What Did Roseanne Say About the President
ABC cancelled Roseanne over a racist tweet. And she's not the only one who crossed a line. Jeet Heer and Parker Molloy try to figure out the new boundaries of racism and acceptable language in 2018.
Day 6 10:13 Roseanne, Twitter and racism: Why acceptable language is up for debate in the age of Trump 
For the second time,Roseanne has come to an end. ABC rebooted the '90s sitcom in March, this time with its namesake Roseanne Barr as a President Trump-supporting, working class American. Roseannedebuted to huge ratings — more than 18 million people watched the first episode — and even garnered a congratulatory phone call to Barr from the U.S. president. This week, the series was cancelled after Barr tweeted a racist comment about Valerie Jarrett, a former aide to Barack Obama. Early Tuesday morning, Barr compared Jarrett to an ape. Jarrett is African-American. Barr later apologized, calling the tweet a "miscalculated joke." That tweet wasn't Barr's first encounter with online backlash, though. In 2013, she similarly compared former National Security Advisor Susan Rice to an ape. Meanwhile, liberal comedian Samantha Bee is under fire after calling Ivanka Trump a "feckless c--t." So, what are the boundaries — or lack thereof — for acceptable speech?Day 6host spoke with Jeet Heer, a writer with The New Republic, and Parker Molloy, a senior writer for Upworthy. Here's part of their conversation. I end by offering everyone involved one more apology and prayers for healing of our divided nation. Tomorrow is Shabbat and I will continue to pray that everything for everyone goes forward & ends well for all. signing off twitter for a while. love u guys! Brent Bambury: Parker, what was more surprising to you: Roseanne's tweet or ABC firing her? Parker Molloy: Oh, I think ... pretty clearly ABC firing her was more way more surprising because you know, Roseanne's tweet, this is the stuff she's been tweeting for five or six years. This is her brand. The fact that ABC actually took some action on this was extremely surprising because they knew who she was when they greenlit the series. BB: Jeet, what happened this week? What made that tweet so egregious when, as Parker says, ABC has turned a blind eye to many of Roseanne's other racist tweets in the past? Jeet Heer: Well, I actually think the best way to understand this is that Trump's election, and just Trump in general, has kind of made everything much more contested. There is actually a long history of people being fired for saying racist stuff, and what's more surprising is that ABC gave Roseanne a show. But that happened because ... Trump is president. They thought that we should have a show that, you know, sort of portrays Trump voters and she's one of the most prominent pro-Trump celebrities. So, I think a lot of mainstream institutions are struggling with how ... you represent this sort of new wave of conservatism — this new very powerful right-wing politics which dominates American politics — and also adhere to ... standard civilized norms about dealing with racism. BB: But there's conflict going on in what we used to think of as being the norm. This is what you said: everything's a contested area now, Jeet, and that is one of the contested places. After Roseanne was cancelled she tweeted that she felt bad for Donald Trump because he faces this type of backlash everyday. So she got fired. He's still president. Parker, what's going on there? PM: You know, there's a fine line between the type of racism that gets you elected president and that type of racism that gets you fired. It's bizarre. It's hard to tell what what the rules are anymore. You know it's something that I don't think anyone can specifically say, 'this is acceptable, this isn't acceptable.' I think that Jeet kind of hit the nail on the head when he said that what was surprising was that ABC gave a show to someone who tweets stuff like this, which was honestly why it was kind of shocking for me too. And especially since this was a play to try to represent Trump voters in a sympathetic light, like that sort of thing. But, Roseanne Barr is not the typical Trump supporter, anyway. And I think that's honestly insulting to Trump supporters, because I mean, first off, Roseanne in 2012, she ran for president and tried to get the Green Party nomination — the far left. Trump's base, we always look at them, and you know people talk about Trump's base as if it's everyone's a coal miner from West Virginia and stuff like that, or they were working at a factory that just got shut down. Trump won with voter [with] incomes between $50,000 to $100,000. And he edged out Clinton with voters over $100,000, too. So his base is wealthy. Iger, where is my call of apology? You and ABC have offended millions of people, and they demand a response. How is Brian Ross doing? He tanked the market with an ABC lie, yet no apology. Double Standard! JH: Trump's genius is that he landed the only job in America where you absolutely cannot be fired for being a racist buffoon: president of the United States. But, in some ways Roseanne is the Trump base because she is also a very wealthy conspiracy monger. But I agree with you, she's actually on the farther edge of Trumpism in the sense that she's into very unhinged, very disturbed conspiracy theories in a way that most Trump supporters aren't. BB: But this idea that Trump can't be held responsible for his racist statements — Valerie Jarrett, the former Obama aide who was targeted by Roseanne's comments, says that the tone is set at the top, that the president bears some responsibility for Roseanne's comments. Jeet, do you think that is fair? JH: Yeah, I think all of these controversies are a byproduct of Trump's campaign that he ran and [won]. And it's absolutely the case that it sort of emboldened a lot of people to be much more vocally racist. And it also caused a real pushback because there are people who are upset at Trump who are pushing back against this new racism. So ... he sort of made everything up for grabs again. BB: Some people tried to make an equivalency between Roseanne calling Valerie Jarrett an ape and Bill Maher joking about Donald Trump's mother being an orangutan. Parker, are they the same thing? PM: No, of course not. And you know there's obviously a really long history of calling someone who is black an ape, or a monkey, or anything like that. That has totally, for a very, very long time, been a racist statement. Comparing Trump to an orangutan, it's not even really a clever joke, but it's not racist. BB: So do we lose anything, Parker, in losing the Roseanneshow? PM: You know, I don't think so. I think there are a lot of shows on TV that tell the stories of middle class, working class families trying to get by, facing modern struggles. And I think that those stories will always be out there. Roseanne came out there and immediately it became this divisive story and when you tell a divisive story you get a divisive reaction. BB: Jeet, what do you think? JH: I completely agree because the thing is, I don't think anybody's really irreplaceable. I think that's one of the lessons of the sort of #MeToo era. There are a lot of comedians out there, a lot of people who could do shows. You can hire a comedian to do a working class show that is not going around calling black people apes. I don't think it's that difficult. To hear the full interview with Parker Molloy and Jeet Heer, download our podcast or click the 'Listen' button at the top of this page.
Trump's genius is that he landed the only job in America where you absolutely cannot be fired for being a racist buffoon: president of the United States. - Jeet Heer
What Did Roseanne Say About the President
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/episode-392-roseanne-s-racist-tweets-trans-mountain-pot-stocks-come-to-canada-calvin-and-hobbes-and-more-1.4685592/roseanne-twitter-and-racism-why-acceptable-language-is-up-for-debate-in-the-age-of-trump-1.4685601
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