Please watch the first 5 minutes and participate in the poll. Feel free to voice your opinion too.
This is something like a market research project.
Your input is valuable.

Before one can answer the question, one needs to review the following relevant definitions:

Prejudice - a situation when a person negatively pre-judges another person or group without getting to know the beliefs, thoughts, and feelings behind their words and actions. A person of any racial group can be prejudiced towards a person of any other racial group. There is no power dynamic involved.

Bigotry - a situation that is stronger than prejudice, a more severe mindset and often accompanied by discriminatory behavior. It’s arrogant and mean-spirited, but requires neither systems nor power to engage in.

Racism - a system that allows the racial group that’s already in power to retain power.


Although the above definitions can vary among sources, the classic "Rap's Hawaii", using the definitions above, can more or less be described, as a collage of comedy sketches, laced with varying degrees of prejudice.  Hence, in the case of "Rap's Hawaii", it is not a classic case of obscene racism in local television.

HaHa !

Bought this DVD and lent it to my friend for him to show his kids.
It never came back, so I had to hunt down and buy a second one to show my kids as they got a little older.
They know almost all the skits.
This DVD should be required in any locals DVD collection (if you still own a DVD player)
Rap, Bumatai and unchained DeLima. Classics.

Before one can answer the question, one needs to review the following relevant definitions:

Prejudice - a situation when a person negatively pre-judges another person or group without getting to know the beliefs, thoughts, and feelings behind their words and actions. A person of any racial group can be prejudiced towards a person of any other racial group. There is no power dynamic involved.

Bigotry - a situation that is stronger than prejudice, a more severe mindset and often accompanied by discriminatory behavior. It’s arrogant and mean-spirited, but requires neither systems nor power to engage in.

Racism - a system that allows the racial group that’s already in power to retain power.


Although the above definitions can vary among sources, the classic "Rap's Hawaii", using the definitions above, can more or less be described, as a collage of comedy sketches, laced with varying degrees of prejudice.  Hence, in the case of "Rap's Hawaii", it is not a classic case of obscene racism in local television.

Exactly this.
We somehow lost all these definitions and rolled them up under one term - racism to further a political or financial agenda. Our society is so fragile that mentioning a stereotype will elevate it to racism.

Stereotyping all the ethnic groups in Hawaii, all in love and fun.

I'm Filipino/Chinese and laughed as much about my background as the others portrayed.

Not once did I ever think there was even an ounce of hatred, superiority, or negativity toward others.

Racism requires intent, bottom line, if there is no intent or conscious belief then it can't be racist. The left seems to want to redefine the word to cover just about anything these days and it pisses me off. Most local humor does not have this ill intent, it is just good fun humor. Now it isn't always nice, depends on the joke and delivery, sometimes it can be racist, but for Rap and Frank Delima, no it isn't racist.

Please watch the first 5 minutes and participate in the poll. Feel free to voice your opinion too.
This is something like a market research project.
Your input is valuable.

Everything to the left is racist, sexist, xenophobist, and ististististist upon ist.

Spent almost 20 some years being called a Mexican cuz nobody knew what a Filipino was.     

That reminds me of my brother a while back.  Us kids are 90% filipino and 10% Chinese.  My older brother and my sister traveled to Texas to visit my sister's daughter.

They were shopping at one of the malls there and there was some kind of shoplifting by alleged gang-members.

My poor brother was rounded up along with about 6 or 7 others, since they fit the "profile".

My brother was the only non-mexican in that round-up.

Not sure that the definitions posted here are all that correct, but I do agree we see/hear the terms "racist" and "racism" as catch-alls for anything remotely related to race, including the mythical "hate crimes."

Something can be racially offensive to someone, and not offensive at all to another.  Offensiveness is up to the receiver's interpretation.  It's subjective, unquantifiable, and a matter of opinion.  The best example is calling a Black man the N-word.  That word exists in all kinds of movies, music, Hip Hop (not to be confused with music  ), and literature.  Context and the person speaking or writing it matter, but it can still be offensive to some, not to others.

The basic rule I learned is to not use language that MAY offend someone **IF** you care about offending the people you live and work with. 

Offending someone isn't a crime, nor is protection from being offended a right.  If the comedian in question is offensive to you, you can leave -- even ask for your money back.  But don't blame the comedian.  They are working their art form.  Censoring them so people who aren't offended can't hear/read/watch them is fundamentally unAmerican.

So, racist?  Nope. Racially insensitive and potentially offensive?  Absolutely.  That's neither right nor wrong.

Now, if we were talking about a 4th grade teacher, that's a different story.  I wouldn't want my kids learning from someone in authority that's how normal adults talk about people different from themselves.