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Last night's episode of 'Race Relations' was amazingly thought-provoking, entertaining and offensive. It showed a blacked up John Safran travelling around Chicago visiting a black only speed dating club, a restaurant where black employees and white customers swore at each other and a militant black-islamic club.

The show climaxed with Safran travelling to an Episcopal church, telling his life story like an African-American preacher and shouting 'I am a proud black man'.

For me this was the most cringeworthy, the most offensive and the most memorable moment of a show that will surely illicit controversy here, and in the US when it eventually breeches our shores. 

For me, I was moderately offended, but I know that this uncomfortable feeling came about because like Safran, I'm still not sure what I think about race and its importance to identity.

However, we all know that tomorrow there will be people out there who sincerely (and others who want to stoke the sensationalist media) that will see this as a harking back to our terrible racist pasts.

But the questions I want to ask are:

How can a social satirist ever balance edginess against the feelings of an hypothetical audience?

And, is there a ratio that exists where the amount of people offended compared to those that weren't makes something objectively racist?

And finally, does it matter if you were offended if the subject matter caused you to think about something?

 

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'Hungry Beast', a new series produced by Andrew Denton's 'Zapruder's other films' and shown on the ABC had a simple idea for a TV show: give x number of young people a camera and see what happens. What's happened has been two half-hour shows that have been inane, unfunny and uninteresting.

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Now I generally don't watch commercial television and today I am reminded of why.

Hey Hey, It's Saturday was a TV family variety show that aired on Australian TV for 27 years. Recently there have been some reunion shows, their first since the show was cancelled in 1999. As youthful nostalgia to many Australians the reunions have rated very well.

One of the segments on "Hey Hey" was a "Gong Show" style talent segment called Red Faces. Supposedly as part of the reunion they re-enacted a Red Faces skit from 1985 called "Jackson Jive” featuring men in black and white face. It’s bad enough that such items were allowed to go to air in 1985, I like to think in 24 years we have evolved somewhat, apparently not. Sadly it took a foreign judge of the segment to express his disgust before an apology was given, and now a significant proportion of the Australian population are sadly saying he should “lighten up.” I also think in light of Jackson’s recent passing that even without racial overtones the piece was in extremely poor taste.

Given that I don’t watch such programs I’ve not seen the piece and I am loathe to give it attention by watching it online. However!

Social media is an important tool for dissemination of information and the motivation of people to act. It is not however an effective tool against media giants such as the Nine Network and the Packer family. If you have seen the piece in question and are genuinely offended as many appear to be I implore you make a complaint to the relevant authorities and not just the blogosphere.

Click more for methods of complaint regarding television content in Australia

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Pasty bespectacled comic John Safran is coming back to ABC TV with an eight-part comedy-documentary, and it's his most daring and personal adventure yet. It's about cross-cultural, interracial and interfaith love.  . . read more
Mad Men Shows Off TV Violence Old-School Style . . read more
The Truth Behind Commercial Television . . read more
Television: The Illusion and the Idiots . . read more

A clip from the BBC comedy series 'That Mitchell and Webb look' It takes a very interesting look at how sexist TV advertising is...

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If anyone roams across Sydney as much as I do, then one would inevitably find oneself raising that hand, getting into that taxi and dreading that meter going up and up while he takes you to your destination.

But like many others, I've found that some of the best conversations I've ever had were with cabbies.

The last one I met was a Polish engineer who proceeded to explain to me how to pave the outside of my house from scratch, because the "professionals" don't know how to do it properly. He was unimpressed and blatantly questioned why I was studying law while stating that "engineers are respected a lot more in Europe than in the West". Honestly, he seemed far more educated than me.

Before him there was another driver who engaged me in a stimulating conversation about Indian poetry and literature. With another, I had an argument about raising children in different cultures.

The reason for this is one that we've heard almost too often - qualified immigrants come to Australia, their expertise is refused recognition, and they get stuck driving people around the city when their true skills obviously lie elsewhere.

We can't help these guys get a job. But next time you sit in a cab, don't be afraid to have a chat. You never know who you might be talking to.  

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4 mar

The HomepageDAILY community likes to co-create both content and process. What are you thinking right now about what we do and how we do it? Tell us about the news, videos and stories and anything else you see on HPD. What you like, what you don't like, what you'd like to see in future. Recommend a website, video or article; send us pix, new stories - share it with us and by so doing you are giving us permission to share it with the world.

