Roseanne cancellation shows what happens when we push back against White Privilege.

[EffieBlack]

Last edited Tue May 29, 2018, 05:37 PM - Edit history (1)

Roseanne got away with an awful lot over the past few years. And it is hard to dispute the fact that her white privilege allowed her to do so. And make no mistake, Roseanne has been living off of white privilege for decades. No person of color could pull the crap and say the things she has and be handed another golden opportunity like their very own show on a major network, huge ratings and loving kudos from the president of the United States.

But here's the thing. Roseanne thought her privilege entitled her to behave, in public, like a defiant, obnoxious bigoted ass. And maybe that was true until very recently.

But diversity happened and she wasn't paying any attention.

One of the wonderful things about diversity, isn't just that it ensures greater opportunity and fairness and allows people to interact with people who don't like them, but that it creates an environment that makes the kind of behavior Roseanne exhibited less tolerable and even less tolerated.

Very early in my career, I was confronted with a situation that I found intolerable and decided that I was going to speak up and make a stand. One of my mentors, a very wise older black man, told me that would be a mistake. He counseled me that I had not been in my position long enough for any of my bosses to give two hoots about whether I was pissed off and they really wouldn't care if I walked away - they'd just write me off as a trouble-making non-team player and replace me with someone else and not think any more about it. Instead, he said, "You have to stick around, put up with this crap until you've worked hard enough and been there long enough that you getting mad and walking away would hurt their bottom line. in the meantime, you just suck it up." I told him that wasn't fair. Why do I have to put up with being insulted this way. "Life's not fair, kiddo. You're black. Things are going to be harder for you. Get used to it."

This situation calls that to mind. A few years ago, Roseanne might have gotten away with it. But not today. She just learned the hard way that she's not the only big dog at ABC. There are other people there with lots of clout. People who don't look like her. People who don't like her crap and aren't going to put up with it. People who had enough pull and make the network enough money that when they put their feet down, the network has no option but to listen.

People like Wanda Sykes who walked away this morning and, in so doing, probably scared a whole lot of people up in the C-suite. People like Shonda Rhimes - ABC's big moneymaker - who I am SURE had at least one, in-depth, "oh, HELL no" conversation with someone very high up in the ABC hierarchy this mornig. Someone who would be absolutely terrified (and probably jobless) if they pissed off Shonda Rhimes so much that she walked away.

And, maybe sweetest of all - the ABC exec who made the announcement of Roseanne's cancellation (and likely was involved in the decision to do it) was Channing Dungey, African-American woman and, more important, as president of ABC Entertainment, Roseanne's BOSS.

Roseanne got so caught up in her Trumpland world that it didn't occur to her that this was possible. She thought she could say what she wanted and that ABC wasn't going to fight her because, you know, number 1 tv show and all.

Roseanne thought she could get away with it, but, as my mother would say, she thought like Nit. (Don't ask me what that means, but you get my drift).

A racist tv star whose big mouth got her show cancelled isn't going to change the world. But it does give the world a good look at how things work when white privilege gets trumped by a little bit of black power

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. Excellent observation and YES my first reaction to all of this was Roseanne

thought the deplorable base, the vile behavour of Rump, would insulate her from anything she said, that there were NO limits.

I would have thought she was right, I am glad to see she is not.

BTW the show was so well received as in ratings and had so much talent on it Roseanne stood to make maybe more money than ANY previous show owner like Jerry Seinfeld or Larry David.

Which makes this ALL the sweeter to me.

But I feel bad for all the good pepole on the show and not just actors but camera-persons, grips etc

[cungar2000]

18. Have to admit

when I first read the tweet, I thought she was going to get away with it.

[FarPoint]

26. Me too...

I'm impressed and retain a little hope still ...so much respect for humanity has been lost... maybe the pendulum will swing for us.

[EffieBlack]

4. What in my post in any way says that that is not the case?

It sounds like you either misread my post or completely missed its point.

[Dave Starsky]

8. I read your post. Your point was injecting "white privilege" into it.

Rosanne was wrong in what she said and did, It doesn't matter what your race or skin color is, what she said and did is disgusting to any of us who believe that we are all God's children, and that we are all in this together.

