"'Roseanne' was not canceled because it is mean or HORRIBLE to compare a black person to n ape (though it is both of those things). It was canceled because it carries the weight of past horrors and current atrocities - because comparing a black person to an ape nods to an historically rooted yet increasingly emboldened far right movement whose chosen figurehead - Donald Trump -is the president of the United States.
Because it is our collective responsibility not to let that movement win, to fight to be a better country and right now cultural power is all we have. ...Canceling 'Roseanne' is not society regulating 'mean speech'; it is regulating our collective morality so we don't atrophy into a moral vacuum."
- Lindy West, NY Times. June 1, p. A23.
Long before it happened I predicted to Janice the ABC reboot of "Roseanne" wouldn't last a whole season. Why? Because I know the star, Roseanne Barr - a confirmed and loud mouthed Trumpie - had no more ability to contain her tongue and bombastic buffoon instincts than her hero, Dotard Donnie. Both are basically cut from the same cloth and neither has any level of self-awareness, class or exercise of restraint.
The last straw was a racist tweet, which no one of any sentience can deny, that proved even too much for the ABC honchos. Since there has been only little reporting of her tweet, directed at former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett (an African -American), it is useful to cite it for reference, especially as numerous Trumpie morons are bitching that it is "unfair" and making comparison to Keith Olbermann. (Newsflash, Trumpies! NONE of Olbermann's tweets, comments have been racist, including labeling Omarosa Trump's "pet". But this shows how far the dereliction of mental states can skew when fake news addicts try to invoke a counter outrage that isn't there.) Anyway, Roseanne in one of her tweets wrote - before Ms. Jarrett was to appear at a Town Hall:
"Muslim brotherhood and Planet of the Apes had a baby = VJ"
Note the language used which was not only was explicitly racist in interjecting the "Apes" movie, but also conflated Valerie with descending from Muslim terrorists".
There is no way in hell this remotely comes close to anything Keith Olbermann wrote or said. So all the whining Trumpie bone heads that believe Keith is being let off while Barr takes a fall are out of their gourds. Further, Roseanne herself displayed a consciousness of guilt as we call it, when she subsequently wrote:
"I am truly sorry for making a bad joke about her politics and her looks. I should have known better. Forgive me. My joke was in bad taste."
This was clearly written not merely to save her show but to acknowledge she went too far in equating Ms. Jarrett to a cross between Muslim terrorists and apes. Further, the tweet cited wasn't a "joke", even a bad one. A joke by definition has a punch line and for any rational or sane person is designed to elicit some yucks. This only elicited revulsion among the mentally balanced portion of the populace (i.e. non-Trumpies). What she called a "joke" was actually a racial attack, by which I mean a directed verbal assault - hurled at a former Obama staff person- in the guise of a mutant "joke".
This reminded me of my 2014 altercation with my late brother, Jerry, written about in this post (after he unfriended me on Facebook, which I welcomed):
FACEBOOK 'Unfriending' : One of the Best Things Ab...
Triggered by him putting up a Facebook image of Obama, i.e. in a phony "Presidential seal" using a Skunk emblem instead of a bald eagle - because he's born from a white mom and black Kenyan dad. I wrote Jerry and stated that both Janice and myself were deeply offended as Obama voters, backers and so were our Caribbean relatives. He replied we "were getting all worked up about nothing" as it was just a "joke". But we didn't find it so, not at all.
But see, I believe in calling these attacks what they are, and if we can't we will never reach a point of civility in this country where both sides attain mutual respect and be able to have decent dialogues. (Jerry and I never communicated again after the FB altercation and he died suddenly in August, 2016, of a ruptured aortic aneurysm.)
Further, the fact Roseanne's ignorant tweet wasn't a joke is reinforced by a string of her subsequent tweets all of which amounted to a diatribe or rant.
From Channing Dungey, President of ABC Entertainment:
'Roseanne's Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show."
From Disney CEO Robert Iger:
"There was only one thing to do here and that was the right thing"
If the Trump -backing bozos can't see a difference then I can't really help them - where one form of speech is simply intense criticism with some descriptive touches and the other goes straight into racial hatred and genocide replication. Again, NOT a joke.
In the end, the person who merits kudos here is Ms. Jarrett who has suggested using this sorry episode as a "teachable moment". The question is, for whom? I seriously doubt Trump's white racist, white nationalist supporters are teachable about anything.
See also:
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