I feel as though I am a pretty good judge of character, and I saw a man for whom "shattered" is the perfect description. Those of us raised in the 50's and 60's are bound to have, trapped in the dark corners of our inner places, the vestiges of racist thought. It is not that we are racists, in fact many of us worked very hard to get by this, but it is there. It is an unwelcome gift of the times we grew up in. One can only imagine that a comic such as Richards, who is always on the edge anyway, just slipped over and into the abyss. He owes the community an apology, to be sure, and it should not be minimalized how bad this was. But in this case, one hopes for forgiveness from the community. I think that it will come long before he forgives himself.

Mick