So you're saying that if a white dude stood up in front of a crowd and said he got to kill black people that it would be OK? You really think if ANY white (or most other races) comedian said that that it be OK?
I can assure you that it wouldn't be OK...there would be no cheers. He'd be a white racist and would have to apologize for years. We'd be lucky if having to apologize was the only backlash from a comment like that.
I wasn't making any moral judgements about what is "OK" or not, but that was part of my point. A large percent of comedy is always considered NOT OK to one group or another, but also those same groups often have no problem with other "offensive" comedy. There are double standards, but it is not just among "liberals." Some "conservative" radio hosts make a living by saying controversial things during the day, but then these are the same guys who suddenly turn politically correct and act offended by the content of a comedy program that airs at 11:30 pm.
SNL had
this skit about black Obama voters, Tosh.O makes jokes about rape, Mexicans smelling bad, black fathers not spending time with their children, etc. All of these rub certain people the wrong way, but if political correctness completely takes over, it ALL gets eliminated and comedy becomes entirely changed.
Context is often key. If a comedian announces they were a former school teacher, "jokes" about killing students are going to make more sense and offend less people than if they were made by a cab driver. A stereotype of black men is that they have a chip on their shoulder against white people. Add that to the fact that Foxx plays a slave character in the movie, and it's not hard to guess that the context of the "joke" had to do with playing off of that stereotype.
Howard Stern gets away with a lot of stuff that could be deemed "offensive" to blacks, but context is a major reason why he can. His audience understands that he insults and makes fun of everything. They also know that he went to schools where he was the minority among blacks and would get picked on by them.
This doesn't mean that Stern would get welcomed with open arms at the Apollo, but if he presented himself as a "nerdy rich Jew with secret fantasies about getting revenge on blacks due to his past" type of character (or something like that), playing off of that "stereotype" would get over much better with that audience than if Jay Leno showed up and insulted blacks with no context attached to it.