[EffieBlack]

42. I guess you would see it that way.

[Roland99]

17. "when white privilege gets trumped by a little bit of black power"

as if only blacks who were offended were involved in the public backlash and in the corporate decision to cancel the show (along with Viacom's decision to cancel all syndicated reruns of the old show)

[EffieBlack]

43. I didn't say only blacks were offended

My poInt was that, in this instance, black people had real power to influence the outcome - and that goes a long way toward the diminishing white privilege aka leveling the playing field.

[Dennis Donovan]

5. No kidding...

The OP is OTT...

[CakeGrrl]

6. It's not ridiculous. The president of the U.S. will NOT be impeached

by the current Congress, and MANY lines have been crossed to offend good/moral people everywhere.

He is the biggest beneficiary of white privilege...thus far...thanks to a compliant, GOP-controlled House and Senate.

We all well know what would have happened if President Obama had done a small fraction of what Trump has said or done. And everyone should know that Trump traffics heavily in racist dogwhistling to energize his base. The hate for President Obama wasn't rooted in policy differences any more than Trump voters are fueled by "economic anxiety".

Back to the OP: Trump's acolytes are learning that the level of privilege he seems to enjoy do not extend to them, but it's very enlightening to know where they stand, having felt empowered to really let their racism out for all to see.

It reminds me of a t-shirt I've seen: Don't let your president get your ass kicked.

[EffieBlack]

7. Hear hear

[mcar]

31. +1000!

[flibbitygiblets]

23. I'm pretty sure if a POC publicly insulted whites, they'd get fired a lot faster than Barr did

I think that may have been the OP's point. The "privilege" is that it took so long for a wrong to be righted. Correct me if I am mistaken.

[Afromania]

29. Let's not forget how Janelle Hill got a suspenion for simply calling the president racist. I'm sure

if she said something even in the ballpark of the things said by Roseanne it would have been an immediate firing the very first time.

[oberliner]

57. Roseanne was fired literally within an hour or two of sending the tweet

[flibbitygiblets]

60. Perhaps you missed all the racist comments she made going back to at least 2013

She had them deleted from her Twitter feed to mollify the folks at ABC who gave her a job in spite of this fact.

Read more here: http://time.com/5294402/roseanne-cancelled-abc-racist-conspiracy-theory/

[oberliner]

61. I've been posting about them all day

Wondering why Wanda Sykes would have agreed to work on the show in the first place (among others).

[flibbitygiblets]

62. I guess I didn't understand the point of your reply to my post then?

[oberliner]

65. They did act very quickly once the tweet came out

However, it was strange that they gave her the show in the first place (and no one involved found her past tweeting objectionable enough to stay away).

[flibbitygiblets]

66. Indeed that is very interesting...maybe it's on people's minds because today is

the day of the Starbuck's employee sensitivity training, as well as MSNBC's much-anticipated show about everyday racism in America. (Which I'm watching now and enjoying very much although parts of it are really hard to hear.)

[EffieBlack]

63. Why do you care why Wanda Sykes agreed to work on the show?

[oberliner]

64. She was the first to quit when the racist tweet came out

It struck me as strange that she would have been working on the show in the first place in light of Roseanne's past history of similar tweets given her swift response to this one.

[orangecrush]

24. +1

[Hortensis]

3. Thank you, David. I agree entirely.

Those who might approve are missing that this thread is equating "white privilege" with the vicious and disgusting racism that Roseanne was fired for.

After all, Effie's previous threads have equated all white people with white privilege. Extending this further to now include Roseanne as exemplifying white privilege would imply that if A = B and B = C, then A = C.

That is, if white = white privilege, and white privilege = Rosanne-level racism, then white = Rosanne-level racism.

No. White people do not equate to Rosanne's vicious and intensely disgusting racism.

But David put it much better: Ridiculous.

Roseanne crossed the line, by anyone's objective moral standards. All good people were disgusted by her comments, regardless of race, color, or creed. And she was rightfully fired for them.

