Nice try, Trump supporters
ABC abruptly canceled “Roseanne” after Roseanne Barr made a blatantly racist remark on Twitter today. She was a prominent and outspoken supporter of Donald Trump, so the development came as a major blow to Trump and his base. Now they’re trying to fight back in a surreal manner, which reveals just how desperate some of them are to pretend that they’re not racist.
Roseanne comapred former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, a black woman, to an ape. Even some of Trump’s most hardcore supporters are having difficulty figuring out how to spin that one as somehow not being racist. So instead they’re insisting that Roseanne is being singled out. After all, they’re arguing, Bill Maher once compared Trump to an ape, and his show wasn’t canceled. Wait, what?
Comparing a black person to an ape is a racist remark because it’s what racists have been saying for hundreds of years while actively discriminating against black people. When Roseanne compared Jarrett to an ape, she was (purposely) tapping into the oppressive and violent history of racism against black people in the United States. When Maher compared Trump to an ape, he was simply accusing Trump of being physically ugly, and nothing more. Similarly, if Roseanne had simply tweeted “Valerie’s Jarrett is ugly,” she’d still have her show.
This is the latest reminder that while all of Donald Trump’s supporters are racist (or at the least they’re perfectly okay with his racism), many of them are eager to pretend that neither he nor they are racist. They’re backing this guy because he told them that Mexicans, Muslims, immigrants, and other groups are the only reason their lives didn’t turn out like they’d hoped. Yet they want to be able to support him and his racist policies while pretending that there’s nothing racist about it. Nice try.
