So, Amy, you've overcome all the bigotry you've ever had? Your posting seems just a might self-righteous. Let he, or she, who is without sin.....

I do my best to take people as individuals. What bigotry in me do you perceive?

The point of this post is that the extreme lack of self-regulation Roseanne showed points to more than bigotry, the way I see it. It suggests she's going through some tough times psychologically.

I might be wrong.

Well, we all have our devils.

What Barr said was about as horrific as it could get.

But if anyone wishes to feel a bit of compassion for the person apart from her statement, I think Ann Althouse though gives a reasonably plausible explanation of how it might be an ambien fueled outburst.

https://althouse.blogspot.com/2018/05/while-all-pharmaceutical-treatments.html

I found that explanation by way of this guy's blog, a blog I find interesting but often problematical for other reasons.

https://ethicsalarms.com/2018/05/31/ethics-observations-on-the-roseanne-tweet-fiasco/

A reader there points out something I didn't know, a horribly traumatic, life altering, brain altering traffic accident in Barr's past:

> “At 16, Barr was hit by a car; the incident left her with a traumatic brain injury. Her behavior changed so radically that she was institutionalized for eight months at Utah State Hospital. While institutionalized she had a baby, which she put up for adoption.In 1970, when Barr was 18 years old, she moved out by informing her parents she was going to visit a friend in Colorado for two weeks, but never returned.”-

So take that for what it's worth.

I can understand the immediate cancellation, but I think that a braver better step for ABC would have been to somehow incorporate the story into the show, Roseanne on the show, fucks up massively, makes an honest and thorough apology, and loses friends on the show and as to face the repercussions, perhaps including a distancing from her family, and eventually at some point somehow manages to reconcile.

'Cause I think that's part of the problem in society is how fuckups go viral, and the manichean nature of everything. You're either with us or against us.

well, fwiw anyway.

(At any rate, I find anyone who says 'how could she know Jarrett was Black' including that so called ethics dude I linked to, to be even more full of shit than Barr. Her joke could only be interpreted as funny (and it was not) if she was making a racist joke, which she was.)

The issue is the double standard between how Roseanne was treated versus how others are treated.

Roseanne’s reruns were pulled from Viacom. However -

* Smallville reruns are still on air
* as are 7th Heaven starring Stephen Collins, who admitted molesting young girls on tape
* The Cosby Show, despite Bill Cosby’s conviction &
* Many others who were convicted of actual crimes

Smallville's lead actress branded women as sex slaves, yet the show remains in syndication -

http://www.vulture.com/2018/05/allison-mack-says-that-nxivm-branding-really-was-her-idea.html

MSNBC Absolves Joy Reid of ‘Hateful’ Writings

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2018/06/01/msnbc-refuses-to-punish-joy-reid-after-new-controversial-blog-posts-surface/

You want to know why Trump voters feel attacked? Rosanne tweets abhorrent things... and they fire her *and everyone who works with her* Samantha Bee's whole production team wrote, produced, edited, promoted her abhorrent thing & there are no consequences

https://twitter.com/politicalmath/status/1002581202782511106

What snoopy said.

I can’t help wondering... why her, why now?

I don't think people should be removed from their positions for remarks they make on social media (and then never allowed to have a career again).

And interesting on the TBI. (Traumatic brain injury.)

She's not bright and probably crass more than hurtfully racist, but this has come to lead my thinking about these events.

Maybe it was "self destruction."

But, if she had only called VJ the "c" word maybe the show wouldn't have been cancelled?

i loved the response from Sanofi, the maker of Ambien: "While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication."

I can see where Ambien, or other medications, could cause one to "drop their filter" -- or, as Amy said, not "keep their trap shut" -- when writing or saying something. But that just allows a "quiet bigot" (Amy's term) to become an "expressive bigot." It doesn't magically turn someone who's not a bigot into an "expressive bigot."

I've Ambien facebooked, I had NO recollection of it the next day, and it was nothing Id ever have said normally and was nothing Id harbored subconsciously. I dont think her tweet was awful, either. Tame compared to most leftist ones. They cant take it, they shouldn't dish it out.

