Oh and Megyn Kelly shouldn’t have been fired for her comments on blackface less because of their acceptability and more because the premise of the conversation was absurd; who cares what a reality star decided to wear as a Halloween costume, or that a white woman decided to be Diana Ross for Halloween, Kelly was right about one thing, who doesn’t love Diana Ross?

Current Trends by Natasha Sapp

Debates on acceptable for TV content, content wars started by the cultural morality police wing of the citizenry threatening boycotts of ‘questionable’ shows, letter writing campaigns to creators, producers, networks nothing new; blog, author covering many of them over their 9 ½ year span. Anchors commenting on the growing number of 80’s and 90’s TV reboots remarking how tame cartoons like Bevis and Butthead, Ren and Stimpy seem now; letters actually sent by a conservative woman about the debasing content, marital life portrayed in Married with Children irrelevant, show lasting for a whopping 11 seasons. Pushback always seeming to cause entertainment content creators to up the anti not decrease it; facts never assimilated by culture warriors ever willing to wade right in wasting valuable time accomplishing nothing, staggeringly ignorant the fastest way to get something off the air is not to watch it. Coming to the sane conclusion if you spent the time you invested in crusading against standard forms of entertainment enjoyed across the country modeling your values for your children, showing by example how to demonstrate the values you want them to absorb, live by; employ simple tactics like instructing if it bothers you, makes you uncomfortable turn it off, change the channel, find different music, a different radio station. Online, avoid problem starting person X, report abuses, use blocking and reporting tools to keep you safe, be on the lookout for markers denoting explicit content and know you can come to me no matter what and we’ll solve the problem together if need be. Finding out if your tween or teen saw the dreaded Full Frontal episode, heard about it from friends at school, heard about it online being prepared to field questions about it distinguishing that while Bee’s use of the word was vulgar, in bad taste, there is no law, no public impetus to do more than ignore her, stop watching the show; versus Barr’s comment which was unquestionably racist, wrongly and inaccurately denigrating to African Americans, Muslims and the Muslim Brotherhood for all its faults, what members offspring look like and speculations as to why isn’t one of them. Thus considering she is a repeat offender of the same behavior and a celebrity select people are likely to follow they fired her to take a positive stance against resurging racism in America; age appropriately relating that to recent events, race motivated violence in the news. Falling back on your values initiating frank discussions with your children about why it isn’t a word you would use, don’t want them using and why, but drilling down to why Bee felt she had to say what she said and say it that way. Fostering an open dialog with your children about the consequences of things everyone posts on social media, the realities of having a public sphere job, one as shoulder shrug worthy as comedian compared to other categories of celebrity, the downsides of fame and the dark places it can lead you. If you’re your children are younger, your children didn’t see it breathe a sigh of relief and use it as a sign you need to formulate a plan for the future on how you will handle such situations with your kids knowing they will come up. Are you an adult, the above half of advice listed still applies, don’t watch the show, contemplate canceling your cable subscription, search out better TV, investigate different hobbies, but stop having cow sized overreactions over something that was essentially forgotten about within less than a month, an eternity in our 24 hour news cycle. Nevertheless within a week one of the prevailing topics of public conversation was that the state of discourse in America has gotten significantly, steadily and increasingly courser in a drastically short period of time; first, Roseanne Barr of the popular TV show bearing her first name and its reboot commented on someone’s twitter feed setting of a domino effect of real world consequences moving well beyond herself when she typed; muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby = vj[Sic.] the VJ standing for Obama Whitehouse advisor Valerie Jarrett. Then Samantha Bee felt compelled to respond to an abominable Trump presidential policy ripping migrant children from their parents arms while the very public first daughter tweets an adorable yet insensitive, between mother’s and memorial day, photo of her with her son and certain aspects of the public had exactly the unproductive but not totally unexpected response we’ve cataloged for years, missing any of the analysis suggested for kids adults might want to contemplate while talking to them. Recurring theme adults not young people needing to be walked through complexities of the issue, the older the more exaggerated the response, completely out of touch to A- call for a level of civility not seen in years in places that where never known for it to begin with; harking back at least 2 decades when they started using the word wh-re on daytime soap opera TV alongside the word bitch used as extended vocabulary in the same timeslot. B- Failing to take note of the tumultuous times we are in and that civility for merely the sake of it is exactly the wrong approach to dealing with people who could care less about it. Instead of recognizing the way to successfully combat what is happening is to fight fire with fire quoting West Virginia congressional candidate now 2020 presidential candidate Richard Ojeda ‘it’s time to knuckle up’ stating the obvious, the president’s not nice, the republicans aren’t nice, tired of fellow democratic members coming to brass knuckle fights with a pillow was his subsequent analogy; substituting his aggressive denigrations of immigrants, women, minorities with the things he could be doing to help them and his fellow Americans he’s responsible for guiding on a nation level, exchanging his bombastic rhetoric on the best deals, the best healthcare, the big beautiful border wall with sound policies to fix the issues plaguing our country, strategies that worked for droves of first time office runners, kitchen table moms seeking office to address the issues they struggle with on a national level. Or you are focusing on expectations for the wrong person, group of people to exercise the civility you wish to see; i.e. we expect leaders, government officials, key sections of role models to set an example including civility as it’s used today in cultural terms, that isn’t the job of a TV personality, to project civility especially comedians, whether it Bee or Barr. The only way either serves as a role model is to young people wishing to be comics, as powerful women in Bee’s case; however, the youngest person looking at Barr can figure out she isn’t something to imitate because she sounds crazy not funny, if nothing else, more likely to cause an up and coming to go into comedy to do it better than her, not like her. But it would be nice, those cultural dynamics comprehended and fully defined, beneficial even if the elected president of the United States refrained from calling Mexicans rapists and drug dealers, didn’t shrug off allegations of rape, unwanted grouping and touching that constitutes sexual assault making his overarching attitude on the subject worse by calling the women too ugly to rape. Positive for our nation as a whole if he didn’t incite violence by encouraging people at his rallies to beat up people with opposing political beliefs, offer to pay their legal bills if arrested, make veiled insinuations about assassinating your political opponent should they win talking about second amendment people, threaten 3rd world, banana republic level actions/reactions calling to lock up your political opponent should you win for perceived crimes already thoroughly investigated unto finding at most incompetence but no criminality. Held up against democrats who took back the House of Representatives vowing to thoroughly investigate potential violations of law by our sitting president, his enablers, known as the Republican Party, chose not to investigate or investigated only minimally on the surface finding nothing because they didn’t want it found. It would be leader like if president Trump abstained from calling countries in Africa, some developing some quite advanced for the region, shitholes because we accepted asylum seekers or refugees from areas devastated by hurricanes and earthquakes, think Haiti; it would befit the office of the president of the United States if he didn’t taunt adversarial world leaders housing nuclear capability saying ‘my button is bigger than your button’ referring to controls on those capabilities, praise dictators at news conferences and on the world stage while giving 100 plus year old allies the cold shoulder, blaming them for historical events they had no part in, i.e. clamming Canada once burned down the Whitehouse, not the British in the war of 1812. Would be faithfully executing the duties of his office, in less flowery words actually doing the things listed in his job description, had he appointed competent people to positions to properly handle the hurricane in Porto Rico instead of sending down disaster workers who treated local residents like servants giving them a spa day experience, wasn’t throwing paper towels at devastated U.S. citizens which the island consists of. Had he done that he probably would have crafted an acceptable immigration policy, a migrant management strategy to keep families together, simply accepted the democrats deal on DACA, larger American immigration policy; at which point, Samantha Bee would possess no reason to make the comments she made rendering the subsequent discussion reverberating through specific circles around the nation a moot point. How about 1 regarding your daughter, follow tradition and current interpretations on nepotism law and not have her working as an adviser to you the president and 2, calling her out for sending that tweet at a time when both of you understood what was happening at the border; had she not been there Bee probably wouldn’t have used that thrice hated, all the more so after what happened, c word. Note she has never called Sara Huckabee Sanders Whitehouse press secretary that or Kirstjen Nielsen department of homeland security secretary, former communications director Hope Hicks, special advisor Kellyanne Conway, any of the female administration members that; why, they have legitimate jobs and positions there versus Ivanka whose position as special advisor, though the same as Conway’s in tittle, represents dubious legality because of her familial relationship and existing law. Laws put in place seeing prior presidents and lower level officials favoring family members for government jobs leaving out unrelated qualified candidates; legendary JFK who appointed his bother Bobby to be attorney general and people who decided they were uneasy with that possible swirling caldron of problems, laws developed to prevent it. A swirling caldron of problems we are starting to see on our horizon now, no clarity in answering how do you fire family members specifically Ivanka and son-in-law, her husband, Jared Kushner; valid questions continuing to attract attention connected to their competence and experience compared to the tasks assigned them, things in the government they were slated to oversee. Leader like would have been to call out white nationalism, Nazism after Charlottesville instead of saying there where