[Caliman73]

14. That is a huge stretch. Like Plastic Man / Mr. Fantastic level stretch.

Rosanne is a straight up racist. She definitely crossed a line that was not able to be explained away, or ignored. However, the point is that Privilege did allow her to continue to spew her vitriol. Before this tweet, in 2013 she said a similar thing about Susan Rice. Other racist and conspiracy nut things have also been part of her repertoire, before this past year, yet she got a chance to have a major television show on a major network.


Of course White people do not equal Rosanne's racism, but privilege means that Rosanne represents ONLY Rosanne, while there are a great many people who accept that the acts of individual Black and Brown people represent the flaws within those communities. Muslims need to stop being silent and report on radicals in their midst. Black and Latino mothers and fathers need to do more to keep their kids out of gangs and out of jail. Those are actual thought processes because when POC mess up, it is because of inherent weaknesses within our being, whereas White people are judged as unique individuals free from social context.

[EffieBlack]

44. Funny watching people who insist there's no such thing as "white privilege" are now throwing a fit

because they think I didn't give white people enough credit for helping to counter it.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

15. Do be sure to warm up thoroughly before you make those kinds of leaps.

[Hortensis]

40. All the way from one end of the OP's TITLE to the other.

[LanternWaste]

70. I suppose simply saying it's so helps you believe it to be true... regardless.

I suppose simply saying it's so helps you believe it to be true... regardless.

Apologies for not providing an absolutely totes adorbs graphic to cover up my lack of rational thought in this instance; I played second chair in middle school band and didn't dig it.

[wonkwest]

9. A few years ago, Roseanne would not have gotten away with calling a black person an ape

I agree with much of what you say much of the time, but not here.

There is zero chance of her getting away with that even twenty years ago.

There is a privilege that exists in America even more powerful than white privilege - celebrity privilege. Celebrities can get away with anything. Look at your Roman Polanskis, your Sean Penns, your Bryan Singers, etc. They get away with some of the most heinous behavior. Not just get away with it, but honored despite it.

Hollywood types are protected in ways that 99% of white people could never dream of.

Roseanne's shit was tolerated because she could generate cash. Once she became so toxic that no one would work with her and the show would likely hemorrhage viewers and advertisers, she was outta there.

I mildly enjoyed the reboot. There's no way on earth I'd patronize the show next year. Not after that. Society draws lines. Roseanne just ran into a big one.

[tonedevil]

46. She has literally gotten away...

with it in the past. In this Rolling Stone article about the current horrid tweet there is this paragraph:

But Barr's vile tweet shouldn't come as a surprise. The comedian has a long history of espousing similarly problematic views. This ins't even the first time she's compared an African American to an ape on Twitter. In 2013, she wrote that Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice "is a man with big swinging ape balls." Both that tweet and the tweet comparing Jarrett to an ape have been deleted.

That was only 5 years ago. She didn't have a TV show to lose at the time, but she was able to get one in spite of it.

[mercuryblues]

56. And in '09

she dressed up as Hitler, pulling "Jew cookies" (gingerbread men) out of an oven.

I have even seen a few posts on DU excusing what she said. She didn't know comparing a black person to an ape is racist. In this day and age she didn't know that? She's not 5 years old FFS, she is a grown woman.

The old "mentally ill' standby. As if she couldn't possibly be an ignorant racist, she must be mentally ill shit. Her words did not come out a vacuum.

Yet, ABC gave her a contract and a show, knowing her history.

[MaryMagdaline]

10. Great post

I think she forgot, as well, that AA have market share and Mickey Mouse doesn’t like loosing market share.

In a perverse way, I love to see RWers get eaten up by the corporate piranhas they helped produce.

[BumRushDaShow]

16. Speaking of that, Disney saw how "Black Panther" made them megabucks

as a film with a near all-black cast and black director. It literally broke all sorts of records during its couple month run and is currently #9 highest grossing movie (worldwide) of all time.

Cha-Ching!

(and as a note, I just saw a story where the character "Shuri" (T'Challa/Black Panther's little sister) will now be an official Disney Princess).

