Social media users erupted in outrage after a comedian joked about "killing whiteness" following the new Director-General of the BBC vowing to root out "left-wing comedy bias" in the corporation.
Comic Sophie Duker made some controversial statements regarding racism and "white power" while on an episode of Frankie Boyle's new BBC2 panel show New World Order, which can be viewed on BBC iPlayer.
In one segment where the panelists debate if the Black Lives Matter movement "glosses over the complexities of a world where we all need to come together and kill whitey", Boyle played a clip of novelist James Baldwin from the 1970's talking about 'black power' during an interview on the Dick Cavett Show.
Duker, in response to the clip, outlines that she sees "white power" and "black power" as "capitalist myths" and described "whiteness" as a "capitalist structure".
In reference to the claimed connection between the accumulation of wealth under the capitalist system with using race as a method of division, she said: "white power is Trump Tower".
"When we say we want to kill whitey, we don't really mean we want to kill whitey", she said before adding jokingly "we do" to a laughing audience.
While the line was made in humor, many online figures were angered by the comment. With some Conservative commentators asking why the British public is paying for "hateful wordsoup".
Talk Radio presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer described it as "Marxist gobbledegook".
Youtuber Paul Joseph Watson, who often rails against the shutting down of speech due to 'political correctness', questioned if the joke was "acceptable".
Other netizens asked what would have happened if the target of the joke had been a different group.
Some called for complaints to be issued to the BBC.
There were users who explained that Duker was a comedian and just telling a joke and urged those outraged not to take it seriously.
A BBC spokesman spoke to the Mail Online saying that Frankie Boyle's New World Order was shown after 10 pm and therefore "its content is within audience expectations for a post-watershed, topical, satirical programme from a comedian whose style and tone are well-established".
It follows Tim Davie, the BBC's new Director-General, pledging to tackle the alleged problem of bias towards the political left in the broadcaster.
Earlier in September, Mr Davie vowed to oversee a radical change of the broadcaster's comedy output in the coming months.