good people on both sides when the peacefully protesting group was ANTIFA (short for antifascists) and several of the identified white nationalists/neo-Nazis have faced charges including the one who ran over peaceful counter protester Heather Heyer abruptly ending her life, breaking found guilty of her murder and several related charges. It would be civil if he didn’t refer to black professionals as low IQ such as congresswoman Maxine Waters, insult LeBron James less because he’s a black celebrity who plays basketball and more because he parlayed his celebrity into helping his, statement of fact, black community by opening a school complete with food pantry, job assistance for parents and expanded hours for students providing them a safe place during after school hours so parents don’t have to find babysitters/daycare, other after school programs, specifically call black women reporters’ questions stupid; part and parcel with calling any news he doesn’t like, any negative news written, aired about him fake news no matter how accurate. Fulfilling the moral obligations accompanying the office of the president in the simplest way can be summed up in tell the truth instead of averaging one lie, misstatement or misleading phrase for every minute you speak clearly escalating those numbers since you got in office; demonstrating you too were worthy of the moral authority of the office in the minimalist of ways by not having to have your communications director Hope Hicks put on a note card under suggestions for what to say “ I hear you” when holding a listening session with students just after the Parkland school shooting, not saying months before when a man opened fire killing 26 in a small Texas church it’s about mental health then rolling back statutes preventing people diagnosed with certain mental health problems from gaining access to guns. Erstwhile unwilling to put forth any added federal funds toward mental health to prevent future mass shootings; similar to actions taken on opioids stopping short of declaring it the kind of emergency that would divert the funds automatically, your announcement being a look good and little else empty gesture. America to date oblivious the coarsening of our culture has already happened, the popularity of Trump signifying that prior to his election, people’s attraction and willingness to vote for a leader who mispronounces the names of entire countries, mixes up the Baltic and the Balkan states, exhaustingly brags about his intelligence and having the best words while sticking to his limited X number of words vocabulary repeated incessantly, slurring his words at times compelling intelligent people to cross their fingers hoping it’s a denture malfunction, lower level food reaction causing mild tongue swelling not a mini-stroke. Sparking a solid independent media series on can Trump read beyond an upper elementary school level, linguistics specialists who remark he sounds oddly adolescent when he speaks, prone to ludicrous statements about clean coal being when ‘they take it out and they clean it,’ insisting stealth planes invisible to radar are equally inviable to the naked eye, since the midterms doubling down on a bizarre claim to buy groceries you need some type of photo ID, his given instance cereal, as a reason you should be mandated to have a photo ID to vote. Leaving us again hoping his lack of understanding on basics of how the world works is due to his elite background, good bet he’s never purchased his own groceries not growing evidence of a devolving mental state, rapidly diminishing cognitive capacity. All comprising a list of symptoms not a string of causes; symptoms not only telling us we need to correct the educational failings exposed by the teacher’s strike, keep education funding properly flowing into the future but add to opportunities to make education and learning a lifelong endeavor. Symptoms telling us we need to talk about the educational gaps of older generations, the group most likely to support/vote for Trump, most likely to fall into an identifiable cult of personality featuring him at its center, people believing the things he says because they came from him not because they make rational or factual sense; what it says about us, people dispersed through these age brackets 45 to 50-up to end of life on average are eagerly willing to suspend their deductive reasoning and critical thinking to go along with a president, any president. Naming themselves constitutionalists while being content with altering our almost 300 year old constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship if it means keeping immigrants out, no genuine thought from them on what you replace it with, how you determine citizenship otherwise going forward if you have a legitimate augment for ending it. Why programs like science for seniors are so important filling in the gaps between when they were last in school and discoveries taught/common knowledge today, why local library computer classes, computer classes and videogames actively put into nursing homes serves a vital purpose beyond socialization and physical therapy; counter to assuming everyone has a ‘google machine’ and knows how to use it. But comedians everywhere were, by unspoken mandate, supposed to ignore given instances amassing daily and countless more it’s too time consuming and paper wasting to catalog here or not in non-paper format, never mind late night comedians have been doing jokes about the Trump campaign, the Trump presidency and the likelihood of Trump impeachment since he announced his candidacy. Forget incorporating the things he’s said and done since taking office, true Steven Colbert received conservative backlash pertaining to a labeled homophobic joke about giving Russia’s Vladimir Putin oral sex doubtlessly directly correlated to the unhealthy, dubiously legal ties between the former business mogul and the autocrat relating to the 2016 election and the latter’s documented interference; bad news for the pearl clutching, conservative adult snowflakes, complaints submitted to the FCC garnered no evidence there was reason to impose fines, penalties or recommend censorship. Jimmy Kimmel and his show, Jimmy Fallon of The Tonight show, Seth Meyers with Late Night, CBS’ The Late, Late Show’s James Corden all telling similar jokes and facing no credible threat of having themselves removed from established late night comedic programing continuing during the Barr controversy, telling jokes about it as well without public comment. Presidents, world leaders, public officials, celebrities and other known names always comedic fodder, Jay Leno in his day told endless Bush 43 jokes, SNL hired Alec Baldwin to play Trump in the show’s skits spawning a recurring role reminding us of SNL alum Dana Carvey known for his flawless impression of Bush 41 or the church lady comedically mocking American religiosity of the decade. Begging the question why pick on Bee, still public kneejerk reaction was if Barr was to be fired for her comments then Bee must be fired for hers, conservative sections of twitter and media crying foul when TBS decided to stand by their star, her subsequent apology was enough for fellow Americans and life went on; trying to make it a political bias argument as opposed to there are some things you should always be against, among them racism, unfounded slander argument. It was the same thing with the members of the public who deigned to care and comment on the Whitehouse correspondents’ dinner judging the chosen comedian, Michelle Wolf, by old standards of the pre-Trump era when there was not need to fight fire with sarcastic fire, call out public officials for blatant, rampant lies in a digestible way because we weren’t in post-fact, post truth America like we are now, like we were during the correspondents’ dinner, people knew when the above class was lying to them and acted/voted accordingly; not so anymore, those 45-50 plus to end of life persons are ensconced in nothing but Fox News told to hate fake CNN, any regular media as more and more baby boomers reach that age bracket and slippery slope thinking daily, a reality on all fronts that has only devolved since then. Tempting is to say we shouldn’t even be talking about it, it’s all media much ado about nothing you don’t have/watch cable, don’t know who Samantha Bee is, didn’t know who Barr was until the scandal broke out, ok they fired her good, the Whitehouse Correspondents’ dinner isn’t your thing, you wonder why it is a thing, media types rubbing shoulders and a D rated comedian telling bad jokes, snooze fest change the channel. Don’t we have so many other more important things to talk about, but we should indeed talk about it because with president Trump’s assault on the 4th estate, journalism, a free press, his administration’s assault on both, glaringly the removal of CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s Whitehouse press credentials, followed by the release of a doctored video to support their story he allegedly got violent with a female Whitehouse aide. Except aforementioned video had been sped up, sound removed to where you don’t hear him say pardon me ma’am and simply pulling the mic from her reach before she can snatch it away from him all for being persistent in trying to get his legitimate question answered; prompting both he and his network to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration for violation of his 1st amendment rights and a 5th amendment violation relating to due process, the procedural aspects of how you remove a report’s press credentials for wrongdoing against the president they subverted suddenly revoking his press pass preventing him from doing his job, plying his livelihood absent just cause. Comedians remain our last line of defense against a completely brainwashed, one view country; picture your crazy uncle over thanksgiving quoting the contents of Fox News, your spacy aunt citing things garnered from Alex Jones/One American Media, your MAGA hat wearing cousin making your holiday look like the plotline of the seasonal comedy The Oath. Plus comedians occupy a unique space, multifaceted ability to tell harsh truths in a palatable way listeners/watchers will absorb from them they will ignore or be offended by, defensive about in any other format, venue; to our own detriment do we take that away period let alone because certain people don’t like naughty words, believe it’s normalizing the lowest language, the most disgusting connotations of language if those a-la Samantha Bee aren’t fired for using them in a proportionately reactionary manner to a current event. Yes words matter especially in the post truth, post knowable fact Trumpian era, yes words have meaning and you shouldn’t divest them from their meaning, wrongly use them, overuse them until they are devoid of their meaning or generate white noise in listeners ears, yes the crass, vulgar, ugly things you say matter when you are in a civil area, when your uncivil, off color, profanity is unprovoked and disconnected from the situation, but we are getting way too mired in the words used, calling that the worst of our culture/society tossing aside too quickly the meaning behind using such words. It would be nice if the members of society outraged by Samantha Bee were just as outraged by the vulgarities coming from our commander in chief, were just as willing to call for the president to be censored the way they want her censored, were screaming at networks to stop putting his rallies on air or put him on a 7 second delay like they believe is the least TBS should have done to Ms. Bee; instead it’s how dare you attack the first daughter and by extension the president, even a president who exhibits behavior we would tolerate in no one else and tell our children all their lives to avoid.

