The Borat You Don't Know

Sacha Cohen's not so courageous when it comes to some sacred cows:

This disdain for rural areas pervades the comic's work, and it's complemented with a refusal to unearth urban issues. Take a look at the few scenes from Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan where Borat is in New York. He does bring to life the well known stereotype that working-class New Yorkers aren't exactly cheery people -- he kisses a few on both cheeks and watches them rupture blood vessels.

But for some reason the "Kazakh journalist's" anti-Semitism seems restrained in these scenes. He evidently doesn't want to know what these people think of Jews.

Then Borat heads to a black neighborhood in Atlanta to chat with a group of guys playing dice. They share a few fashion tips, but again Borat doesn't bring up the whole Jewish thing.

This is more egregious, as one can at least make the case that rural whites are in fact more anti-Semitic than working class New Yorkers. The data is hard enough to come by. But one cannot argue that city blacks aren't worth the effort of a reaction-seeking "I hate Jews" tirade; the Anti-Defamation League has for years documented how blacks (and Hispanics) hold worse opinions of Jews than whites do.

By the ADL's metrics, 35 percent of blacks hold "strongly anti-Semitic" beliefs, compared to 17 percent of all Americans. And the anecdotal evidence abounds, from Jesse Jackson's "Hymietown" slip-up to Al Sharpton's comment about "diamond merchants."

But rather than exposing inner city black anti-Semitism -- a valid and constructive task -- Borat is content to sag his pants below his underwear line and show up to a polite dinner with a black prostitute.

Let's see him head to a mosque and pull his schtick. That would be true courage.