Okay. You are utterly wrong.
What you're doing is "mak[ing] stupid assumptions and bad jokes based on [my] country of origin" and "assume [I'm] stupid, lazy, uneducated, inexperience...".
This is nowhere near, not even within the same solar system, to what happened on Hey Hey, because the skit wasn't even about race, it was about Michael Jackson. So don't twist things and exaggerate them to fit with your argument, because it falls down and the only person looking stupid is you. As I've said elsewhere, straw men aren't allowed. Turning an argument or fact into something it is absolutely not, isn't good for anyone.
So instead trying to play smart-***, get it right before you do.
Alex.
Alex, respectfully, you're entire argument and posture in this discussion is a strawman, so how can you not allow them? You're latest itemized postulation leads to a strawman, your Item 3.
If you're criticizing Connick for not understanding Australia, then you ought to develop a better understanding of America. We speak with much of that directness that Aussies pride themselves in. Connick was not implying anything. He was not lording his higher morality or our higher American standards over Australia. He was not hinting parenthetically that the group, show, hosts, producers, audience, and general population consisted of racists. For approximately the fifth time in this thread: He did not say what you keep saying he said, nor did he even imply it. Ergo, you are inferring what you want to read into his statements,... erecting a strawman, boxing at shadows, tilting at windmills.
As I said above, he was, in effect, "copping out".
If when I visited South Africa and saw a coworker order a black out of his way, saying, "Get out of the doorway ya stupid kaffer", I'd just responded by saying, "Heh heh, you'd sure get in trouble for talking like that in America", I'd never have been able to sleep with myself. While it might seem to be a neutral statement or mild putdown, it almost implies that I agree or find the statement funny, just as Harry's initial reaction to the skit did.
And I find his latter statement with the host to be even worse. He basically had so many balls juggling in that little act that he could've been a contestant on the show!
I'm a New Orleanean, like Connick. I grew up around direct-speaking Americans. Putting those two together, believe me when I tell you that he was saying nothing more than the words you can hear.
