Former Seinfeld star, Michael Richards, lost his temper at a comedy club and embarked on a racially-charged rant against two black men in the audience. He repeatedly used racial epithets and alluded to lynching.

Richards has since offered a heartfelt apology, and even former co-star, Jerry Seinfeld, has issued a public apology on his behalf.

And while I do not condone, nor agree with, Richards' behavior, I have to wonder what makes his "rant" so different from 98.9% of all black comedians' entire acts...

Racial tension is endemic in this country and racial violence threatens to explode in nearly every setting, every venue, every single day. While these confrontational and deadly serious situations most often occur over misunderstandings or casually overheard dialogue taken out of context, it seems that more and more white people have been "caught" using racially-inflammatory language recently. Mel Gibson, Paris Hilton, and now Michael Richards -- just to name the celebrities!

But before we all get on our White-Guilt high horse and condemn them, let's take a moment to put this into context. If you're near a radio, go on and turn it on and tune it into any rap/hip-hop station on the dial. Get a stopwatch and see how long it is before you hear a racial invective, even if used "endearingly." Track how long it is before the next one. Pretty embarrassing, isn't it?

Turn on the TV and find a predominantly black TV show. With the exception of anything with Bill Cosby, I'd guess that there's about an 85% chance that the topic of the show is racism. Find a black comedian on any station. I can safely say with 100% accuracy that 99.8% of all these stand-up routines are the same routine, most of which involves the denigration of the white race (the rest of which involves girls with big butts, mothers/grandmothers who beat their children, and the phrase, "But I like white people...").

The simple truth is that, when a black person engages in such language, it's free speech; when a white person does it, it's hate speech. And that's the long and short of the whole thing.

Richards was completely wrong for what he said, but I honestly think it has little or nothing to do with actual racism. He's an actor who hasn't done anything since Seinfeld and a regular person who certainly has all the regular problems we all deal with. Simply put, he got heckled and he couldn't handle it, so he resorted to attacking his hecklers with what he knew would offend them.

It's a very human tactic which anyone who's ever dated a female has become used to.

But Richards wasn't dating these men and had no right to do it. And even though this is also true of 99.8% of all black entertainers, public figures, and politicos, that really doesn't have anything to do with it. Richards simply lost his shit and went as ugly as he could go -- he was simply hitting below the belt, not voicing his true feelings.