Sarah Hoyt: I come not to defend Roseanne Barr nor to bury her
I come not to defend Roseanne Barr nor to bury her. I really don’t give a hang about what some actress says or thinks, and my only question is why is this world news, including being on BBC. Why in hell is what some random American actress, not particularly well known overseas, said or what she meant a reason to create a hue and cry in England? Except of course the left thinks it supports their narrative.
I really couldn’t care less about Roseanne. In fact, I had to look up her last name before I wrote this. If I ever saw her in anything at all, I don’t remember. Which is no big deal. I never remember actors. As my family has been known to say, "If mom starts recognizing actors and actresses, it’s time to look in the basement for pods, because that ain’t mom."
The language, though, and the freedom to use it? That I care passionately about. And I’m getting sick and tired of words that are okay in certain circumstances and not in others.
So, this Valerie Jarret thing. Roseanne Barr apparently said she looks like a cross between the Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes.
She’s not wrong. Jarret doesn’t have particularly simian features, at least to my eyes, but her eyes have that curious flat, "odd" look of the actors in planet of the apes. I don’t know why. I mean, I know why in the actors. The makeup creates a certain immobility that gives the eyes a fixed stare. I don’t know why in Jarret. Botox, maybe? As for the Muslim brotherhood, that’s harder to defend. We know Jarret has family ties to it, but what does the Muslim brotherhood look like? Perhaps really angry? Which Jarret tends to look. Like she’s barely keeping from yelling at you.
So?
So furor erupts because apparently Jarret’s father is black. Guys, I’m pretty well plugged in to politics, and I did not know that. Not a clue. Jarret doesn’t look it. Hell, I have more African features, as does #1 son. (But then the technical term for black people whose ancestors have been in America very long is "Caucasian." By the characteristics used in SA to determine the race of a foundling of no known parentage, most of American Blacks, from texture of hair to eye color at birth are white. Never has so much been made of such a tiny difference.)
So was Roseanne being racist? Who the f*ck knows? She’s an actress. She was being noisy and bombastic, after her kind.
The indications are, though, that no she wasn’t trying to be racist. If she were she would not have immediately apologized. And also, for someone who lives in the public eye, she would have "revealed" herself long before now.
The fact is that there is vanishingly little racism in America (trust me. Take a tour of Europe or yeah the middle East and you’ll see racism.)
Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2018-05-31 |