I was going to reply to this thread earlier, but being an outsider thought it best to let someone more informed than me have first crack. Dukes is from a different place in time to where we are now. Not everything that was OK in the late '70s and early '80s is OK now. There are several bits of dialog and narration that would now be considered sexist. Good ol' Hobie, the happy drunk driver, would probably be frowned upon as well. What I don't remember is any racism. As MaryAnne said, although the main cast was white, any black characters were treated the same as their white counterparts: the good black guys had equal status to the white good guys and the black bad guys had equal status to the white bad guys. As well as the black characters they also had Billy Joe Fong in 'Miz Tisdale on the Lam' and, at the height of the Cold War, a nice Russian in 'Comrade Duke'. Anyone who's read 'Redneck Boy in the Promised Land' will know that Ben Jones went on civil rights marches in the '60s because he believed in an integrated America, and especially an integrated South. This is a man who quit the show for several episodes in an argument over whether Cooter should have a beard; does anyone think he'd have stuck around long on a racist show?. The problem with flags is they get misappropriated. As MaryAnne pointed out, the KKK used the Stars and Stripes and the Confederate flag whilst spreading their message of hatred. You can even find lots of Christian symbols associated with them, yet no one is trying to ban the Stars and Stripes or Christians due to this association. The UK had a similar problem. Around the time of Dukes there was a far right racist group called the National Front (NF). A splinter group of the NF, the British National Party (BNP), is now the most popular of these organizations. Both have used the Union Jack and St. George's Cross (English flag) in their propaganda. I worked in London during one of the European soccer tournaments and wanted to put an English flag in the window while the competition was on. My (American) boss objected on the grounds that she considered it racist. After a heated argument she conceded that it was the flag of the country, showing support for our soccer team, and not a flag of the far right. If you don't fight these small battles, the racist will win. On a lighter note, as an Englishman in Ireland I have taken some light-hearted comments about my nationality, and been blamed for burning down the churches. I swear, it wasn't me. There are genuinely a couple of pubs that I've been advised not to go in with my accent, but most people are open-minded enough to realize that the past is not the fault of the people alive today. Now MaryAnne, you can have your soapbox back.