In 2006, Michael Richards, who played “Kramer” on the Seinfeld series, appropriately apologized for his racist rant at the patrons of a comedy club where he was performing. He later phoned the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to apologize, even though there was no indication they were at the comedy club when the incident occurred.
Now, alleged comedian Bill Maher has directed racist sarcasm at President Obama. Here’s what Maher said recently on HBO:
I thought when we elected a black president, we were going to get a black president. You know, this [BP oil spill] is where I want a real black president. I want him in a meeting with the BP CEOs, you know, where he lifts up his shirt where you can see the gun in his pants. That’s — (in black man voice) we’ve got a ‘motherfu**ing problem here?’ Shoot somebody in the foot.”
The same year Richards went bizarre, the Washington Post excoriated then Virginia Sen. George Allen for calling his opponent’s campaign worker a “macaca.” The WaPo took hold of Allen’s use of the word and wouldn’t let go. In an editorial the paper wrote:
r90z0PMnKwIWe have no inkling as to what Mr. Allen meant by “Macaca,” though we rather doubt his campaign’s imaginative explanation that it was somehow an allusion to Mr. Sidarth’s hairstyle, a mullet. Mr. Allen said last night that no slur was intended, though he failed to explain what, exactly, he did have in mind. Macaca is the genus for macaques, a type of monkey found mainly in Asia. Mr. Allen, who as a young man had a fondness for Confederate flags and later staunchly opposed a state holiday in honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., has surely learned too much about racial sensitivities in public life to misspeak so offensively.
The paper admitted that it had no inkling as to what Mr. Allen meant by ‘Macaca’ but that didn’t stop it from accusing him of racial insensitivity. It may have cost Allen the election.
Lately, Maher has been dialing up his own racist attempted-comedic comments. He has said:
1WqazleR3FE“How exactly does President Sanford and Son think he got elected — by CB radio? The campaign was based on the Internet.” That was a response to President Obama, who recently, while giving the graduation address at Hampton College, an HBCU school, criticized high-tech consumer items, such as the iPod, iPad and other gadgets, saying they “are distractions that put new strains on democracy.”
Perhaps he’s looking to become this generation’s Lenny Bruce. Or, he may want to be taken seriously as a race-relations pundit from the far side. He recently offered other insights on the topic.
So, when can we expect Maher, who is trafficking in more frequent and direct racial profiling of President Obama, to be tagged by the WaPo as a…Republican?