Blame racism on the booze

The other day, my friend Jacob showed me a video on YouTube. In it, Cosmo Kramer screamed… The other day, my friend Jacob showed me a video on YouTube. In it, Cosmo Kramer screamed racial slurs and swear words at a group of black audience members in a Los Angeles comedy club.

“What do you think?” Jacob asked me.

“Frankly,” I said, “that was the most unfunny episode of ‘Seinfeld’ I have ever seen. I mean, that episode was even worse than the series finale.” I understood why NBC had never aired that one before. It wasn’t the direction in which I personally would have taken the Kramer character. The Kramer that I loved was the man who got into fights with zoo animals and sunbathed with butter. Where did the character’s inner rage come from? Jacob then explained to me that this was not an episode, but a real life video.

I was shocked. First of all, I wasn’t aware that Michael Richards was still alive. Secondly, I never would have expected a racist outburst from him. It just didn’t make sense to me. Soon after the incident, Richards appeared on David Letterman’s show to begin his gauntlet of apologies.

During his apology, he said he felt awful for what he did to those young “Afro-Americans.” Now, some people may think that the term Afro-American is outdated, but I hear people use it quite often. There was