Roseanne: You Can’t Unring The Bell of Racism

TV Network ABC’s reaction to Roseanne Barr’s racist Tweet about President Obama’s senior advisor, who happens to be black, Valerie Jarrett, came quickly and with great force. Because of the ugliness of Roseanne’s ‘tweet’, she lost her very popular television show, and hundreds of people lost their jobs.

Somewhere in the ugliness and hate, there is a lesson here.  More on that in a bit.

We often consider boycotting people and companies who say or do things that we find wrong, or that we con’t believe in.  Consider that a boycott takes aim at the guilty while outright cancellation takes aim at the innocent.  On a sitcom like Roseanne, you’re talking about hundreds of trades people, union people and guild people of all stripes.

How many studio drivers, craft service workers, set dressers, electricians, gaffers, etc. will now be on the unemployment line because of this cancellation?  If you think they’re gonna blame Roseanne, think again.  They know her.  They work with her.  She acted in character, as any racist eventually will.  ABC knew it.  We all knew it.

Why can’t we shut her down without taking hundreds of employees with her?  Believe me, she won’t be missed and it’s been done before. Think Redd Foxx on Sanford and Son. How about Charlie Sheen from Two Good Men.  I think Mr. Moose was shown the door after a contract dispute on Captain Kangaroo.

Racists, white supremacists, and others who care to share their hateful feelings over social media do it at great peril – AND HERE’S THE LESSON I PROMISED:  Once you type it out and hit the SEND button, you can’t take it back.  As they say, you “can’t unring that bell”.  This is why we must be responsible in anything you say – because if you say it to someone, it can and probably will hit the Internet.

We don’t have mega-hit television shows, or have huge audiences that read every single word we write. But we may one day.  We must be responsible when we are communicating on the internet

Roseanne is most certainly a racist, if you can judge a person by what they say.  However,  the axe does not fall on her – it falls on those whose only crime is working with her and for her.