Seinfield, racism and holiday shopping

I’m a little late to the news-wagon, but I just found out in class tonight about the whole Michael-Richards-asshole-racist thing (see more at TMZ). It was interesting, then, to come home and find a post over at punkassblog about how Jerry Seinfield went on David Letterman and had Richards come on and give a little apology. Interesting quote from the site:

When Letterman asked what else Richards was going to do other than apologize, Richards clearly hadn’t even _considered_ doing anything other than “personal work,” which I take to mean enhancing the diversity in his life. Which probably means hiring more black folk around his mansion and/or raising the pay of any he might’ve inadvertantly “forked in the ass.”

It’s interesting to think about - it seems like all the time white actors (or male actors or Christian actors) can go out in public, say racist or sexist or anti-Semitic things, and then just apologize because “whoops, we’re all racist, I shouldn’t have said that” and they’re going to work on their own prejudices. It’s not enough to “work on it” for yourself - you should put yourself out there actively fighting oppression and racism in others.

For me (and apparently, for many others), Seinfield-related products won’t be on the holiday shopping list. Which isnot to say that I ever liked Seinfield in the first place (it’s always been a shitty, racist, sexist show) or that I’m doing any holiday shopping to speak of, but still. If you’d planned on buying something from the show, I hope you’ll reconsider.