ABC canceled its hit sitcom "Roseanne" on Tuesday after the show's biggest star, Roseanne Barr, went on a racist Twitter rant....Nobody could have foreseen this!
In one of the tweets, she wrote, "Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj."
Barr was responding to a comment about Valerie Jarrett, a top former aide to President Obama.
.@therealroseanne's racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett was not the first time she's compared black people to apes (h/t @GRYKING) pic.twitter.com/bFF1E1YMDA
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 29, 2018
Between the initial tweet and the cancellation, many people joked that Barr would now be considered not so much a bigot as a brave intellectual heretic.
So I guess Roseanne is part of the Intellectual Dark Web now.
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) May 29, 2018
I think even James Bennet's New York Times op-ed page and Jeffrey Goldberg's Atlantic were too bien-pensant to defend Barr on this (or on her "Chelsea Soros Clinton" tweet). But now I expect the conversation to switch to "left-wing censorship" -- even though calls for the show's cancellation didn't just come from the left.
Hey @ABC, Roseanne Barr compared Valerie Jarrett to an ape. There is no apology she can make that justifies @ABC turning a blind eye to this bigotry by airing another second of her show.
— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) May 29, 2018
Even in the Age of Trump, there are red lines that can never be crossed. This is one.
I don't know who would want to advertise on Barr's show now. It's understandable that ABC would want to be rid of the show. But this business decision will be blamed on free-speech-hating progressives:
The blaming could conceivably be limited to the right, but I assume it's going to be taken up by centrists who should know better, and by conservatives writing for non-conservative editors who should also know better. Roseanne Barr wrote an awful thing, something she's done frequently in the past with no consequence. But it's all going to be our fault.
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