This is the latest news story regarding this outburst

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6191188.stm

What does anyone think about this? I suspect this may be a much bigger issue in the US than if it happened over in the UK. I hate to say it but i suspect a lot of that kind of language is used behind closed doors, but Richard's was out of order in my opinion, although I do wonder if people may be going a bit overboard :unsure:

What did he actually say?

http://us.imdb.com/news/wenn/2006-11-21

This gives a good synopsis of what happened. I'm not sure about the sincerity of his apology, but I highly doubt the claim by the "hecklers" that they were just ordering drinks, too. :rolleyes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Richards

I saw his apology live on the David Letterman show, though, and he did seem to be sincere. It's hard to reconcile what he said on stage with his claim that he is not a racist. The only way I could come close to reconciling the two is that he was really p*ssed off at them and tried to say what he thought would be most hurtful toward them. I think most people have been guilty at one time or another, during a fight or argument, of trying to say something to hurt the other party, without truly meaning what was said. But then, that doesn't generally happen in front of an audience.

I think these guys hiring a lawyer to sue Richards is ridiculous, as well, though. It seems we need to sue somebody over just about everything these days.

Firstly, i'd like to say that what this guy yelled was unacceptable, and he deserves a severe reprimand at least.

However, I see Nick that you said that less would probably be made of this in the UK. I'm unsure about that.

I'm sure many of our UK posters know who Ron Atkinson is, a successful English football manager who in his later years went on to be a brilliant co-commentator at ITV on their football coverage.

In 2004 he was covering Monaco vs. Chelsea in the first leg of their champions league semifinal. Chelsea were favourites to go through but all the same it was a huge match.

Chelsea then contrived to collapse in the second half of the game and lost 3-1. "Big Ron" was going mad at some of the chelsea players and said so on air in his usual unique style.

Anyway, after the match, when the commentary had finished and there was an ad break in most places around the world, Ron was still seething and couldn't stop talking to Clyde Tyldesley (the commentator) about it. All of a sudden he turned on the Chelsea defenders attitude, especially that of Marcel Desailly, a black french defender. He said (cover your ears):

"You know what Desailly is, he is what we call in the trade a lazy n*****"

Big Ron said this in the knowledge that his mike was off, except that this time it wasn't, and the coverage was still being transmitted to ex-pats in the middle east. Therefore word got round of what he said, the british media castigated him for it and he apologised throroughly and quit his post at ITV. Since then he has hardly managed to get any decent work despite being a great personality with bags of character. He also was one of the first English football managers to have black players in his side, and they immediately came out in defence of him.



Now I don't know about you, and I can't condone what his said, but think it's a disgrace what has happened to him. He thought he had said that in privacy with his staff at ITV, as i'm sure (sadly) many thousands of households in Britain would have been. But the way he was strung up was a disgrace. ITV should have rejected his offer to quit, but no, the silly political correctness took over, so instead of it being a blip, it finished the career of a great commentator.

Actually, it was DJ that said that. I am not one to comment on how something like this would be received in the UK.

I'm not sure I can agree completely with this.

They used to say in politics that if a mic is in front of you, always treat it as if it were a "live" mic even if you're 110% sure it isn't switched on.

But yes it did seem an odd outburst, more in the heat of the moment than anything else, and considering he was the one that brought the likes of Cyrille Regis, Brendon Batson and Laurie Cunningham to West Brom in the late 70s when racism was still rife in English football.

yeah I know what you mean with mike's, and of course he shouldn't have said those things.

But it is a shame that he couldn't just have had a quick reprimand and get on with it :(