https://www.salon.com/2018/06/30/why-science-education-for-seniors-is-a-boon-for-them-and-for-everyone-else_partner/

https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/tv/stephen-colbert-defends-donald-trump-jokes-after-controversy-erupted-n754716

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-news/stephen-colbert-avoids-fcc-penalties-for-controversial-trump-joke-129148/

https://www.salon.com/2018/05/31/samantha-bee-draws-cries-of-a-liberal-double-standard-after-blasting-feckless-ct-ivanka-trump/

Breaking it down for the most obtuse, obstinate persons determined to die on this particular cultural hill, Samantha Bee wasn’t attacking Ivanka Trump for being a woman, being white or any other race, ethnicity, creed, sexual orientation, gender/gender identity metric we recognize; she was instead attacking her for being tone deaf posting a darling picture of her and her own son, concurrently pleading with her to do something about the newly enacted immigration policy separating refugee, asylum seeking immigrant mothers/fathers from their minor children, some of them infants and toddlers, only due to their being termed illegal by said administration, though seeking asylum, presenting yourself at the border and stating that’s why you’re here is perfectly legal. Because her father, the president, leader of the free world, our commander in chief listens to her, according to her own account; thus maybe, just maybe she could persuade him to change his mind, revert to the old asylum policy used for decades ultimately both keeping families together while saving American tax payers money not spent on sprawling detention centers, excess staff, literal paper for processing documents related to claims. So when Ms. Trump didn‘t, concerned citizens who at the same time have a public platform temporarily lost it at the devastating consequences they knew were coming upon people who had next to nothing, lost it in a way that would have immediately caused firing had it been the national news; but it wasn’t, Samantha Bee has never purported herself a journalist, news anchor, total opposite really, a comedian, a comedian doing comedy in an unfunny era, swiveling to sarcasm to address the issues of our time for an audience who needs a dose of real and a lightening of the gloom simultaneously. And shortly post what some would call Bee’s debacle, proof she doesn’t belong on air, what did citizens discover as time went on, what did we learn about the separation policy at the border, our border not singularly the president’s; people tricked into signing over their kids, their right to petition for asylum because they didn’t speak the language, didn’t speak the commonly assumed Spanish, speaking an indigenous rare dialect/language border agents, local police didn’t know anything about, parents when finally reunited with their children encountered toddlers who prefer their caregiver/social worker, who constantly cried for the fellow children they saw daily in their detention center thinking them brothers and sisters. Months later there are still upward of 250 children not reunited with their parent who brought them here some under 5 who won’t remember those parents; their parents can’t be found thanks to this administration’s shoddy implementation that couldn’t even employ luggage tracking tactics to keep family members information collated together resorting to DNA tests to identify family relation. Children who face U.S. adoption to say nothing of overwhelming an already taxed foster system when there are American children who have need of both that system and a chance at a permanent, loving home while these particular immigrant children simply needed to be kept with their parents through the duration of their case or placed with the relative here in the states who had arranged to take the child before they were sent unaccompanied, where that indeed happened; people the Trump administration again scared off with their ‘crackdown’ promising any phone numbers, identifying information given on setup hotlines to try and locate your children or if you are a relative of a separated child would be used to locate and deport any undocumented immigrant here illegally. An administration trying to shirk any additional responsibility for their self-made mess by parsing court rulings that kids and parents be reunited pointing out children who didn’t cross the border with their parent rather aunt, uncle, older sister/sibling, closer to the current now all the blatant border fear mongering about a regular migrant caravan coming here to seek asylum, congregating, grouping together for their own safety, safety of the small children with them on the thousands of miles long trek; Trump, his administration calling them dangerous, people from the violent gang MS 13 mixed in, potential terrorists from the middle east meaning Islamic extremists masquerading as Latino, Hispanic, Central American migrants, holding no factual evidence to support a lie crafted to garner greater votes in the midterms a little over a month ago, where republicans, Trump backers still soundly lost. Not all of which was clear when Bee made her comment, the caravan not so much as a thought at the time, but a situation taking enough shape to fully understand her anger, Bee surely knowing that whatever migrants coming to the boarder in whatever numbers would face the same heartless cruelty if public pressure wasn’t applied, public attention wasn’t kept on happenings near the border; understanding perhaps we are lucky she and show creators chose to only use that bit of language and not much harsher, vulgar ones considering the context. Public pressure resulting in the cancellation of the policy, problems arising in cleaning up its chaotic mess, current migrants suing the Trump administration for inability to follow U.S. law in allowing migrants to seek asylum when appearing at the border, adding extra stipulation they must present themselves at an official port of entry, agents next turning them away from there, justice department guidelines being rewritten to exclude threats like domestic and gang violence from asylum seeking parameters permitted. Barr by contrast has a history of racist, conspiracy theory comments, tweets, photos all in the public domain; next additionally, her attack on former Whitehouse special advisor Valerie Jarrett was patently racist and came out of literally nowhere with zero provocation apparently replying to nobody person X in her twitter feed. In fact her attack was a continuation of the regular deluge of conspiracy nonsense she trafficked in 4chan, Q anon saying Jarrett looked like a cross between the Muslim brotherhood and the Planet of the Apes if they had a child; ape being a common derogatory trope for black people, Michelle Obama often called a gorilla, one racist tweeting about the Obama’s departing the Whitehouse (after 8 years encompassing the service of his presidency) referred to them as ‘the first black family to leave public housing,’ below the ‘comment/joke’ a wagon full of orangutans. Regardless your personal stance, wherever you fall on the issue, if you hold an opinion at all, fundamental point at the beginning paragraph still stands, Samantha Bee was calling out Ivanka Trump as the essence of white, rich, elite privilege completing another trifecta associated with cluelessness blond to boot; first daughter Trump oblivious she has her son primarily because she won the luck lottery twice being born in the greatest county in the world with the greatest plethora of opportunity, both mother and child born into wealth, the exquisitely cute young man now who will never want for money in the future to pursue education, fulfill his dreams, will be able to fall back on his father’s name or his grandfather’s and see doors open for him, doors those immigrants won’t have even if at the end of their hell scape they are granted asylum. For her not to speak to her father on behalf of a mother and how she would feel if she were ever forcible separated from her son, to make it real to him in a way only she could is unconscionable, much more unconscionable than any ‘filth’ coming out of any comedians mouth; moreover she, Samantha Bee, used the language she used to shock people out of their complacency, to cut through the Fox News level spin put on the issue supposedly illegal immigration, migrant hordes breaching our ‘nonexistent, lawless’ borders to bring it back to children being ripped out of their parents loving arms because those parents made the desperate decision to seek a better life in a foreign country by throwing themselves at our mercy. Neither is it normalizing the c word that she used it, to public knowledge, once or used it against the first daughter, who by the way isn’t just a daughter when she’s pledging to help on women’s issues, family leave policy, has a habit of interrupting official meetings, weighing in on Whitehouse, aspects of official business correctly described by chief of staff John Kelly, who granted has his own character flaws rendering him no more fit than her to be in the Whitehouse, patently for different reasons, as ‘playing government;’ and, is a grown adult who brought scrutiny on herself not the Bush twins who were teens when their father held office, or the Obama girls the oldest the only one whose ages had broken double digits when their father was first elected. Ivanka Trump investigative reporting details, as this article was being generated, was using copious amounts of private e-mail for official Whitehouse business, not a new story; the new portion pertaining to the extent to which she was doing so and of the ones guilty of using personal e-mail she was the worst offender. Her response/explanation a jaw dropping parallel to her father’s campaign run almost exclusively on the criminality, un-ethicacy of Hillary Clinton’s personal e-mail/private server usage— that she wasn’t briefed on the rules for using e-mail, the Whitehouse, presidency record keeping statutes. Prompting a priceless rebuttal from MSNBC’s Ari Melber of The Beat, “Are you kidding me, diligently questioning isn’t how to do e-mail something this administration, above others, would want to get right? Reviewing precisely what Bee said, after a monolog laying out the horror of Trump’s border separation policy, comedically and satirically chastising Invanka Trump she uttered the forever replayed phrase “do something about your dad’s immigration policies you feckless cunt,” synonyms for feckless encompass a few of the following words and phrases, useless, worthless, incompetent, inept, good-for-nothing, ne’er-do-well; lazy, idle, slothful, indolent, irresponsible, shiftless; informal: no-good, no-account, according to Google’s dictionary. Merriam-Webster defines feckless as: weak, ineffective, worthless, irresponsible; so she was essentially saying do something you immoral, incompetent weak, irresponsible, bad, horrible excuse for a woman, based on her actions, lack thereof, her lacking spine/backbone, not her chromosomal makeup, not her biological/hormonal balances, her physical anatomy indicating female, femininity, all things it would be wrong and acceptable to mandate Bee’s firing had she attacked on listed grounds. But instead tackling head on Ivanka’s inability to take a stand with fellow women, fellow mothers, those who will someday be mothers and say this is wrong, not pushing for it to be a public stance merely to talk to her father and try to talk him out of something hurting so many who have one lone thing in common with her; they love their child/children, except bad, horrible woman doesn’t carry the same punch. To that end maybe there was some thought put into it, a deliberate decision versus a teleprompter ad lib; but, assuming that come back around to why, to make her audience see how vapid, empty, a person is who does this no matter their position, again to put the emphasis on desperate, destitute people the richest country in the world, us, has an obligation to help, to highlight the moral corruption of the administration this country elected just 2 years ago and how far we’ve fallen in that short time? First daughter Trump quickly indicating she’s another rich elite who thinks rules don’t apply to her, has had few rules to follow, never understanding the importance of good, reasonable