It's not what she said that got her in trouble with the left, it's who she said it about. If she'd said the same thing about Condolezza Rice, Diamond and Silk or Rachel Dolezal, the left would have seen it as redemptive.

These things tend to be self-corrective in the long run. A Bill Cosby, who broke the law, will be seen in a harsher light than someone who said something sbhorrent.

And it's not a left/right thing — anyone remember Kathy Griffin or the Dixie Chicks?

Maybe I should write something for Quillette (ha!) on this knee-jerk tendency of many on both the left and the right to whine that the "other side" is constantly treated differently. Think they'd look at it if I worked in references to Jordan Peterson and whatever idiocy du jour is occurring on some college campus?

If she "gobbled up enough Ambien," wouldn't she just fall asleep?

If she wanted to quit the show, why not just ask the producers to have her character die? And see if the series can continue without the titular matriarch? Wouldn't be the first time a show continued after killing a major character off.

Good Times did it, first with James at the beginning of Season Four. And without Florida in Season Five.

But she put the rest of the cast out of work, to say nothing of the crew, and left ABC with literally nothing to fill the slot with and precious little else to make bank on.

Oh, well. I supposed they can always do reruns of "She's the Sheriff."

"But she put the rest of the cast out of work, to say nothing of the crew,..."

Not all by herself - but the mob doesn't care about those other people.

There are a hundred different situations where offensive things are hilarious; Chris Rock makes a small fortune distinguishing between two kinds of blacks. You know what he calls one class, don't you?

If you say it out loud you could be beaten for it, and the people who canceled Roseanne will cheer your beating.

So what Roseanne said was scandalous? So is the hypocrisy of the professionally offended, to whom what was said is really unimportant until someone they do not accept says it.

> There are a hundred different situations where offensive things are hilarious; Chris Rock makes a small fortune distinguishing between two kinds of blacks. You know what he calls one class, don't you?

He doesn't do that bit anymore. Not since 2005.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niggas_vs._Black_People

The controversy caused by Rock's constant use of the word "nigga" led him to remove the piece from his act. In a 2005 60 Minutes interview, Rock said: "By the way, I've never done that joke again, ever, and I probably never will. 'Cos some people that were racist thought they had license to say nigger. So, I'm done with that routine.

Honest to God second hand Ambien story. (I dont have any first hand ones because I am scared to death of that shit.)

I have a friend who shot himself in the arm on Ambien. The pain brought him back to reality enough to call an ambulance before he bled out.

To agree with everyone else here. It isnt the racism or the insults, it is the fact that the personal is now political and the total double standard about who gets to say what and get away with it.
It would be interesting to see her contract, because Roseanne is a woman who has gotten paid to say off the cuff outrageous things. Maybe she still gets paid, and ABC and all the low level employees take the hit.

“i loved the response from Sanofi, the maker of Ambien: "While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication."

Umm. You would JD because it is trite, juvenile, and insanely stupid.

Really really really stupid of them. If their legal department cleared this tweet, they should fire all their lawyers as well as the juice box PR staffer who made it.

Sandofi appears unfamiliar with the Streisand effect.

Now everyone is looking at the real, horrible side effects of Ambien which include saying stuff, eating stuff and doing stuff that you don't seem to have any conscious control over.

Class action lawsuit, here we come.

Patrick no, like qualudes, if you dont lay in bed and *try* to go to sleep-and sometimes if you do-you stay fully conscious and functional but part of your brain shuts off. Blacking out. It's much more likely if mixed with alcohol. And hallucinations are very common.

Trippy shit. I wonder how much and who they bribed to keep it off the Schedule Drugs list.

The cancellation definitely has an impact on actors, writers and directors. However, those on the technical crews (camera, lights, sound, etc.) are in a union and I'm pretty certain they just get sent out to another assignment because there's always other shows around the corner that need to hire union workers.

"The controversy caused by Rock's constant use of the word "nigga" led him to remove the piece from his act."

The bit is still on rotation on Pandora. How many jobs were lost because he did it?

