This video of the actor who played Cosmo Kramer on Seinfeld, Michael Richards, is really making the rounds. Jerry Seinfeld himself has said it makes him “sick.”

In the video — which, police brutality tape-style, starts after some audience members heckle the actor — he shouts down a black man in the front row, repeatedly using the word “n—-r.” A few in the crowd laugh (you can tell he’s trying to be funny by heckling the hecklers), but mostly it falls flat.

The comedian keeps going.

And going.

And going.

Until people start walking out in disgust.

First of all, I don’t think there was any racist intent here; he was trying to be edgy and entertaining, and some people even found it such.

Ethnic humor seems to be on the uptick lately, with comedians like Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle delightfully poking fun at human differences. And as some Seinfeld episodes have made clear, comedians need to respond to hecklers to keep momentum. The combining of the two was a dumb choice, but even if Richards was a racist, he’d be smart enough not to show it onstage.

The bigger question here is: What’s the rule on racial slurs in comedy?

It’s pretty clear minorities can use them with impunity. Carlos Mencia not only rags on his own ethnicity (”b–ner”) but pretty much every other one as well (”cr—-r,” “n-gga”). Sarah Silverman, a Jew, gets away with “n—-r” and “ch-nk.” Rock and Chappelle have used their fair share of unsavory racial terms.

Is the rule for non-Jewish whites that they can only do it when it’s funny? Or that they can’t do it at all? I’m not aware of too many white comedians who work race into their routines, so I’m not able to test the question.

If this incident is any indication, it definitely becomes “racism” when the joke falls flat, but we’ll have to wait for a really gutsy white guy to see whether a good racist joke is passable.

Or even possible. Can white racism be funny in front of a multi-ethnic audience?

Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com.

UPDATE: A commenter at Robert’s Rationale has argued the slurs weren’t uttered in a comedic context; they were a sincere, personal attack on an audience member. This is certainly a valid interpretation (the guy himself took it that way), but to me it sounds like Richards is speaking in a theatrical tone, not as if he’s actually lost control and is ranting. He even pauses, thinks and keeps going.

A few of the audience members laugh, indicating that they not only think he’s joking but find it funny. I disagree — and I love ethnic jokes — but humor is a very subjective thing.

UPDATE II: I’ve just come across Richards’s Wikipedia page, which says he “produced and directed shows dealing with race relations” as a member of the V Corps Training Road show during the Vietname War. Of course this doesn’t prove he’s not a racist, but it isn’t consistent with a racist interpretation, either. It also points out that he’s apologized for the recent incident — so far as I can tell he neither made excuses for his words nor admitted they betrayed any genuine prejudice.