Page 23 - Florida Sentinel 6-1-18

Roseanne Train Wreck Raises Issues Of Race In TV Coverage
Number of Critics of Color Is Abysmally Low
In the fallout over ABC’s cancellation of “Rosanne” over star Rosanne Barr’s racist tweet, much of the commentary congratulatory, some critics raised a chal- lenging question: How can the media cater to red-state voters without mainstream- ing the racism that too many of them embrace?
“What is America going to do about the normaliza- tion of racism?” Don Lemon asked on “CNN Tonight.”
Roxane Gay, a con- tributing opinion writer, wrote Tuesday for the New York Times, “The problem is that Donald Trump is a toxic president who amassed his power through the provocation of hate. He has behaved as if conservatism and racism are synonymous when, in fact, they are not. The problem is that having a major character on a promi- nent television show as a Trump supporter normal- izes racism and misogyny and xenophobia.
“President Trump
often seems like a living em- bodiment of Ms. Barr’s Twitter feed, and many of his most vocal supporters revel in that. They revel in the freedom and the permission to be racist. The reboot [of ‘Roseanne’] contributed to a cultural moment that makes white people feel ex- ceedingly comfortable and entitled as they police black bodies in public spaces. . . .”
Valerie Jarrett, adviser to former president Barack Obama, was the object of
Roseanne Barr’s fateful tweet.
Barr tweeted Tuesday morning that Jarrett is the product of “the Muslim Brotherhood + Planet of the Apes.”
Appearing at an MSNBC- sponsored town hall on “Everyday Racism in Amer- ica” that night, Jarrett said, “The tone does start at the top” (video), adding that “we like to look up to our presi- dent and feel as though he reflects the values of our country. But I also think every individual citizen has a responsibility too, and it’s up to all of us to push back. Our government is only going to be as good as we make it be.”
Viewers can be grateful that there were African Americans and others of goodwill in positions of power at ABC when “Roseanne” tweeted her poison.
Channing Dungey, who as president of ABC En- tertainment became the first African American woman to serve as president of a major broadcast television network in 2016, issued the state- ment declaring Barr’s tweet “abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our val- ues.”
Her supervisor, Ben Sherwood, the president of the Disney/ABC Television Group, and his boss, Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, collec- tively decided that the dam- age was too great for “Roseanne” to remain, Brian Stelter reported for CNN.
But as others point out, these ABC executives green- lighted “Roseanne” in the
The “Roseanne” show was a hit in its new incarnation. “The re- boot contributed to a cultural moment that makes white people feel exceedingly comfortable and entitled as they police black bod- ies in public spaces,” Roxane Gay wrote for the New York Times.
Barr tweeted that Obama adviser Susan Rice, who is black, was “a man with big swinging ape balls.”
Fortunately, African Americans in the media, speaking from their own his- tory, broke down why the baggage Barr’s tweet car- ried made it far more offen- sive.
Touré wrote for thegri.com, “Anything is possible when you believe a person is less than human. The success of [Jarrett] and Rice does not serve as insu- lation from these insults but rather helps[deepen] the cut — it says no matter how high you get, no matter how much education you acquire, no matter how dignified you are, we’ll still see you as nothing more than a simple, wildape....”
BY RICHARD PRICE
first place, despite knowing that “Barr’s history of spreading conspiracy theo- ries and sneering at anyone who dared question her is long and omnipresent,”
as Caroline Framke pointed out in Va- riety. “ABC Ignored Roseanne Barr’s Racism at Its Own Peril,” her column was headlined. In 2013,
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