason he said those things as "you" is that he is directing them at the guy who he insulted at his comedy show.

Also, I may be mistaken, but the guy he insulted at his comedy show was verbally attacking him first. I'm -not- saying two rights make a wrong, he should have held his tongue and voided this entire mess. But I believe his point is that the entire reason he is in this position is because he used racial slurs against someone who used them against him first, and he's angry that he is the one being punished, and he's pointing out how this scenario seems to happen a lot.

no matter what i think it takes alot more than words to show somone is a Racist.

Err...no...this is not a Michael Richards speech. This is an anonymous internet thing that is falsely attributed to him. The only place I found a link between the two was a blog that mentioned Richards and then "on the internet I found this speech".

So let's not start a falsehood, okay. I'm getting sick of all the fake "George Carlin" lists on the Internet.

I think he is being punished more because he is a celebrity. If he were a nobody. No one would care. I disagree with what you say about the word "you." I agree with Catarin that it is obvious he views all the other races with disdain. He was not being exclusive when he was using the word "you." He also speaks of other racial slurs. It is clear that when he uses the word "you" he means those that aren't like him.


Edit: After reading Phred's post I guess it is clear that the writer wasn't really talking about the guy at the comedy show. Because the writer isn't Michael Richards and this has been around far longer than that. Duh on me!

Aye I thought that this speech was off considering I heard Michael Richards on television apologizing in a completely different way. The propaganda mentioned in the above speech has been cycling around far longer than Michael Richards lost his temper during his show.

Thanks for pointing that out Phred!

This is actually a chain e-mail by the way. Michael Richards might have used it at some point though I'm seriously doubting it given how apologetic he was afterwards and I can't even find anything about him having gone to trial over this. It's been around at least a couple of years.

For the record here's at least one of the comments by Richards: "Shut up! Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a f------ fork up your a--!"

That *is* racist. I don't care how you paint it. You can't justify it by saying "Oh well, at some point in time some member of this race was insulting towards someone of my race." Especially since in this incident what the audience member said to him was that his comedy sucked. It was someone else that shouted an insult at him later.

Regardless, this isn't really about Richards. It's about the idea of "them" and "us" and this e-mail certainly promotes that idea. Feeling proud of who you are as a person is fine and healthy. Feeling proud of who you are based on a group you belong to. Well, that's fine too. Feeling that a group you belong to is superior to another group? Ehhh getting onto thin ice here as this will lead to all sorts of subconcious prejudice and racism where you're treating people a special way because of your preconceived notions of their race. Feeling that a group you belong to is not only superior to another group but has the right to subjugate them? Obviously not okay.

People don't just wake up one day as race supremacists. It's a process. And propaganda like this e-mail are likely designed by supremacist groups to try and start people on that process.

Okay, so pretty much everything I said means nothing as well.

Carry on.

i hear 90x worse then that stuff on xbox live every day.being a racist isn't about what you say. saying racial slurs all day, but at the end of the day if you refuse to serve somone based on some form of ethic's thats what rasism is, refusing somone based on something.

-disclaimer- i dont agree or use any racial slurs accept against aslarans, filthy little aslarans.

Okay, which idjit make a Michael Richards forum alt?

I see you trying to post something funny...