The First is Whoopi Goldberg's "Bat Joke". The joke itself is completed less than a minute into the clip, yet Whoopi brings up some interesting points in the last half of the clip.
The second is a song from a musical called Avenue Q called "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist"
Rather than posting the lyrics, I will just link to them, since the blog would be incredibly long at that point. Lyrics
So, is the Bat Joke as told by Whoopi Goldberg funny? From the audience's response, I think it's clear that it is. But, is it hate speech? My thought is that yes, to a point. But I look at this as a "freedom of speech" issue. Take UW Oshkosh (and any UW school for that matter). As a university, they had to decide whether or not to allow people to come onto campus. In allowing those Speaker Series presentations and other groups to bring their own speakers to campus, they also must allow those who come and preach hatred to campus and claim that everyone on campus is going to Hell because they're not Born Again Christians. (Not a generalization, those are my experiences and those are the preachers who come and point out people in the crowd to say, "you're going to Hell"). We want to allow those negative speakers so we are able to allow the positive speakers. According to John Palmer, Assistant Dean of Students, it was one of those "All or Nothing" issues.
I am one of those people that believes the KKK has every right to organize and say what they will, that's one of the things that makes this country great. However, if they're having a rally at one end of a park, you can be sure I'd be having a counter rally at the other end.
So are racist jokes hatred speech? Yes, they are, however, I think that they have just as much right to say those jokes as other comedians have to say non-racist jokes. I think what the difference is between racist jokes and racist remarks, is that they're (generally) not directed at individuals, rather than the community (which isn't better, and I don't like it, but it happens)
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