The Michael Richard’s “Racial Tirade”

I’m using the expression “racial tirade” because this is the caption used by Entertainment Tonight and Larry King and some of the other TV shows.

Recently there have been tirades by Andy Rooney and Mel Gibson. These tirades are anti-immigrant, anti-foreign language speakers (including Spanish), anti-Semitism.

These people often apologize, their friends apologize, and they think this is enough.

Sneers, jeers, antipathy, whatever you call this.

Many of these people are expressing the true sentiments of people, and many are expressing their own true sentiments. Maybe these true sentiments are wrong, are unacceptable, are unpopular, have been excluded from the public debate, but these sentiments are the true, intimate and private sentiments of many peoples, and they need to be known in the “public marketplace” of ideas, thoughts, and opinions.

Every now and again they are publically expressed, sometimes in tirades and many times in the vilest and most destructive manner, whenever people feel they have an “excuse.” Whether the excuse is real or imagined. Sometimes individual people become the “scapegoat” for the true sentiments.

The press is free and an aspect of free press is the these types get to express their views.

To tell the truth, we need to hear these views. If these people are truly anti-whatever, we need to hear them.

To tell the truth, anti-Semistism has been around for centuries, anti-black sentiments are centuries old. If people truly hold these ideas (and for some ideals) we need to know this.

Imagine a black talking to the likes of Michael Richards or a Jewish person talking to the likes of Mel Gibson, truly thinking these are nice people, while they are holding the most vile sentiments of Jews and blacks and immigrants, Latinos and everybody else.

Men have a lot of anti-female sentiments that women have been hearing for centuries. Women hold a lot of anti-male sentiments that men have been hearing for centuries. Or they don’t hear this.

Certainly all of this is point of view. People need to hear these thoughts and to express them and to learn how to deal with them.

The problem is that when people think that these ideas allow them to be destructive to people.

Also, if wars are truly based on racism. Jews know that many of the wars against Jews have been racist wars. Some wars have been based upon true wrongs, others wars are just you don’t like the people. You just don’t care.