The boondocks season 4: Everyone is in the Freeman family's firing line

If offence is something you take with your morning coffee, it may be best that you avoid season four of The Boondocks.

The show, which deals with the politics of being black in America, is rivalled only by South Park in its ability to consistently produce cough-inducing hilarity without a single thought to political correctness.

The Boondocks revolves around the lives of two young brothers from Chicago's inner-city sent to live with their grandfather in the suburbs. Huey Freeman, the older of the two brothers, is a politically astute left-wing 10-year-old who harbours a deep mistrust for corporate America and white people. He says things like "Jesus Christ was black", "Ronald Reagan was the devil", and "the government is lying about 9/11", but is the rational pivot around which his familial madness revolves. His little brother Riley, 8, is his antithesis.

Riley is a brash hip-hop loving gangster wannabe who couldn't be less interested in intellectual snobbery. He routinely defends his icons, despite his own beliefs or the fact that they may have urinated on young girls.

Robert Jebadiah Freeman, also known as Granddad, was a World War 2 pilot. He is short-tempered, loves spending money on young women and embellishes his involvement in Martin Luther King's civil rights movement.

Uncle Ruckus is the funniest and most polarising character. He is an elderly man suffering from revitaligo, a disease that has turned him black and whose lexicon of racial epithets is large enough to make Steve Hofmeyr blush. He will do anything to please the white characters and undermine the black ones.

The season kicks off with an episode titled Pretty Boy Flizzy in which a famous chisel-stomached singer is caught robbing a liquor store. Later in the season the Freemans are involved in an illegal hair care racket that bears a resemblance to Breaking Bad ; star in a reality show with a lost Kardashian; and are sold into slavery to pay their debts.

At first glance, it is an incredibly crude, racist show that serves no other purpose than entertainment for old white racists trying to "understand" black culture. But, arguably, it takes a brutally honest look at African-American culture. It is the kind of examination of blackness few others manage without creating a hyper-serious struggle movie. It is a must-watch for everyone across the pigment spectrum.

• Season 4 of 'The Boondocks' starts on Sony Max, DStv 128, tonight at 9.30pm