Leave Feedback here

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Why has homepage started running so many nameless 100 word eds? Names are good for intellectual continuity, honesty and non-hypocrisy. - Terry McGee

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Re: Bale de Rua

We thought the Bale de Rua was aweful. Choreography was terrible - set design, music and costumes were lacklustre. The dancers however were very athletic and graceful. - Jules

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Re: In Praise of Mediocrity

I just wonder who decides if what ever you chose to do in life, is mediocre or not. Sounds like with standards like yours, this article with its poor structure and soap box appeal may also be considered by many as, in-fact, mediocre. - Khedra

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Re: The Assassins of Langley

Yes, Mr. Neville. Odious, heinous assassins sold body and soul to Luciferian entities who pull the strings (the last of them, I want to believe) from the shadows. Philip Aggeee and John Stockwell portrayed them quite well. They are NOT heroes, nor are the gangbangers of East Los Angeles who spray grafitti in Iraq, where they most certainly train for urban warfare on our streets. Good riddance to them all!

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Re: Hairy Legs: A Study of Female Art, Feminism and Femininity

 Looking forward to more of her articles. Hope she does plenty of Art Theory at SCA. Barbara Kruger and Judy Chicago are certainly powerful artists and it would be interesting to see what they are doing now.

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A hero's welcome for the famous Iraqi shoe thrower

Terrorist! Please do your research first before writing such dangerous things, we was insulting Bush by throwing the shoe as he was disgraced with him, not trying to topple the largest super power in the world by throwing a shoe. I cant believe you have put those words up. Ashamed

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Re: How to Report the News

Having worked as a TV news reporter I found Charlie's piece very amusing - some of us have long believed reporting like this is a rubbish way to do things! But even if a journalist wants to tell stories in a more authentic and engaging way, the constraints of the so-called "house style" in many news organisations make it difficult to achieve. What's needed is a massive culture shift and a complete re-think of what we understand quality broadcast news reporting is. And guess what? That's exactly what's happening, though you'd never believe it from what we're still mostly seeing on TV. Anyway, the new digital technologies, and shake up of "old school/old mainstream" journalism means new platforms and styles of "news" storytelling can now emerge. Let's hope fresh and appropriate ways of funding appear too, so we can kill off this dreadful formulaic reporting and delivery, and clear the way for more natural and interesting ways to treat stories and content.

Much love, Ian Aspin.
www.twitter.com/ianaspin

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Re: Pushing 60 With Pot

You're pushing 60, well I'm pushing 70 and still having to scrounge around for my pot. It's tragic that when I first came to Australia it was $30 an ounce, and now I have to pay nearly $350 - Peter

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Re: Textbook publishers dream of the tablet

Why can't this just be a program for PC and Windows? Why do they have to make us buy more hardware that's just going to disappoint? - Tyler J. Wilson

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Re: Killing Indian Students: Australia's Favourite New Sport!- by Sean Maguire

How about the indian guy who slashed his wife's throat, is still australia to blame for?..may be , for accenpting them to move over!I am an immigrant myself but I love this country, there is no perfect place on Earth but australia is one of the best! - Michael

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This entire fiasco is an incredible over reaction. Australia is an easy target. Why? because we are honest, transperant and we talk about our failings. Is there aggression and iolence in Australia? Sure, like any country. But we face it head on and we work to eliminate it. What about the stories of the 100’s of thousands of Indian workers who are treated as slaves in the middle east and nobody says anything? What about the fact that India still has entrenched pedophilia in terms of child brides? What about the crushing poverty embraced by more than 60% of the Indian people while this nation runs around building nuclear warheads? A storm in a teacup, an over reaction, and a diversion from some the really bad issues facing India. What is really happening here is that students are being unnecessarily frightened. meaning they will miss out on what could be the opportunity of their lifetime. - Daryl
 
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I couldn't agree with Sean Maguire's article more on the recent Indian attacks. For all those who like the pretend the attacks are merely based on coincidence, try to imagine how we would react if the boot were on the other foot and an uncharacteristic number of Australia's had been murdered in India. Would you push for a travel ban? Would you be scared for your children in a seemingly hostile environment so many miles away?  - Kara Jensen-Mackinnon

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