rules. Contrasted to if it was simply about using dirty words, maximum offensive language in a ploy for ratings or because Bee mistakenly believed her show had the clout to get away with it wouldn’t she, the show, have used it on Sara Huckabee Sanders for example calling out her mental gymnastics and linguistic semantics defending the president’s lies? Kirstjen Nielsen ’s name hardly listed by accident being the director of homeland security in charge of and willing to enforce his policy, Nielsen an independent, thinking, autonomous human being not the president, who has been called man baby, mad king, an instance of the emperor having no clothes among many other euphemisms for incompetence, underlying mental health issues, dementia or plain old narcissism and all-consuming self-absorption pegging him one of our worst leaders in modern times; wouldn’t she be a prime target paralleling what Bees language was in reference to? Hope Hicks being boyfriend to Whitehouse executive secretary found out later probable domestic abuser Rob Porter would have been ripe for such a word tied to her bad taste in men, yet it never happened maybe because there was, and always supposed to be, a deeper meaning to the language choice. If it was just about attacking the first daughter as a convenient target of a wildly unpopular administration it could have happened any time before or since the border policy because 16 months into the Trump presidency and we didn’t/don’t have anything looking like a national family leave policy, no efforts to draft a bill giving working parents one, currently closing in on 2 years of the Trump presidency nothing on that front; what women did get was a bill meant to end sex trafficking making life miserable for willing sex workers, states thanks to ballot measures stripping women’s rights away asserting their lack of legal right to an abortion should they choose one or be medically necessitated to undergo one, Betsy DeVos changing the rules to title IX meant to address sexual assault at educational institutions feared to make coming forward that much more difficult for young women on college campuses. Trump administration and Ivanka silent incongruent with the number of rallies had up to the election, the number of times president Trump had reason to speak into a microphone, accept interviews discussing a plethora of topics; Trump administration dealing a greater blow to women rescinding the mandate of religious employers to provide insurance packages including birth control. Bee to reiterate wasn’t attacking Ivanka Trump for being a woman, for the biology she was born with, wasn’t haranguing her for not fulfilling the modern or past societal stereotypes of what a woman should be calling her a c*nt; she was calling her out for being the apex of a bad person, being bad at being a woman unable and unwilling to strive for her own attainable standard she set for herself sans prompting from us, the people, a justifiable rebuke. Called her the vulgar, inappropriate, degrading c word because it was equally as vulgar, inappropriate and degrading of her father’s administration to treat immigrants/fellow human beings that way, rip children away from their parents, some while breast feeding, only to see the first daughter who initially pledged to only be a daughter posting adorable pictures of her only little boy flunking the sympathy/empathy test right next to dear old dad. Identical to the Whitehouse officials who were seen at a Mexican restaurant as the public was just being made aware of the new heinous border policy surprised and squawking about everything from the ‘violent, dangerous left’ to a lack of civility surprised they were met by heckling protesters who found their presence as vulgar, inappropriate and degrading as conservatives found the comedian to be; enacting/standing behind such a policy then eating in a Mexican, Latino restaurant almost as a slap in the face to the Mexican, Latino, Hispanic community a good chunk of whom vote for them. The rest living in fear programs like DACA will be permanently rescinded, people with legal resident paperwork will find themselves no longer welcome and deported, undocumented persons living in the U.S. currently not housed in dentition centers will land in one or deported back to the violence, gangs, drugs, domestic abuse causing them to come here in the first place, predicament too dire to wait on the slow turning cogs of ‘legally entering the country.’ Examine critically who’s complaining, predictably it’s the people who are always complaining on cultural grounds, the usual conservative language, sex and violence minders who blame mass shootings and kid/teen violent behavior on video games, movies, TV and rap music, study after study proving their assertions patently false; the same variety of blue haired ladies and school administrator types editing yearbook photos absent parental/student consent or notification for visible bra straps on students wearing sundresses in blazing August heat at a school either with no air conditioning alternatively not having turned it on for orientation, who Photoshop-ed out one girl’s affirmation tattoo because they honestly believe they are increasing their chances of getting into heaven. Adding sleeves and/or necklines to outfits even Fox News was perplexed these given examples were deemed unacceptable, people who applaud school administrators or the administrators/teachers themselves busting students for ‘dress code violations’ by pulling the student aside in the hall telling her to grab her crotch while a school authority puts their fingers between the hip and thigh region on their leg arbitrarily gauging skirt/shorts length or does similar measuring with a ruler, humiliatingly fellow students walking by the whole time; citizens who think leggings are lustful and lead to rape, why tweens and teens shouldn’t be allowed to wear them at school or only under say a skirt, dido yoga pants too form fitting to be ‘appropriate’ who craft school policy using phrases like ‘accentuates her figure too much,’ wording the youngest of parents can’t decipher. One teacher, who told a student to don a t-shirt, jump around, then was given Band-Aids by the nurse and told to cover her nipples all for the crime of not wearing a bra over a long sleeve, full thickness sweatshirt or sweater. A school who threw out the teen from prom because the chaperone dads were ogling her, no mental energy spent assessing just how creepy they are being, what messages they are sending to women and girls by their actions, their reactions; #metoo stories of girls exposed to boys inappropriate behavior, flipping up skirts, sexually aggressive behavior, pinching her barely developing chest, as early as elementary school, told by teachers they made it up, to stop making things up, what impact that has on young women and girls far more than calling even one as prominent as the first daughter that dreaded c word. Pro-lifers who believe so fervently life begins at conception but could care less if the pregnancy endangers the mother’s life; added to the Alabama and West Virginia measures passed there’s the Ohio bill giving life at conception personhood to the earliest developing clump of cells that will become a baby making abortion at any stage murder punishable by life in prison, even punishable by death. Pro-lifers who are so insistent life begins at conception but are cold, cruel and callus to that life the moment it leaves it’s mother’s body whether it be climate change and air quality killing thousands a year including susceptible children, welfare benefits we refuse their parents though it’s meant for them, the living minimum wage we’re still fighting for, pay equity for women capable of lifting thousands if not millions of children out of poverty, paid family leave a pipe dream. Ardent Trump supporters of the caliber referenced in the introduction upset someone dared criticize their chosen leader, who would have responded identically minus the crassness of Bee’s words, no matter how valid; and, of course, the Whitehouse daddy Trump coming to daughter’s defense calling it vile and vicious demanding TBS act, completely deflecting from the endless vile and vicious things said by our president about ethnicities, other countries far more consequential than the ‘crude’ thing said to the first daughter who should have a thinker skin if she’s going to be in the public eye the way she’s willingly positioned herself. Pivoting back to aspects of the introduction and what usually fuels those shouting cultural outrage, children did someone conveniently forget too that Samantha Bee’s program Full Frontal was prerecorded and the offensive word bleeped in the on-air version only uncensored online (begging the totally serious question what the hell are we even talking about); did the outrage mob forget Full Frontal airs on cable and carries a TV 14+ rating indicating content unsuitable for children less than 14, the younger of whom are probably in bed during its 9:30 timeslot, an example of why TV’s are equipped with parental locks, cable which has had laxer language standards for years, which if you were going to put it someplace would be the place to put it? Analysts accurately differentiating TBS and ABC through the following paraphrase; TBS/Turner isn’t the Walt Disney Company (ABC’s parent company), bread and butter kid’s cartoons and family theme parks, questioned civility rarely on cable or desired there. This another case of, alluded to at the top of the paragraph, parents/adults underestimating what their children/teens are exposed to out in the real world, their daily lives not through their TV screens; series such as 13 Reasons Why and movies like Eighth Grade trying to bridge that gap between what parents think happens in their kids/teens lives and what truly does. Adult panic laughable because what kid is watching Samantha Bee, what kid doesn’t normally prefer the content of a streaming service or YouTube video and not of Bee; ratcheting up the absurdity a notch, if you think 14 year olds, especially girls, haven’t heard that word enjoy your naiveté. Put succinctly Samantha Bee deserves to keep her job, go on with her show because her words were in response to happenings in the world by a person who cares faced with a presidency that doesn’t, rendered less offensive despite their inherent vulgarity because of the circumstances; while Barr does not, because her words were racist, an unnecessary, unproductive attack on a person who had done nothing to her, had done nothing in society, the world to warrant it, where Ivanka Trump brought Bee’s words on herself by being the worst kind of hypocrite on the national/world stage, contributing to hurting defenseless, next to helpless people in the process. Moreover if we aren’t nuanced enough to see the distinction therein lies the greater difficulty, not Samantha Bee’s ‘potty mouth;’ ironically in light of a president who was elected despite bragging he grabs women by the pussy sans waiting for consent, refers to women bleeding out of her whatever, forget it was a journalist moderating a debate and asking a perfectly reasonable questions about the derogatory names he routinely used for women and continues to. Nicknamed Stormy Daniels, the adult film star he credibly had a sexual encounter with while married, his wife just having had his youngest son, then again credibly paying her hush money to keep her quiet quite possibly to win the 2016 election horse face; and, when asked about the challenge of his only female presidential opponent in the primary directed the magazine interviewer to her face asking who would hire that face? Trump and his supporters who have no room to call out Bee or talk about decorum, whether it was the imaginary rule(s) reporter Jim Acosta purportedly broke justifying his press pass removal persistently asking pertinent questions, or less than 2 weeks ago his calling congress member Adam Schiff ‘little Adam shit,’ spelled Schitt, because he didn’t like something he said about facts in the Muller probe.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration/nearly-250-migrant-children-still-separated-from-parents-aclu-report-says/2018/10/18/d3fc2fd0-d222-11e8-b2d2-f397227b43f0_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.58bccd96901b

