The joke, with Halls speaking in an exaggerated Southern Accent (NOT a Black accent) involved an offer of hominy grits, which is eaten almost daily as a staple food by Southern people of all complexions. It was not inherently racist.  Reginald Mobley grew up in the deep South and likely ate hominy grits like almost everyone else. I attended a segregated (all white) high school for two years, graduating from that school, and school lunch included a dollop of hominy grits every day. On my first day as I stood in lunch line, I watched the dollop of white substance land on a plate and innocently asked, "What's that?" The girl ahead of me turned around with an incredulous look and said to me, "Them's grits, boy! Where you from?" I got to like grits, but since leaving the South decades ago, I have never served it in my home.