The Friday night installments of The Independents on Fox Business Network have been organized around a single theme, such as sex, or sports, or millennials. Tonight, to play it safe, we've decided to take the scarequotes off of "conversation about race," and see what happens when you try to talk real about a really difficult topic.
So! The broadcast starts straight away with a clash between Rich Benjamin, author of Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America, and Deneen Borelli, author of Blacklash: How Obama and the Left Are Driving Americans to the Government Plantation. The two tussle it out over code words, whether "Obamacare" is racist, and more. Then comedians Sherrod Small and Jim Norton join co-hosts Kmele Foster, Kennedy, and Matt Welch in debating the R-quotient of everything from Rep. Joe Wilson's "You lie!" outburst, to Miley Cyrus' twerking, to Michael Richards' comedy-club N-strafing of a heckler, to Joe Biden's weird remarks about Indians at 7-11s. How and why does so much comedy seem to hinge on poking the outer limits of comfort on stereotypes? Tune in at midnight ET to find out.
Then, to calm things down a bit, it's time for a discussion with FBN host and longtime immigration-policy critic Lou Dobbs on whether xenophobia has had anything to do with the immigration debate in the United States, and whether that matters. Then Benjamin and Borelli are back to talk about whether the drug war is racist, and even whether talking about racial disparities in enforcement policy or other outcomes is a good or bad thing. And since that scab won't pick itself, Kmele Foster then produces audible winces by dropping a few N-bombs and talking about the double-standards of acceptable speech in 2014 America.
You will give air-high-fives, you will throw things at the television set, you will laugh, you will scream, but I'd wager that you will be entertained and intrigued by this attempt to talk like human beings about one of the greatest issues that divides said creatures. And remember! For this one last night, The Independents' usual 9 pm slot is pre-empted by live coverage of the frankly kinda awesome Barrett-Jackson car auction, so the show will broadcast at midnight, then be repeated at various times over the weekend. Send your worst jokes on Twitter to @IndependentsFBN!
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