https://www.salon.com/2018/06/01/lets-not-normalize-the-c-word-why-the-worst-word-you-can-call-a-woman-matters/

https://www.salon.com/2018/11/16/betsy-devos-moves-to-demolish-title-ix-silence-sexual-abuse-victims/

https://www.salon.com/2018/04/06/a-little-known-bill-threatens-the-basic-safety-and-livelihood-of-sex-workers_partner/

https://www.salon.com/2018/06/04/sex-workers-say-trafficking-crackdown-is-backdoor-to-gentrifying-new-orleans_partner/

Looming over Barr’s firing is fundamental difference Samantha Bee’s scandalous moment came in the course of doing her job, her thought out of bounds comment directly threaded back to her commentary/opinion on current events (something her show talks about in some fashion) as opposed to going berserk on your personal twitter feed answering some random users equally berserk question in the most bizarre way coupled with the broader question of why ABC, mirroring the strategy of many in media and news, felt they needed to placate and play to the 30% of America known as Trump’s base, why the results of the 2016 election means we have to curry favor, pander to the 30% lowest common denominator of public thought as opposed to Bill Maher’s perspective that Hillary Clinton was right coal country needs to get off coal it’s killing you…“coal is dead and its about goddamn time, it’s dirty, it’s killing the environment and it’s killing you instead of pretending it’s a great thing a West Virginia man can die in a hole looking for rocks like his daddy and his daddy before that;” highlighting she had the right answer but, in his estimation, it was because she back tracked, backed down, back peddled she lost the votes of coal country. No Mr. Maher it’s what you said roughly a year before about Trump supporters gut instinctual reasons for voting him into office change anxiety; and, his promise to turn things back to the way they were in the good old days when whites were held on a pedestal and didn’t have to give equal room and respect to persons of color, when America didn’t look so brown, radio stations ‘didn’t have mariachi music’ and Hamilton the musical (seen as sacrilege to them) hadn’t remotely been thought of, history hadn’t been, using his work funk-a-fied. Never mind they don’t say the same about School House Rock often referenced today as a parallel to what Trump doesn’t know, any kid would who watched the education cartoon series, forget passed the 4th grade, or that it was created in the Jimmy Hendrix era in response to a dad who was frustrated his child could remember the rock legend’s lyrics but not his multiplication tables, forget what they themselves could learn about history from seeing the performance. Even if she had declared democrats the party that was going to get coal country ‘out of the hole’ selling them on a better life for their kids, Maher’s suggestion wondering what happened to the latter, they would have told her the same thing they told Bernie Sanders they’d rather be doing coal; curiouser and curiouser is why said areas residents can always ask what they are supposed to do without the town mill, mine, factory or plant but never muster the courage or wherewithal to ask why there is only one mill, factory, plant or mine in town, true locals having next to nothing to do with the stock market so less familiar with the concept of diversify but a concept also applicable to their 401k retirement fund or company pension plan, some degree of tied to the stock market itself. Why the attitudes found in Erie Pennsylvania, people pissed they have to be retrained for different jobs, 54 years old or not, oblivious that they are lucky to have such decent retraining in electrical work, HVAC repair where assuming you assimilated the material you’ll be able to get a solid paying job; pissed they have to move for their job opportunity though they aren’t without the capability, physical capacity to do so unlike the 70 and 80 year old grandparents seen, yes a featured man worried about selling his home but knowing the bank will come in and sell it for whatever they can get relieving him of the responsibility because he can’t afford 2 houses starting over. Interestingly enough none of the anger, sadness, melancholy about the penciled growth chart of their kids or grandkids on the wall, kitchen door, the mural in the kids/grandkids room that can’t be packed up and taken with them, the fact their financial circumstance means they won’t be able to afford rooms for kids and/or grandkids in their new home/apartment, come back and visit regularly, man in the CBS video talking about retuning every month or so, one scene did ask the small grandchild if he was sad grandpa was leaving body language plainly answering yes but more anger at the situation they’d been put in, believing life had somehow done them wrong. Though they could see where their town was going, mark the decline, see the an area looking like it hasn’t seen chamber of commerce activity since roughly the Carter administration, blaming it on layoffs at the local G.E. but not a one of them voting locally to pursue new industry brought to the area, push local leaders to do the same, not a one who could find their local chamber of commerce let alone endeavor to understand what it does or why it’s important, instead overwhelmingly voting for Trump; and while they do have a point about when was the last time companies like G.E. sent experienced workers to school to get the computer programing degrees desired or comprehended they are dealing with an older workforce never having had computers all the more reason why new places and different opportunities should be welcome as opposed to shunned. Outsiders, anyone seeking life, diversity, bedrock economics missing the appeal of being in a place with a store, stoplight, by law mandate school, literally nothing else. Larger national question needing to be answered, what do we do about these failing small towns with fast dwindling populations and no realistic hope of revival; how do we move people, how do we revert it back to the land, let it grow wild for a time, annex it into the next neighboring slightly bigger town giving them needed room to grow and breed new life into dilapidated areas. Incorporating ABC and Rosanne’s role why would we want to put the former on TV, in comedy format no less, versus the world we hope to see, the revitalization of derelict areas or the latter of at least people in rust belt, working class areas making smart choices toward revitalization, embracing change the rest of the country already has; why is it representing rust belt, working class, republican, conservative, Trump voting America means brining back that particular show versus the also 90’s hit Grace Under Fire, representing conservative America in a different way by not canceling ratings hit Last Man Standing, without the shenanigans surrounding bringing it back finally, making fans believe decisions to cancel the show initially were politically motivated, hatred of Trump translated in their minds as hatred of their working class, manual labor, factory working, mill working lifestyle. Creating an entirely new show speaking to their issues removing the baggage coming from someone like Roseanne Barr produces practically begging the shows audience to ignore the star’s ‘Hitler photo;’ because 90’s reboots are cool, all the rage now seems like a pretty stupid yet accurate explanation. Running up to Barr’s firing the show during its short reboot containing the whole cast, despite an initial ratings boom going so far as to be lauded by president Trump, was plagued by critique regarding how they approached critical cultural issues on/in show jokes about TV shows featuring blacks and Asians, a quote from Newser, “Roseanne Barr and John Goodman wake up on the couch at night: “It’s 11pm,” Roseanne says: “We slept from Wheel [of Fortune] to Kimmel.” Goodman’s character Dan Conner responds with, “We missed all the shows about black and Asian families,” an apparent jab at ABC shows Black-ish and Fresh Off the Boat. Then Roseanne quips, “They’re just like us. There, now you’re all caught up,” shows celebrated for their representation, a show about predominately whites known for their stereotypical views against diversity in areas caught in a time warp actively chose to belittle. Handling of Conner son DJ’s biracial African American daughter, who as a Salon writer points out writing from the perspective of the young actor who plays her she gets few lines up to episode 5 when the piece was published, little screen time and her one set of lines that might tell us, the audience something about her are destined to make her look like a silly little kid, pushed out for her on screen cousin doing a 21st century variation on sarcastic Darlene her fictional mother did in the original series or her white on screen brother exploring his gender identity preferring sparkly girls clothes and being teased at school. Making the ‘lone person of color at the Conner dinner table,’ to paraphrase the article, readily relegated to window dressing, the show checking diversity quota boxes nothing else, theory backed up by comments from Barr about liking diversity, planning to explore what being a ‘mixed family means’ for the Conner’s next season while leaving one child’s story totally blank; in the intervening time making jokes about taking a knee and forgetting the original show’s tackling of racism, treating the back daughter like such discussions are over her head and she’s not paying attention because adults are talking. Their portrayal of Muslims complete with character Rosanne in her was once funny fashion spying on them, asking friends and relatives what if they are a sleeper cell there to blow up the neighborhood based on the amount of fertilizer piled next to their garden commenting it’s how you make bombs later groveling at their door for a favor; commenting when they open the door stating where they are from mispronouncing Yemen and announcing ‘oh good it’s not even on the travel ban list’ corrected indeed it is. Finding out in the following lines it was the husband error in an Amazon order resulting in the so many bags of mulch; response mixed some uncomfortable, some seeing learning potential confronting bias in a realistic way including the national council and Islamic relations president. Twin problems both lending credence to the New York Times Op-ed view the revival is dangerous succeeding in normalizing Trump and his warped harmful political ideologies no matter how dismissive Fox News was of the piece and dashing hopes the show might bring people of opposing political views together toward common ground, identifying things they agree on. Lost in the hubbub well before Barr got fired was the announcement one young Rosanne cast member Emma Kenney (who plays angst filled teen daughter Harris) was taking a break from the show to seek mental health treatment/ rehab for ‘battles,’ ‘illegal behavior,’ after a ‘slippery slope; all due respect to the actress for choosing wisely to take care of herself, recognizing a problem before reaching the downward spiral associated with child stars and young Hollywood, how is/was the show ever supposed to function, get off the ground fielding all this drama? Nor is Barr’s ultimate dismissal from what is essentially a job, Hollywood flare often causes us to forget that, anything new even for the arena, CBS fired Charlie Sheen and