Audience member describes Richards' racist attack [View All]

Kramer's Tirade, Adding Insult to Inaccuracy
By Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts
Wednesday, November 22, 2006; Page C03

Hey, funnyman: You nailed the wrong guy.

That's what Darryl Pitts would like to tell Michael Richards, the "Seinfeld" star who spewed racist slurs at an African American man after his stand-up gig at a Los Angeles comedy club was interrupted last Friday.

The irony of the insult, according to audience member Pitts: It wasn't the black guy who interrupted him. The black man sat next to the alleged heckler. Pitts told our colleague Darryl Fears the two were in a group of roughly 10 people who ambled into the Laugh Factory during Richards's routine. The comic ordered them to shut up, then asked, " 'What are you talking about?' "

The black guy spoke up: "My friend doesn't think you're funny." The loud-talking friend "was maybe Arab or Hispanic but not black," said Pitts, who was not part of the group. "The way it's been portrayed is that a group of black guys came to the club and were disorderly . . . and that's inaccurate, absolutely."

What followed -- as captured on video and circulated on the Internet -- was shocking. Said Pitts, who himself is black: "It was like buckshot. It hit everyone. . . . I have a difficult time accepting his apology -- 72 hours later. What did he do? Read a black history book? Why the change?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/21/AR2006112101886.html