Seinfeld's Turning Comedy Into The Peculiar Institution

These refrains about a distant, non-slaveholding past are a commonplace among white people. The first is meant to suggest a lack of connection to the institution of slavery, and therefore, a lack of responsibility for understanding it; and the second is meant to suggest that historical amnesia is a salve for social ills. 
My family didn’t own slaves either (that I know of). This wasn’t an ethical stance, they just couldn’t afford to own any human beings.

The rush to forget, to distance from the legacy of slavery in the U.S. strikes me as peculiar,....

In his post-Seinfeld rant, Michael Richards told blacks "50 years ago we'd have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass."

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is called the ugly truth.

50 years - not the "ancient history" whites claim - why would so many decide to lie like that? 

You know, pretty much collectively as a mob, attempt to change American history right before blacks' eyes? Like we're still not here to debate it?

A "fork" up my ass for less than I'm doing now - I appreciate Richards' attention to detail because it speaks to such familiarity. 

And why shouldn't it?

 Are blacks being gaslighted, or isn't this what we - I - grew up under, even in California, yes or no?

Warnings are what I grew up under, too, how about you?

Then why do whites today deny it? How old do they think I am?

With something so personal - Americans, literally, owned Americans - why would whites imagine it can be ignored, when their benefits are everywhere, still mostly benefitting whites (and especially white women) alone, to live as they see fit?

Some whites still can't even face to watch, or try to understand, 12 Years a Slave - well, nobody else is going to lie for your comfort - people are the product your precious America made it''s starter money on, so deal with it. 

Go - be daring - get a glimpse of how the sausage was made so you can salute the flag for real - the same one we do.

No, you want to pretend otherwise - openly lie to our faces to see what you can get away with - as blacks lived (and still live) terrorized lives just being around you.

And, for that, you expect to be considered different and modern.

When there's nothing different or modern about it - it's how the game's always been played - at black expense.

The idea behind diversity is not that everyone gets their fair share of the Jerry Seinfeld webisode pie, it’s that theoretically, if we’re choosing comics based on their relative merit, the natural result should roughly approximate the diversity of the field and, if it doesn’t, maybe there’s a reason for that. The “quota” isn’t the object of the exercise, it is one measurement of it. It’s something to think about, and if Jerry Seinfeld did think about it, there is no way he would conclude that there are only two black comics worth getting coffee with, or one female comic. He would conclude that, for whatever reason, he missed something.

Instead, though, Seinfeld makes the choice not to think about it, and not to care about it, because the mere observation equals accusation, and thinking about it, discussing it, equals an admission.

As with most white males, it is Jerry Seinfeld’s privilege not to care about diversity, but I guarantee his show is the poorer for it. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

(To be cont'd.)