Very sad. But in a way, it makes perfect sense.

Seeing Michael Richards have his racial meltdown in the Laugh Factory, and then make things worse on Letterman was, to me, a case of chickens coming home to roost.

Don’t get me wrong: I love “Seinfeld,” adore Kramer’s character, and think that Michael Richards is a comedic genius.

But I harbor no illusions: The construct for “Seinfeld,” like so many other comic teleplays and films, is a monochromatic world where White People are central, and people of color — if they appear at all — are simply used as accessories, as added “color” for a scene.

When you think about “Seinfeld,” and you realize the only recurring Black characters were either there because they made our white heroes uncomfortable simply by being Black (like George’s nemesis Mr. Morgan at the Yankees); or to parody a Black celebrity (like Kramer’s erstwhile lawyer Jackie Chiles doing his best Johnnie Cochran), you get a peek inside the archaic white psyche. It’s a headspace where white people simply do not know how to deal with a world that is slowly become not their own. So they literally ignore it. “Seinfeld” is Ralph Ellison’s argument made visual.

Many of my friends live in this space. Many of your friends do too. They’re the white friends who giggle when hip-hop comes on, rather than bob their heads to it. It’s not that we can’t be friends with them. It’s just that we choose to live multiculturally and they don’t… either because they don’t know how, don’t want to, don’t have to, or they are afraid to.

When white folks are brought out of this space, they can have a number of reactions. Some take kindly to reality. Others snap.

I’m sure that Michael Richards doesn’t believe he is a racist. I’m sure, on an intellectual level, believes in equal rights for all. But we never find the truth until we get cornered. When Black folks are pushing his buttons, Richards’ response, apparently, is to tell Black people they have no right to push his buttons because they’re Black. That is the very definition of deep-seated, latent racism. Sorry.

Jerry Seinfeld’s reaction was encouraging. He still loves his friend, but made no excuses for him. Still, it’s a bit hypocritical: Seinfeld was the guy who created and reveled in that whitebread world. I live on the Upper West Side. (Ok, the Upper, Upper West Side). If I suddenly woke up one day and walked out into Seinfeld’s all-white fiction, I’d have to shoot myself.

I’d like to think about this someday as the death-knell for that kind of anachronism: Woody Allen, “Seinfeld,” “Friends.” Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. You had your day. Even Larry David, to a certain degree, left that monochromatic world when he graduated to “Curb.” Perhaps this will be a turning point to more multicultural, more race-conscious humor. That humor certainly is more uncomfortable for white people, less safe: from Chris Rock to Bernie Mack to Borat. But it’s humor that’s transformative because it has reality on its side.