"However, those on the technical crews (camera, lights, sound, etc.) are in a union and I'm pretty certain they just get sent out to another assignment because there's always other shows around the corner that need to hire union workers."

So, it's OK, then. Good to know. Not one person was even inconvenienced by being laid off a new hit show. Awesome!

Momof4, thanks very much. Then most likely Roseanne wasn't doing as she should with that drug.

If I took a sleep aid, the first thing I would do is go to bed. And if I experienced that blacking out that you described, I'd simply endure my bad night (I've had those on Vicodin; instead of putting me out, it keeps me awake) and call my doctor the next day.

And if alcohol can give a person bad reactions, then they would certainly have a warning label, advising you not to consume alcohol while on this drug. Personally, I always heed those warnings. Somehow Roseanne doesn't strike as the type that would pay much attention to it.

I can’t help wondering... why her, why now?

ABC was embarrassed that the rebooted Roseanne show was a runaway success. I was surprised they even let anything showing Trump voters in a positive light see the light of day.

They wanted it gone, and she gave them an excuse. Never let a crisis go to waste.

Patrick,

Ambien is really easy to do wrong. All it takes is a word or two or even background noise after you've taken it and off you are on a sleepwalking journey. My wife took some for a while. And while she had the sleepwalking problems thankfully nothing bad came of it. There was one guy who broke into a Krispy Kreme and danced nude with the donuts. You can look up a whole lot of other stories. The pharma company was very foolish to touch this. Saying crazy crap while on their product is a well known issue with it.

General,

I'm with IRA and such. I think the people at ABC put the show out there expecting it to fail. They were horrified that it did so well and were looking for any excuse to shut it down. I don't like the woman or the show. But the double standard is disgustingly obvious. Even if Roseanne hadn't tweeted anything they would have found something else to kill the show off.

ABC was embarrassed that the rebooted Roseanne show was a runaway success. I was surprised they even let anything showing Trump voters in a positive light see the light of day.

I think the people at ABC put the show out there expecting it to fail. They were horrified that it did so well and were looking for any excuse to shut it down.

These comments make no sense on any level. The network invested millions in it, renewed it for a second season after the first airing, and rushed it back into production so it could begin in the fall.

From what I read, it was the linchpin of their fall schedule, and they put Roseanne Barr out there for plenty of interviews. They stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars from its success and had the chance to revive the network. You can disagree with their decision to yank it, but corporations like ABC aren't "embarrassed" by success.

Sure they are Kevin. A key part of such things is such companies are made up of many different people. So one faction was fighting another. The group that wanted Roseanne gone won. Doesn't mean they are the same group that got Roseanne started even if they are the same company.

I didn't know until recently that Valerie Jarrett was part black. I knew she was Obama's closest advisor and vaguely recalled something about her being an American who was born in Iran. The thing is, I remember thinking that she had a very odd, plastic-ey look to her face, especially around the eyes. What if Roseann didn't even realize that Jarrett was part black??

>> What if Roseann didn't even realize that Jarrett was part black??

I wonder that as well, because I didn't realize that she is either.

Maybe that's why Barr was apologizing to Muslims initially?

The thing is VJ does look like she's wearing a mask in some pictures.

I wonder if Barr was referring to the look of the 1968 Planet of the Apps characters?

"From what I read, it was the linchpin of their fall schedule."

Yep. And they were also talking about how ABC was going to take the political content out of the show, generecize it, putting network people in charge of script supervision and such. Don't forget, this is the second time in a year that ABC has cancelled a top-rated show that was conservative-leaning. And yeah, Samantha Bee's insult was in the script, and it had the stamp of approval of TBS's standards and practices department. Try and tell me it's all random variation. As for the Dixie Chicks, their producers and their record label stood by them to the bitter end -- it was the fans turning their backs that killed their career.

Janet: I wonder if Barr was referring to the look of the 1968 Planet of the Apps characters?

I love "Planet of the Apps."

That should definitely be a new movie.

George Taylor: "Take your stinking cell phone away from me, you damned dirty app!"