Wednesday, June 29, 2011

8945: Monkeying Around With Morgan.


From The New York Daily News…

Tracy Morgan under fire again for cracking offensive jokes about the mentally disabled in NYC show

By Shari Weiss, Daily News Staff Writer

Tracy Morgan has moved on from offensive homophobic remarks to similarly degrading comments about people with disabilities.

During a show at Carolines in Manhattan Saturday, the comedian warned the audience, “Don’t ever mess with women who have retarded kids.”

“Them young retarded males is strong,” he said, according to The New York Times. “They’re strong like chimps.”

The “30 Rock” star reportedly went on to admit he used to date “a cripple,” who had a mechanical larynx, a prosthetic arm and a portable dialysis machine.

Morgan suffers from diabetes, and received a kidney transplant in December.

The 42-year-old’s comments have already angered The Arc, an organization that supports people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

“Tracy Morgan should apologize immediately,” CEO Peter Berns told E! News.

“This quote is far too offensive to be excused as comedy, and it is very hurtful to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families,” Berns said.

The activist added that Morgan “has an incredibly powerful platform from which to fix this, and if he’s learned anything in the last few weeks, he can’t bomb this apology.”

Morgan recently returned from a mea culpa tour earlier this month after he made homophobic comments — in which he said he’d kill his son if he were gay, among other outlandish statements – at a June 3 show in Nashville.

He apologized multiple times, including in person to Kevin Rogers, the attendee who had posted the comments on Facebook, and swore he would never make such vulgar remarks again.

The loudmouthed actor acknowledged the media firestorm at his Carolines gig, which was his first return to the stage since that ill-fated performance.

“You’re all sitting here waiting for me [to] say something about the controversy, right?” he said, according to The Times. “I’m 42, man, and now all of a sudden I’m homophobic?”

Morgan expressed gratitude to the audience for giving him another chance.

“I love you all so much. Did I tell you that tonight?” he reportedly said. “I’ve been in trouble lately, and this was big for me that you all came out.”

He also denied he was homophobic, as he had recently been labeled.

“I believe gay, straight, anybody, everybody’s supposed to be happy in this world, man,” he said.

No comments: