Nice post "GUEST no comment".

Very enlightening.



Bill Hahn - am I "Jox"?

Just curious, as I would have thought it was pretty clear that I don't rate him much either. But then I don't rate the seinfeld show or seinfeld much either. I find the whole thing about as stimulating as cold porridge.


Peace - nice link

The interesting thing about all those dictionary definitions was that none of them dealt with the issue of Racist Humour, or what constitutes good or bad references to race in humour.

A racist discriminates on grounds of race.

So lenny bruce technically was being racist.

Yet I would be the first to jump up and defend out the clever point he made in his monologue.

So the question then changes.

It is no longer whether racist humour is acceptable or not, but what type of racist humour is acceptable and what type isn't.

Jokes about Black people at a Ku Klux Klan gathering will of course be deeply offensive, and probably about as clever and funny as a utility bill.

Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles" is full of racist jokes, but they are made in a context that clearly makes them acceptable as they parody racist attitudes.

Somewhere in between these two extremes of acceptable and unacceptable racist jokes (jokes which discriminate on grounds of race) there is a line that seperates one group from the other.

The world is not Binary though, or (dare I say it) black and white.

In between the extremes, grey is the predominant shade.

And like a line drawn in the desert, where the grey is at it's most neutral, the grey immediately to one side of it is practically indistinguishable from the grey on the other side.

In the distance on one side the grey gets darker. On the other, in the distance it gets lighter.

But where the line is, it's not so easy to tell.

Yet when someone is deemed to have committed the crime of telling a racist joke that has just crossed the line, they are pilloried in much the same way as a Skinhead might be for telling one of his jokes.

I think examining external factors such as the purpose of the gathering, the composition of the crowd and the history of the performer is essential.

The guy is dull and witless and thought he would try and cash in on the whole postmodern thing. Unfortunately, he has all the depth of ... well ... seinfeld!

He got out of his depth and he's an idiot. He'll probably lose his career, and that will be a good thing, but not because racists like him need to be locked up, but because he's crap.