The Last Taboo

Editor’s Note (May 7, 2021): This story was originally published on November 27, 2006. It was updated to remove offensive language.

Michael Richards is a comedian, but there was nothing funny about his racist rant at a comedy club in West Hollywood two weeks ago.

Richards, who played Kramer on the hit ’90s sitcom “Seinfeld,” was caught on video saying some very nasty things to two black men who supposedly interrupted his act at the Laugh Factory. (The men claim they were just ordering drinks.) Instead of using a witty line to put the hecklers in their place, Richards used a racist one.

He said the n-word over and over again while scampering around the stage and pointing to where the men were sitting as if he had spotted a couple of aliens.

Only an alien would have made Richards’ mistake. In this universe, the n-word is completely off limits to anyone who is not black. In fact, it is so explosive that non-blacks as well as many blacks shun the term and feel the need to use a euphemism, namely “the n-word,” in its place.

But what accounts for the peculiar position that this word has in our culture? It is a word that has been delegitimized over the years, and its original contexts are largely unknown to Americans born after the 1960s. So here’s a history lesson: the n-word represents to an older generation the vicious and violent resistance to the Civil Rights movement that convulsed the South in the 1950s and ’60s. It encapsulates an attitude toward blacks that denies their very humanity.

But the word is dying. It is in a strange netherworld much like the old terms “papist” and “communist.” Like those almost-forgotten slurs, the n-word has lost some—but not all—of the force it once had since it is so rarely used in its original context.

Klein Professor of Law Randall L. Kennedy wrote a book about the history and significance of this “troublesome” word. Kennedy, who is African American, argued in his book that the n-word “is not self-defining” and that its meaning “always depends on surrounding circumstances.”

Anyone who has seen the video of the incident on YouTube knows that Richards used the word according to its most poisonous and hateful meaning—the one that has made the word taboo. Closer scrutiny of the video reveals that he utters two variations of the word: the one ending in “er” and the one ending in “a.” In contemporary American culture, the one ending in “a” can be a term of endearment—but only when said by and among blacks.

How do Americans today react to these different meanings and contexts? Far more interesting and unexpected than Richards’ rant are the reactions both of the crowd in the comedy club and of the hordes of sanctimonious newspaper columnists who have written about the outburst.

Many members of the audience can be heard laughing at the beginning of Richards’ tirade. However, there is an eerie quiet when he says the n-word for the first time—a clear sign that Richards has crossed a line—followed by gasps. In his rage, Richards misinterprets these cues from the crowd and repeats the word several times. One of the hecklers yells, “That was uncalled for.” Gradually, other people raise their voices in outrage.

It is highly improbable that any other words could have elicited this kind of reaction from the crowd. (The possibilities include Holocaust jokes, details of sexual depredations, or the torture of children.) Clearly, the n-word still has real bite.

By contrast, nothing has been made of the fact that someone who sounds like the original heckler yelled a racial epithet back at Richards. The man said, “That was uncalled for you f—ing cracker-ass…” Why no public indignation over a black man calling a white man “cracker?” For another thing, why do I feel comfortable typing out “cracker” when I can’t bring myself to type out the n-word?

What all of this reveals is that in contemporary comedy—indeed in contemporary American culture at large—there is only one remaining taboo.

Old taboos about sex, drugs, mental illness, and ethnic slurs have vanished. Comedians like Dave Chappelle and Carlos Mencia frequently joke about these things. In public. Loudly. Chappelle, who is African American, and Mencia, who is Latino, specialize in joking about ethnic groups—their own and others—but they aren’t universally denounced as racists. Why not?

The difference with Richards is that he is white and he said something white people are not supposed to say. Jerry Seinfeld released a statement in which he called the incident a “mistake.” And maybe it was a mistake. When a white performer shouts the n-word at a black audience member and then explains, “This shocks you, it shocks you, to see what’s buried beneath…” it’s hard to believe that that’s part of the act.

Regardless, the furor shows that the wounds and the battles of the Civil Rights movement are still with us. As we continue to fight racism, let’s hope that one day the n-word will lose all of its power. Let’s hope that one day, calling someone the n-word will be about as pointless and silly as is calling someone a “commie” today.

Andrew C. Esensten ’07 is a literature and African American studies concentrator in Adams House. His column appears regularly.