[MaryMagdaline]

48. That's so great

My conservative friend (who hates trump and voted the right way this time) would always complain about the liberal media, liberal talk shows. Told him a lot more people watch TV than actually vote. Adding all the undocumented people, kids and minorities who watch TV, the capitalists have to be very careful.

[BumRushDaShow]

67. Yup

The one thing that gets corporations attention is this -

[mokawanis]

11. why did anyone support her in the first place?

why did it take those awful tweets for so many to realize what she's like?

[EffieBlack]

45. She should never have been given a show

[uponit7771]

49. +1

[BumRushDaShow]

12. "Life's not fair,"

That was one of my mother's favorite sayings to me and my sisters and it was for a reason.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

13. The only thing bad about it is how much effort it took. But they can be beaten.

[ismnotwasm]

19. K&R

[catrose]

20. K&R

[saidsimplesimon]

21. Effie, I salute you.

However, you are mistaken to ignore the "white horde" who had your back, imho.

[EffieBlack]

47. Not ignoring y'all at all

Just making the point that it is awesome to see black people in positions of power that allow them to push back on white privilege.

A friend of mine is general counsel for a major company. He was looking to hire local counsel in a huge case that would earn substantial - 6-7 figures - fees for the retained firm. He narrowed the choice down to two firms and visited their offices where each firm did major pitches. He noticed that one firm had lots of diversity, numerous female and minority lawyers, including partners, lots of gender, racial, ethnic, physical ability diversity in their support staffs, etc. The other firm, as far as he could tell was all white, very few women. When he met with them, he was the only black face he saw the entire day and he saw very few women. When he asked them about their diversity policies, they gave him a lot of smoke and bs about not hiring based on race and wanting to hire only the best, blah blah blah.

He chose the first firm. When he called to tell the second firm he wasn't going to retain them and they asked why, he told them that he couldn't in good conscience hire a firm that had demonstrated no commitment to diversity. The partner was flabbergasted. He said no one had ever mentioned any concern about diversity to them before. "Well, someone's mentioning it to you now."

My friend told me that he didn't believe for one second that no one had ever said anything to them about this before. But they probably didn't hear them because it didn't matter to them. And this was probably the first time their lack of diversity was pointed out to them by someone with power over them and the first time that it affected their bottom line.

He checked back a year later and found that they had hired a Chief Diversity Officer and managed to find several black, brown and female attorneys and support staff. Amazing how that happens.

That's what happened to Roseanne today. She learned the hard way that her behavior was not OK, from people who had power over her (including powerful people of color) and it totally affected her bottom line in a way nothing ever has previously.

[Lil Missy]

22. That's not "White Privilege". That's just plain abhorrent bigotry.

She could have just as well written a rant about Jewish People.

[still_one]

32. I tend agree with you, this isn't the best example of white privilege. Rather it is an

example of how the trend in the country, with the media's encouragement, has been moving toward normalization of bigotry.

I would hope this is a wake-up call that enough is enough

[Marcuse]

34. White Privilege is not a choice. Accessing it to promote, oppose or ignore bigotry is the choice.

Barr chose to promote bigotry.

[grantcart]

36. She is, and she did

Barr was born into a middle class Jewish family

This morning she also continued a lie about George Soros, who

In May 2018, comedian Roseanne Barr falsely accused[145][146] Soros on twitter[147]:


“George Soros is a nazi who turned in his fellow Jews 2 be murdered in German concentration camps & stole their wealth."

A spokesman for Soros responded[145] in a statement,


“George Soros survived the Nazi occupation of Hungary as a 13 year old child by going into hiding and assuming a false identity with the help of his father, who managed to save his own family and help many other Jews survive Holocaust,” the statement read.

“He did not collaborate with the Nazis. He did not help round up people. He did not confiscate anybody’s property. Such false allegations are insulting to the victims of the Holocaust, to all Jewish people, and to anyone who honors the truth. They are an affront to Mr. Soros and his family, who against the odds managed to survive one of the darkest moments in our history.”

