Television

It's teeming and often seething with words and images that cut through the core of standard-issue decorum.

PBS' Race Is the Place boldly lives up to its billing as a one-hour "jam" that unflinchingly "yanks off the muzzle of political correctness to speak the often-ugly truths that lie beneath the rosy talk of 'multiculturalism' and 'diversity.' "

Co-produced by Dallas-based KERA-TV (Channel 13) and Paradigm Productions for the Independent Lens series, Race is driven by artists, comics, rappers, poets and vintage clips from stereotypical cartoons, advertisements and films.

Many of the performers are new to national television, which generally doesn't accommodate the likes of Hawaiian poet Haunani-Kay Trask or African-American comedian Shabaka, who performs in a Ku Klux Klan robe and mask while liberally dispensing the n-word.

Ms. Trask cuts to the chase from a different yet like-minded perspective in her book, Hawaiian at Heart. She writes of "a whole people accustomed to prostitution, selling identity for nickels and dimes in whorehouses of tourism."

Some of the harder-core language is bleeped. Still, much of what's shown and said in Race can't be printed or reproduced within the parameters of a family newspaper.

Whatever Race is, it's certainly not an academic treatise. There are no professors or pontificators to tell us what all of this means. Race instead is a sampler of what's out there, with the dispensers coming in all colors, shapes and temperaments.

Mayda del Valle is outwardly the angriest during a monologue titled "Descendancy."

"You must've mistaken me for Hansel and Gretel," she rages, "thinkin' I'd jump into the meltin' pot."

Elderly guitarist-singer Lalo Guerrero is lower-keyed in lamenting the lack of Latinos on TV, although that particular picture has notably improved of late.

"Since we've lost Anthony Quinn, all we've got left is Cheech Marin," he sings and strums to the sounds of gentle mirth.

Filipino comedian Andy Bumatai is a bit more direct. He gets big, full-bodied laughs after asking his audience, "You ever notice like all through history white people are always discovering places people already are?"

Race likewise is an eye-opening, ear-popping voyage of discovery. It stands up and dares to be counted among the year's more bracing and provocative documentaries.

That said, you really must see and hear for yourself.

E-mail ebark@dallasnews.com

Race Is the Place

Grade: A-
10 tonight, PBS (Channel 13). 1 hr.