What Roseanne learned today is that what you’re not going to do is come for Black women and not get told about yourself– in the classiest way possible of course.
After igniting a social media firestorm this morning by calling former Obama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett a monkey, controversial comedienne Roseanne Barr incurred the wrath of Black Twitter, celebrities and network execs alike.
The Trump supporter and star of ABC’s Roseanne fired off a racist tweet suggesting that former Barack Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett is an ape.
“muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj,” Barr tweeted in response to a post about Jarrett.
Barr attacked Jarrett, an African American woman who was born in Iran, in response to an article which unsubstantiated claims that former President Obama spied on the President of France. Barr’s Muslim comment toward Jarrett follows the thought process of conservatives who tried to unsuccessfully assert that Jarrett was behind a secret push to make America a “more Islamic country.” According to the fact-checking website, Snopes, that claim is “false.”
Barr took to Twitter to apologize for the smear saying, “I apologize to Valerie Jarrett and to all Americans. I am truly sorry for making a bad joke about her politics and her looks. I should have known better. Forgive me-my joke was in bad taste.” She says she plans to now leave Twitter (one can only hope for good), saying:
“It’s a joke,” she wrote in response to a CNN reporter.
Well, apparently ABC didn’t find her joke funny and pulled the plug on Roseanne!
“Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show,” ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey said in a statement.
And now Valerie Jarrett is speaking out as well.
Valerie Jarrett spoke about the tweets directed at her by Roseanne Barr during an appearance on an MSNBC town hall on Tuesday.
“I think we have to turn it into a teaching moment,” Jarrett said “I’m fine. I’m worried about all the people out there who don’t have a circle of friends and followers who come right to their defense–the person who’s walking down the street minding their own business and they see somebody cling to their purse or walk across the street. Or every black parent I know who has a boy who has to sit down and have a conversation, ‘the talk’ as we call it. Those ordinary examples of racism that happen every single day.”
