Bad Jokes & Ebonics

[David Casseres]

Joe Varo sez

>Hate speech or just tasteless? And does one necessarily imply the other?

Hate speech, because exaggerated (and inauthentic) dialect has been used 
so consistently and for so long to portray African Americans as mentally 
deficient.  That's why it's different from, let's say, a Jewish joke 
involving an accent.  The Jewish joke might very well be tasteless, but 
it isn't a direct invocation of the main themes of antisemitism.


Cheers,
David