trying to make a point

Viv Stanshall having brought comedy heroes to mind, and the spoof mastercard ad probably having scared off anyone frightened by using language, as Dylan Thomas termed it in 'Under Milk Wood', here's Lenny Bruce from a less prissy age taking the free speech fight to the contradictory underpinnings of hate crime:

Are there any niggers here tonight?

Can you turn on the house lights, and could the waiters and waitresses just stop serving for a second?

And turn off the spot.

Now what did he say?

'Are there any niggers here tonight?'

There's one nigger here. l see him back there working.

Let's see. There's two niggers.

And between those two niggers sits a kike.

And there's another kike.

That's two kikes and three niggers.

And there's a spic, right? Hm?

There's another spic.

Ooh, there's a wop. There's a Polack.

And then, oh, a couple of greaseballs. There's three lace-curtain lrish Micks.

And there's one hip, thick, hunky, funky boogie.

Boogie, boogie. Mm-mm.

l got three kikes. Do l hear five kikes?

l got five kikes. Do l hear six spics?

Six spics. Do l hear seven niggers? l got seven niggers. Sold American!

l'll pass with seven niggers, six spics, five Micks, four kikes, three guineas, and one wop.

You almost punched me out, didn't ya?

l was trying to make a point, that it's the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness.

Dig. lf President Kennedy would just go on television and say, "l'd like to introduce you to all the niggers in my cabinet."

And if he'd just say "nigger, nigger" to every nigger he saw, "boogie, boogie, boogie, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger," till it didn't mean anything any more!

Then you'd never be able to make a black kid cry because somebody called him a nigger in school.