killed of his character Charlie Harper and the show Two and a Half Men went on for another 4 seasons, there were years Iron Man’s Robert Downey Jr. couldn’t get hired post a litany of drug use allegations, run ins with the law, relationship troubles creating negative publicity; younger generations, picture the headlines of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan thrown off movie sets and rumored to have been told by Lady O to cut the BS as part of a reality series that never got off the ground when Lohan couldn’t show up to work, hold up her end of the project, why she was booted off several movies, the many exploits, legal woes and public failings of Justin Bieber. Challenging independent media’s perception Rosanne got 20 times the amount of stories while the staggering bombshell of revised hurricane deaths was barely covered; is any regular reader on this blog surprised aforementioned title belongs to a Secular Talk video, host one Kyle Kulinski exposed here as a guy with his own liberal progressive bias when it comes to news coverage and what he thinks the so called mainstream media should be covering but isn’t, denies they covered it because it was profiled a day or 2 later though there are things he admits he lost track of from a week or 2 before he gets around to discussing the topic. It was covered so much because of its racial subject matter, its all of a piece named what the Trump presidency has given license to in the public’s eyes, racists, misogynists, white supremacist need no longer hide in shame but are welcome out in the open; applicable when people like Rob Reiner articulate the Rosanne show embodies Trump’s point of view, when several news commentary shows correctly put forth Rosanne Barr reflects a portion of Trump’s base All In’s Chris Hayes listed shortly on his program, reverend Al Sharpton, whatever Kulinski thinks about his politics, social views right too when he pegged her tweet evidence of Trump normalizing racism. For the record the revised-hurricane death numbers were covered ABC did segment lasting 3 minutes during 1 30 minute broadcast alone, NBC 1:45 in same time frame, MSNBC a 5:47 segment on a 1 hour program, another 2:37 segment specifically dedicated to holding the Trump administration accountable in another 1 hour timeslot, CNN a 4 minute interview with an actress who is also Porto Rican, another 8 minute segment on anther show; continuing how much is there to say about death toll numbers few, if anyone, believed anyway, yes it represents one more instance of Trump being the worst president ever in anything resembling the modern era, again facts we knew. Rosanne, show or actress represents something far more insidious, going much deeper; put a competent, functional president in there, replace the sycophantic republican congress, things achieved by doing what people did last month in 2018, vote in droves, are slated to do in 2020, vote in still more droves, and Porto Rico has a chance, lobbying again for statehood or at least representation in congress to prevent what happened to them happening to other U.S. territories, recurring sometime in the future to the devastated island. Racism depicted so crudely by Barr is much harder to combat, much more all-encompassing, racism did Kulinski forget also effects the people of Porto Rico most don’t know are U.S. citizens and look all too similar to Trump administration much vilified brown people; still think Rosanne’s coverage was too excessive? Remembering too it wasn’t all about her racial slur tweet to Valerie Jarrett rather her conspiracy theory trafficking, the Nazi photos, her defense of Trump tacked on to the show it-self’s relentless faux pas. Further Barr’s fate, outside her checkered history of such comments, the prudence, lack thereof of ABC rehiring her for the reboot knowing her controversial comments and actions on race, toward specific ethnicities over the years is what should have happened to Duck Dynasty when family patriarch Phil Robertson gave his horrifying comments on blacks during slavery and his view on homosexuality according to the bible, the show should have been canceled or him removed from it rather than the suspension proving they placed money over even the appearance of values. ABC did one better removing her and keeping the show under the fictional family’s last name as opposed to the main character’s first name then using the actress’ absence to tackle a huge social issue opioid addiction, opioid overdose and its deadly consequences also providing a realistic scenario of how people actually became dependent on such powerful medications used to treat pain after tooth extraction, car accident, knee surgery was the catalyst used in the show. ABC unable to do that right to many eyes poorly juxtaposing the grief and mourning we are supposed to feel for the fictional character against the backdrop of complex feelings, animosity we feel for the actress; poetic justice for the actress involved undermining the present reality of addiction faced by scores of Americans who never set out to be addicts and didn’t engage in the previously typical behaviors exhibited by addicts leading then to that point. Most important part ABC got right, underscoring that freedom of speech doesn’t mean speech without consequences, particularly social consequences such as social media shaming, the loss of a job; freedom of speech doesn’t guarantee your right to a TV show. Score 2 for ABC saving literally thousands of jobs with the hastily debuted Conner’s spin off resorting to classic TV tactics using a death to explain her abrupt absence and permanent exit, opening the door to episodes, contrary to The Daily Beast’s take on it, indeed exploring how this unique family having been part of our living room for decades deals with the death, grief and the circumstances surrounding it, how blue collar America confronts these types of deaths, death in their economically strapped, spotty healthcare communities nationwide in coming episodes. Returning to Barr and her too much press coverage compared to substantive issues not in Hollywood, there is also Barr’s subsequent apology initially mirroring Bee’s however the former quickly seemed to take it back blaming it on the sleep aide Ambien, releasing a chain smoking, ranting YouTube video reminiscent of Charlie Sheens latest evidence of a breakdown post his firing from Two and a Half Men, though sans constantly repeating phrases like he was attempting to trademark them solely by repetition; her response arguably worse in that she ended up screaming into the camera as an explanation quote: I thought the bitch was white, I thought the bitch was white. Followed by her reaction to how her character was dealt with by the show shouting in twitter blurbs she wasn’t dead yet, appearing unable to separate herself from her longtime character, keeping her in the news for precisely how bad she handled things post a mess she made all of her own volition substantiating ABC’s decision to fire her, her socially imposed exile from Hollywood. Should be profoundly disturbing hers are far from unheard of public exhibits of devolving behavior identical to what was seen in John Russell Houser, estranged from his family, ranting to his local radio station, seemingly paranoid before he shot up a Lafayette Louisiana movie theater, precursors seen in James T. Hodgkinson before he left his home and his wife in Illinois to turn up in Alexandria Virginia living out of his van, known to haunt a local diner immediately prior to shooting up a congressional baseball field and nearly killing congressman Steve Scalise, echoing the unraveling of Steven Paddock before he murdered 58 people and injured 851 attending a country music concert. Thankfully no ready indications of violence against others, women less likely to be mass shooters, though we can’t forget the YouTube headquarters shooter feeling she had a beef with them; that is unfortunately no guarantee against violence to self a distinct possibility if you look at life stressors preceding suicide. Fitting a recurring pattern of mocking, gawking at celebrity mental illness spanning the spectrum Sinéad O’Conner to Jake Lloyd, both who’ve had very public battles concerning mental health, Lloyd who was bullied for his lack luster performance in Star Wars only to be diagnosed schizophrenic; mocking and gawking at people’s pain, celebrity or not, glued to programs on par with Hoarders Buried Alive, ‘reality shows’ like Fit to Fat to Fit, The Osbornes as in Ozzy Osbourne of the legendary controversial band Black Sabbath and his family had an entire show revolving around the stumbling drunk, out of it ramblings of a once musician and America thought it was for the most part funny, entertaining, granted reality TV as a genre was quite new but it hasn’t gotten any better in terms of public reaction, those obsessed with the Real Housewives of insert large, metropolitan, known city, Teen Mom season can’t keep track of what number by now. The help no one is insisting Barr gets independent them calling it inconsistent with the person they know, have known for years, if you are on Ambien talk to your doctor about how to safely get off it because it’s obviously giving you nasty side effects; to be clear no sleep aid can cause racism but Ambien has a history as sordid as Barr’s when it comes to people sleep walking, sleep eating, sleep driving, doing a whole host of things while only semiconscious and holding no awareness once fully awake. The tendency even among their own circles to blow this off as crazy Hollywood, only racism not potentially some other underlying medical/psychological problem effecting cognition, vitamin deficiencies to prescription drug reactions, overlapping medications in senior Americans; later discovered through testing that Ozzy Osbourne has a severe allergy to alcohol explaining his stumbling, speech slurring, generally out of it behavior in the show upon consuming minimal amounts. Samantha Bee retains her job, again to the point of sounding like a broken i-pod playlist struck on repeat, because she kept her controversial comment to the show, didn’t spread it out all over social media in an attempt to defend herself, sincerely apologized, kept to that apology without deflecting blame, blaming medications, what she did or didn’t know about her target as a person, her ethnicity what have you, for words she did say. She didn’t go on a frenzied video rant attempting to explain herself serving to dig herself deeper into the social shaming hole than she’d already dug for herself, but did stick with her statements until people understood what she meant by calling Ivanka that word, communicating she understood the line she believes she crossed, though independent media had a field day exposing the double standard around that word. Reminding us Ted Nugent used it to describe Hillary Clinton and got an invitation to the Whitehouse from the Trump administration, 80’s heartthrob Scott Baio used it and was invited and did speak at the republican national convention, Rosanne Barr who used the c word once and wasn’t fired. Proving as they said the right wing has no real issue with the word itself unless it’s directed at them; cause be dammed, miles of difference between calling out a singular person as bad and racially smearing a whole group of people blacks and or/Muslims the latter what Rosanne is guilty of.

