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Tuesday, 05 December 2006 17:25 |
 | | Roland Martin |
CHICAGO ÇƒÓ Mel Gibson gets drunk and, sitting in the presence of police, unleashes a slew of vile comments against Jews.
"Seinfeld" star Michael Richards has a meltdown on a Los Angeles comedy stage, upset that his show was interrupted by a group of noisy patrons. So the comedian retaliates by ripping into two black customers, cursing them out, calling them the N-word, bringing up the savagery of Americaës forgotten past ÇƒÓ lynching ÇƒÓ and letting us know about his superiority as a white male by saying he could have them arrested at will.
The
reaction to these two celebrities was swift and quick. People from all
walks of life expressed shock and outrage at both men, with some
calling for boycotts of their work and/or urging them to attend racial
sensitivity training.
That is a proper
course of action if you so choose. Yet the tremendous learning
opportunity that could be derived from both of these individuals
continues to be overlooked ÇƒÓ the reality that deeply embedded in the
psyche and spirit of many of us are the same racial feelings exhibited
by Gibson and Richards.
This is not an
effort to excuse their actions. But what we all must confront is the
fact that so many Americans ÇƒÓ and people around the world ÇƒÓ make
decisions every day based on a personës ethnic group, gender, what part
of town, city, state or region they hail from, and also economic class.
We have developed animosities, feelings of anger and discontent,
prejudice, and yes, racism, against others.
But we try hard
to control that rage. That is, until something pushes us so far that it
comes erupting out like a volcano, and then we are all ashamed by our
behavior.
If you visit
TMZ.com and see the partial video of Richardsë racist rant, you will
hear him admit to those things long buried coming out. He reiterated
that on his appearance on David Lettermanës late night show.
"Iëm concerned
about more hate and more anger and more rage coming through, not just
towards me but towards a black-white conflict," he said.
He later added,
"Iëll get to the force field of this hostility; why itës there; why the
rage is in any of us; why the trash takes place, whether or not itës
between me and a couple of hecklers in the audience, or between this
country or another nation."
Although
declaring that heës not a racist, Richards clearly has never been
honest with himself about his deeply rooted feelings about African
Americans. There is no way any of us could go on such a diatribe and
not have thought or spoken of such feelings before. We can try to bury
it in the recesses of our minds, but when that switch is flipped, we
are clueless as to what comes out of our mouths.
We saw this
fictionalized in the Oscar-winning "Crash." The character played by
Sandra Bullock is the wife of the Los Angeles district attorney, yet
when both are carjacked, she flies into a rage, looking at the Hispanic
man changing their home locks as nothing but a gang-banger out to get
this white couple. Her husband tries to calm her down, but she wants
nothing of it. The carjacking drummed up her buried feelings, and she
is a walking time bomb, spewing hate toward anyone who comes into her
range.
This isnët an
effort to play the role of a psychologist, but we all must come to the
conclusion that racial views can flow many different ways, and have
harmful effects on us and those we come into contact with.
And this isnët a
one-way street. African Americans ÇƒÓ and Asians and Hispanics and other
ethnic groups ÇƒÓ have their own built-in racial dynamics that come to
play. In Chicago, the Irish Americans detested African Americans, even
though others treated the Irish with contempt. Richardsë publicist,
Howard Rubenstein, confirmed that the comedian is Jewish, which could
lead some to conclude that he understands ethnic attacks. But to think
that Jews canët dislike African Americans ÇƒÓ and vice versa ÇƒÓ would be
naive.
"In America we
get caught up saying weëre not racist. If youëre raised in this
country, almost everybody has got a little racism in them," comedian
Sinbad told CNN. "I have racism. It doesnët take much to bring it to
the surface. And the whole idea of life is to control the racism we
have."
Maybe instead of
controlling it, what we should all do is work on purging it out of our
systems. That may be difficult considering our life experiences make up
our views of others, but when we at least make the effort to admit our
true racial feelings, we have to be on the path to being healed from
the hate that lurks within.
ï
Roland S. Martin, editor of The Chicago Defender newspaper, is author of "Speak, Brother! A Black Manës View of America."
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