Whoopi, Ted: We Are Not Amused : Here’s a lesson in the down side of your fabulous fame and salaries: Your stupid blackface tricks are subject to public comment.

What’s black and white and red all over? Whoopi Goldberg’s and Ted Danson’s faces, if they possess between them even a scintilla of propriety. In case you missed the furor, the Friars Club gave Goldberg a roast last week in New York. It was attended by what publicists like to describe as a glittering array of celebrities who gathered to honor Goldberg as a comedian, actor and social activist (she, Robin Williams and Billy Crystal are co-founders of Comic Relief, an annual fund-raiser to aid the homeless). It is assumed that when one is roasted by the Friars Club, the jokes will be pointed and ribald. Nobody’s competing for a good-taste award here.

Several guests, however, thought that even this admittedly flexible ground rule was pulled past the snapping point when actor Ted Danson, late of “Cheers,” appeared in formal dress and blackface to help roast Goldberg, who is generally assumed to have become his partner in life as well as on film. (Although they coyly refer to each other as “dear friends,” they’ve been virtually inseparable since they filmed “Made In America” last year.) Not content to flash his Jolsonesque maquillage, Danson proceeded to bring down the house--sort of--with a barrage of racially tinted jokes that were so offensive that some in the audience, including talk show host Montel Williams and New York Mayor David Dinkins, left in disgust. (Williams later resigned his membership.)

When questioned about Danson’s performance, Goldberg (who, according to reports, heaved with laughter at the minstrel presentation) was indignant. What’s wrong with everybody? she asked. What is your problem? The Friars Club is private; there shouldn’t even have been any public mention of this.

Oh, my. She doesn’t get it, does she? OK, Whoopi, for the record, here’s why some people are upset:

* The Friars Club is a private institution, yes, but its founders and members are stars. Public figures. So the non-celebrity public is interested in where they go and what they do, even when they’re gathering in a room over an expensive dinner and collectively teasing one another with outrageous in-jokes. It is not illogical to expect that somebody would leak the choice parts; that’s part of being famous. (Ask Madonna. Or Jacqueline Onassis. Or Mike Tyson.)

* Yes, as a nation, we’re much too humorless on the subject of race. There are things we can laugh at with others who are different from us. Humor can act as a wedge to crack open a small space where dialogue can squeeze through and begin to erode prejudice and fear. Richard Pryor’s acerbic, socially astute early monologues were some of the best examples of this. Bill Cosby’s comparatively gentler versions still are. This presentation (which, Goldberg said later, she helped Danson to write and encouraged him to perform) apparently did not have that effect.

* And yes, you’re right, it would be nice if you managed not to have cameras and microphones in your faces every time you took a walk, blew your nose or exchanged a kiss, but it’s going to happen. It’s the price you pay for having the public adore you. There are options: You can withdraw from films, as Garbo did; sooner or later, people decide you’re serious about wanting your privacy and mostly leave you to it. Or you could do what Marlon Brando does: retreat to a private paradise and emerge only when you’re actively involved in a film. (Or a family crisis.)

Or you can get over it, grow up and face reality: Top-drawing movie stars make a lot of money, but, like every job, there’s a downside. For the clerk in the widget company, it’s tedium and a modest salary. (The upside: Within the legal limits, he can do what he wants and most people won’t care.) For Ted and Whoopi, it’s people knowing their every move, even when we don’t want to know. So, guys, if you don’t want the criticism that will inevitably flow from such silly shenanigans, it’s simple: Confine them to your own homes, which are truly, not semi-, private.

God only knows what possessed Danson, in a time of racial tension in too many American cities, to entertain his ladylove by becoming a living stereotype that has haunted African-Americans for a century. And God only knows what possessed her to laugh at him and angrily defend his right to demean her people. I only know this: Like Queen Victoria, I am not amused. Or, to paraphrase younger folks from another continent and time: It’s a blackface thing; I wouldn’t understand.