https://www.salon.com/2018/04/08/roseanne-the-rust-belt-and-the-dangers-of-the-single-story/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGdIhpWrLs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKHD3aSxui8

http://www.newser.com/story/257578/roseanne-slammed-for-joke-about-black-asian-tv-shows.html

https://www.salon.com/2018/04/18/theres-something-about-mary-roseanne-and-the-almost-invisible-girl/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x2nYDpL7PU

http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/still-no-full-accounting-for-hurricane-maria-1246737475873

https://www.thedailybeast.com/roseanne-dies-of-an-opioid-overdose-in-the-conners-thats-the-wrong-move

It traces back to the Whitehouse correspondents’ dinner and Michelle Wolf, analyzing media/subsequent commentators had the opportunity to praise her for her recognition of the abnormal times we live in, for hitting back at an administration journalists have been wrong footed from the days of the 2016 campaign to cover well, supporting her for telling truths we can’t seem to package in any other functional way and adequately digest their meaning; rather what we got was a lecture on time, place, manner courtesy of the likes of Joe Scarborough and wondering aloud from Mika Brzezinski if the correspondents’ dinner should exist any longer citing president Obama’s ‘almost too cozy relationship with the press’ now Wolf’s disastrous performance at the dinner. One minute questioning why she was invited, organizers having to know what kind of comedy she does, the next chastisement of the dinner’s creators, its current existence quickly too morphed into a chastisement of her as well. As much as this blog/its author have emphasized time, place manner in various aspects usually talking about grammar, punctuation and sentence structure online, throughout social media and judging people’s education, intelligence level, the presence of developmental delay or not by their ability to type, not equal or congruent to how you spell/knowing how to spell words in the English language after at least 12 years of public education. How they, proud horrible spellers looked down upon in the blogosphere, treat their personal messages, comments on things they love or hate on various sites versus how they approach things on their professional website for work, the statements they craft for their boss, résumés, cover letters, letters of inquiry for a job/career field starkly different from the aforementioned posts on a personal website, how and why that’s ok. Time, place, manner doesn’t fit here for 2 reasons, starting with she was a comedian at an event where comedians have always traditionally performed, secondly like Bee Wolf’s jokes however crass, categorized inappropriate stemmed from real events, real statements made by persons a-la Sara Huckabee Sanders Whitehouse press secretary known for her obfuscation of legitimate hard hitting questions, misleading responses, hair splitting linguistic gymnastics to outright lies to defend president Trump, defend what a majority of the country would name the indefensible. For instance one of Wolf’s repeatedly played moments was a joke about Sanders that said she burns facts and uses the ashes to create the perfect smoky eye (a makeup look you can achieve with eyeshadow) referencing her apparent preference for dark eye makeup. Comedic comparison to aunt Lidia from the Handmaid’s Tale makes perfect sense considering that show’s content and the administration’s stance on both abortion and contraception, systematically rolling back reproductive rights for women, access and insurance coverage to reproductive health services and birth control; also taking a jab at Mike Pence noting how much he would love the show equally based on his religious views toward the topic plus a huge case in Indiana charging an immigrant woman with feticide for giving birth to a still born set to serve something close to life in prison due to flawed testing and religious based laws where he was governor. Her questioning of what to call Huckabee Sanders including the question what is Uncle Tom for white women who disappoint other white women, former premise they initially seemed to agree with, calling out Trump supporters upset by the dinner’s content to look at the man they’ve been following right along, laughing with all this time. Dido the Kellyanne Conway jokes about her last name being perfect for her current line of work and the admonishment to stop putting her on their, the media’s shows, morning shows, what have you because all she does is lie and without them she has no place to do so. Deeping the show anchors’ not unfamiliar trek down the hypocrisy rabbit hole both found her funny, willing to watch her on a Netflix special, laugh heartily if listening/watching her from the back of a dark bar, it just wasn’t ok for the Whitehouse correspondents’ dinner; because, paraphrasing Brzezinski, it’s not a level journalists should stoop to right now, the dinner apparently a years long complaint for her. Question is why not stoop to that level when trying to be funny, granted not something they get huge opportunities to do, but worthy of the distinction since at no time was Wolf attempting to be stone cold serious, give a serious, in-humorous monologue at what is essentially one of those roast a celebrity events only for the president. Who by the way, couldn’t be bothered to attend like most other presidents in the modern era, choosing to hold a rally at the same time touting how much better his appearance there was as opposed to the dinner, a dinner his defacto rival president Obama endured good naturedly with humility and grace. She was hired to do a comedy bit and she wasn’t the only comedy act there either just the one most singled out; it isn’t the booked comedians’ fault the counterpoint was too juvenile to attend and give the serious side speech as expected making the implied parody fall flat. Morning Joe hosts who possessed so much to say about Michelle Wolf the same ones who, less years ago than not, lauded Campbell Brown’s efforts for better rating systems pertaining to what was put on TV specifically toward curbing violence on television, in media, video games, (somehow forgetting we were given those ratings it is up to parents, guardians and adults in children/young adult’s lives to use them, to match the ratings with the maturity level demonstrated in your individual child/children); calling Quintin Tarantino a pornographer of violence because he dared accept an award he rightfully won because the award show or it’s TV airing corresponded with a recent mass shooting, things he had no control over nor his nomination. Only to have on the very next week Edie Falco praising the quality programing available on cable in her foul mouthed Nurse Jackie dropping F bombs right, left and center. Yet later that same year both were apoplectic about Miley Cyrus’ twerking at the VMAs and the TV 14 rating given to MTV knowing what her performance consisted of dually concerned about what their kids were seeing and what it meant for Cyrus fearing she was headed down the dark path of many a child star going off the rails. Time bearing out what this blog enumerated on the subject spotlighting Cyrus wasn’t sweet, loveable Disney’s Hannah Montana anymore spreading her wings creating musical content for an adult audience, not so ironically no longer desired by her tween fans, crafting a performance meant to put on a show no matter how strange and oversexed for the occasion people in their late 40’s and late 50’s respectively thought it was, her provocative nature for the sake of the performance drawing clear lines between child and now adult star. Other panelists agreeing with Brzezinski clarion call for media to hold itself to a higher standard echoing her question of who didn’t know an edgy comedian would cause problems, further bring down the prestige of the media; seconding her thoughts they should have fundamentally changed the tone of the dinner to a more serious affair. Perhaps feature a gold star mother, referring to a mother who has lost their military serving child in combat, wanting to spotlight honoring journalists and the Whitehouse Correspondents’ association who tirelessly protects journalists reporting overseas, spotlight the journalists risking their lives in hostile areas simply to report the news. However, then was this, the Whitehouse correspondents’ dinner, the place to do that, or elevating thought one step higher, are they mutually exclusive, why can’t you have hard hitting jokes and honor the serious work of journalists at the same time; a sobering event like the one suggested be created going forward could use some comedy relief, a comedic touch, humorous touch. And the serious focus on journalists jailed, journalist killed for the ‘crime’ of reporting news happening in our world because the particular government is oppressive, doesn’t want their doings getting out to the larger global public especially the U.S. owing to they might bring their recognized moral authority to bear on your actions. Imagine if, whatever the news, current event commentary show, established media outlet, rather than shaming Michelle Wolf for virtually embarrassing media entities for loving Trump because of what he does to their ratings, newspaper sales, online/digital subscriptions, increasing all given metrics, for falling down every distracting rabbit hole talking about his tweets, airing every rally and event in real time, though he says nothing new, they piggybacked off her performance to solidify points they have been making since president Trump took office. Going all the way back to justifiably calling out then press secretary Sean Spicer defending his comments on the biggest crowd size ever, imploring Sara Huckabee Sanders if she has morals, principles, standards to leave as opposed to stay there and continue the deception of the American people from a Whitehouse podium. Contrasted to targeting her for damage to journalism with her comedy performance at a meant to be humorous event why not talk about the damage to American journalism that Fox News represents being on the air and allowed