Jeffrey has a great take on the racist rant spewed by Michael Richards last week as an eruption of the dark underbelly of the national psyche into the public consciousness:

I’m inclined to believe he is being as honest as his self-awareness allows. In the U.S., we grow up learning some pretty hateful messages about people different from ourselves … it’s almost unavoidable. If you grow up in a racist culture, prejudice insinuates itself into your psyche. You can do “personal work” — as Richards says he will do — but there’s always a part of our culture inside of us.

Richards’ explosion occurred when Jupiter, the planet of expansion, was in the last degree of Scorpio. Any time a planet is in the last degree of a sign, something significant happens related to the flavor of that sign. In this case, Jupiter made a big splash in Scorpio’s domain, which is about rooting out the darkness in the depths of our psyches.

We don’t need to study Richards’ natal chart (although a tight Uranus-Mars conjunction obviously relates to impulsivity). Instead we can see this incident as an event in the greater cultural landscape — Richards just happens to have been “chosen” to play out this drama. . . .

This incident is actually an appropriate expression of the recent New Moon in Scorpio squared by Saturn in Leo — a negative experience (Saturn) performing on-stage (Leo) which leads to a large display (Jupiter) of the hidden, dark and ugly aspects of one’s psyche (Scorpio).