[EffieBlack]

39. The privilege isn't in what she said. It's in the fact that she's gotten away with it for so long

[uponit7771]

50. +1, folk are acting like Rosanne just became a racist 8 hrs ago

[BumRushDaShow]

68. "She could have just as well written a rant about Jewish People." --Like this?

https://www.thejc.com/we-re-sorry-roseanne-this-really-is-half-baked-humour-1.10733

(note: she is a Jew)

[flibbitygiblets]

25. I'm just happy she's gone. Good riddance to a horrible human being.

What a sweet ironic justice that a woman of color got to be the one to do it.

[still_one]

27. ABC knew who Barr was before they allowed her show to proceed in the first place.

This isn't the first time she has voiced racist statements.

I would like to think this latest episode is the straw that broke the camel's back, and a warning to other so-called hosts and celebrities that legitimizing racist, sexist, and bigoted behavior will no longer be tolerated, but I am pretty pessimistic that it will be back to business as usual tomorrow

[DashOneBravo]

35. Thank you.

You said it much better than I did.

She’s been that way for years and I can’t believe she got a show.

[mcar]

28. The times, they seem to finally be a'changin'

[Mountain Mule]

30. Excellent post - Thank you!

[sandensea]

33. As well as right-wing privilege.

Republicans have become far too used to not having the same rules apply to them, that apply to wayward Democrats and others.

Just ask Cheeto.

[Civic Justice]

37. Good post....

I continue to write and break it down equally so within commentary... and that is to simply address truths, whose time has arrived.

Good post...

[debsy]

38. I agree - we, even those of us whose skin color is white - need to stand up against the racism, hatr

As a woman, i understand what it means to not be as privileged as a man. As a white woman, i see on a daily basis how my skin color entitles me to an unspoken privilege over anyone with a darker colored skin than my own.

I contacted ABC and thanked them for their moral courage in cancelling the show and commented how I am hopeful this will be a step toward righting the course of our republic. I strongly encourage people to continue fighting for equality, liberty, and justice for ALL. In-fighting is just another distraction.

[EffieBlack]

41. Plenty of white people stood up and pushed back

It was awesome!

But I also loved that, in this instance, there were black people who also had the power to make a difference.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

51. SO TRUE!!

[Kajun Gal]

52. Even white people don't like her! I'm white. She doesn't represent me.

[DonCoquixote]

53. At the risk of saying something tactless

But considering that Disney made about two billion dollars between Black Panther and the movie BP set up: Avengers: Infinity War, how did anyone think that ABC would do anything but slink? They know where their bread is buttered, and it is NOT with the Roseanne types.

It should be noted that many of the same people complaining about Roseanne also complain about Disney's other cash cow, Star Wars, the one where they started having strong female characters, and some strong AfAM characters (Lando for the win.) They know it will be very hard to sell those lando Calrissian toys if they side with Roseanne. If you want to see who our enemies are, read the whinefest that accompanied the last two movies, all of which was basically "Bring us back our white dude heroes that everyone would worship!."

ABC knows where it's bread is buttered, and frankly, that is a lesson a lot of politicos need to learn fast.

[DonCoquixote]

54. and for those that demand figures

http://www.indiewire.com/2018/04/will-avengers-infinity-war-beat-black-panther-box-office-1201956639/

And this is NOT counting Video Games, Toys, and all the other merchandise that does the REAL Profit.

[BumRushDaShow]

69. Plus I just read yesterday that the BP character "Shuri" was just designated a "Disney Princess"

http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/letitia-wright-shuri-officially-being-a-disney-princess

(and some folks had already created DIY Shuri Princess dolls out of the Disney Tiana doll)

[EffieBlack]

55. You're absolutely right

I think lots of thinking has changed in the past few months since Black Panther came out.

Progress . . .

[DonCoquixote]

58. BP showed that white dudes are not the only people with money

and the fact that Disney is NOT listening to some star wars fans that wanted Luke and Han to be the old john wayne white dudes shows they KNOW BETTER.

BTW EB, this post inspired my own OP.

[Bok_Tukalo]

59. I think Spike Lee won the Gran Prix at Cannes this year.

<OPE>