to keep the moniker news when it was rejected by the UK for an inability to properly report fact, constantly issuing corrects here on the scant percentage of something looking like real news. Misrepresenting the numbers of people on welfare, food stamps defaulting to stereotypes about who is on programs like food stamps, shaming people of color when predominately white people use them according to statistics, forget the number of children, elderly and disabled persons. Hosts like Stuart Varney mocking the 40% of Americans struggling with basic needs, calling Bernie Sanders’ proposed jobs guarantee vote buying, the new rendition of Rush Limbaugh saying republicans were competing against Santa clause because Obama ‘kept giving away free stuff’ back when the battle was the affordable care act and the female comprehensive reproductive care to be housed therein. Supposed experts making up facts about Islam in Europe via the refugees they’ve taken in talking about certain areas in known European cities being ‘no go zones’ due to violence, the sharia law they’ve imposed; CNN proving none of that was remotely true so said the Parisians interviewed. The much greater problem of we have a president taking policy suggestions from the things anchors randomly shout on air at Fox News because they know he’s listening; like when Sean Hannity told him to pressure the DOJ (department of justice) to release sensitive information on the Russia investigation. Or when during Whitehouse meeting he put in a call to someone at the network seeking their advice/input on what he was doing, who told reporters he would send military to the border to deal with the first caravan who showed up in the spring (roughly a dozen people) seeking asylum, why the second was nothing to be feared. Speaking of the border, the people Fox News scared with their pre-election fearmongering who decided to go there and ‘help’ border patrol agents defend our national boundaries; only succeeding in causing a warning alert to be issued to those agents to be on the lookout for these likely armed, general nuisance, getting in the way individuals. If we really want to talk about who’s degrading journalism we needn’t look at the choice of comedic talent at the Whitehouse correspondents’ dinner, the decision to keep a comedic act in the dinner during these grave times, no rather look to all the Whitehouse staff a-la Kellyanne Conway, Sebastian Gorka (when he was) invited onto programs, interviews with the likes of Randy Credico, Cory Lewandowski and Carter Page, every conservative pundit, commentator, activist, political operative brought on to legitimize ‘working class,’ ‘rustbelt’ ideology instead of adding to what was said in the previous paragraph about the appeal of Rosanne to that swath of the country, of Trump’s voters. Hey rather than being slave to the cyclical nature of the car manufacturing industry here’s a new concept let’s stop pining for the nostalgia of yesteryear’s work in America narrative and go for more stable industries, save your towns by not centering them around cyclical nature industries; oh the horror maybe manufacturing, car manufacturing shouldn’t be in America if it no longer works at least for now, stick to the manufacturing types that can thrive and reach for other industries to invest in, build communities adjacent to. Threats to solid, worthwhile media doing good, public informing journalism are the presence of mentioned, in the introduction, entities like One America news less tethered to the facts than Fox, radio and online outlets al-a Inforwars, the threat they pose to larger society when people self-investigate stories like pizza-gate, use their owned firearms to track ‘lizard people 80% human, 80% pig and 80% lizard;’ months later Morning Joe and other established media championing Alex Jones’ removal from most social media and online viewing platforms citing mounting violations of their terms of service, those listed above merely 2 among many false conspiracy theories Jones was responsible for spreading prompting dangerous citizen response. Or the reality that Fox News’ ‘Planned Parenthood selling baby parts’ propaganda surrounding a botched sting video showing the facility’s workers negotiating cost for transport of discarded/aborted fetal tissue to medical research spaces to search out cures for devastating disease, Alzheimer’s on that list, prompted Robert Deer to storm a Planned Parenthood and begin shooting shouting save the babies multiple times in court, but we’re talking about a comedian at the Whitehouse correspondents’ dinner devaluing and degrading journalism. Threats to the press, journalism and informing the public emanate from the president calling the press the enemy of the people, particularly the message it sends to the rest of the world, whether he realizes or cares or not, how dictatorial regimes interpret what he says and what that translates to for domestic journalists in their home country and American journalist abroad. When he incessantly calls CNN fake news only to hear supporters regurgitate exactly those words verbatim at rallies; with that who didn’t see the Maryland shooting of a local newspaper coming, turns out that man had a beef with the factual information printed about him and an online staking and harassment case he was involved in but other motivated attacks are coming, yet we are talking about a comedian at a press dinner. Threats to journalism are access on the consuming end, people who can’t afford to get cable MSNBC, CNN or Fox News to be greater informed than 30 minutes of nightly national news they can’t DVR/TiVo because they don’t own one; on that larger point, people who don’t have a computer, home internet, those who do hampered by high service fees, plus, however small, subscription fees for access to unfettered, most recent content from prominent news publications, but we’re talking about a comedian’s alleged potty mouth at the Whitehouse correspondents’ dinner. Time people don’t have to stay plugged into the bigger, wider world working 12 and 16 hours days in the rust belt, the time they do have spent with their spouse, raising their kids; those same amount of hours spent looking for a new job because their old one disappeared, they have a full time, 8 hour job and are looking for a 2nd or 3rd to make ends meet, they have part time work and are trying to string together enough of those to equal a standard 40 hour week or enough money to function. On the flipside, it’s the small, local papers shutting down, area local reporting not getting done, writing and journalism, unlike my strict commentary, going to anyone with a blog who in today’s digital world can hang out a shingle and call themselves anything they want, few jobs available for either category actually paying dollars, living wages only if you’re extremely lucky; but, we’re talking about a correspondents’ dinner comedian’s ‘negative impact’ on journalism. English and journalism, writing degrees for decades have been denigrated as useless, as the price for college tuition has increased those degrees, humanities degrees on the whole, have been deemed non-viable in terms of getting a job, economic opportunities on the back end especially compared to the astronomical task of paying back student loan debt. School systems’ focus on STEM subjects (science, engineering, technology and math) means a shortage of good writers and solid research skills needed for journalistic pursuits, while those with natural writing talent are pushed elsewhere by economic forces; what made the shooting at the Maryland newspaper in part so devastating, the death of one of the few local journalist doing on the ground community reporting. Speaking of what people didn’t see coming inviting Wolf, the research journalists blatantly didn’t do, or maybe they did and were blowing the whistle on themselves, their fellow colleagues, who didn’t see the fate of Jamal Khashoggi coming knowing what country he was a dissident from, knowing what neighboring country he was in when it happened; who thinks a better approach to the Whitehouse correspondents’ dinner would change that or the U.S. response to it coming out of the Trump administration? Interesting months later Brzezinski would defend Samantha Bee in socially shaming first daughter Ivanka but thought Wolf out of bounds; downright confusing her detailing how pained Sara Huckabee Sanders looked, calling her humiliated for a prolonged period of time asking if we should be laughing at that when she has called on her to leave or she deserves what she gets in terms of political ridicule, routed from a restaurant, things along those lines, exc. Did someone, perhaps just Ms. Brzezinski, miss Huckabee Sanders’ smirking smile at the smoke-y eye joke or the plentiful attending audience laughs when Wolf told a joke about it being 2018 and an inability to shut women up unless you hire Michael Cohn to wire her 30,000 dollars stating she can be found under her porn star name Reince Priebus, Priebus still the chief of staff back at the end of April; she pointed out herself the only reason Sanders was there is because she was standing in for Trump who was so juvenile he would not attend. Commentators on AM Joy certainly didn’t directly correlating the crassness and discomfort witnessed by those viewing the dinner live comes from discomfort at the crassness emanating from the current administration, the fish rots from the head down as the adjacent MSNBC anchors are found of repeatedly reminding viewers. Blunt that if we can’t use humor to confront held up truths then we are disingenuous; humor the prime vehicle to handle difficult issues, used by everyone from religious teachers illustrating practical morality according to their doctrine, to therapy programs for cancer patients, mental health patients, trauma victims. Panelists bringing it back to real issues noting Michelle Wolf bookended it bringing it back to the reality Flint Michigan remains absent clean water. AM Joy’s panel articulating too again who is complaining, the Whitehouse, president Trump, commentators, media professionals ‘who believe it beneath their dignity’ to participate in the dinner contrasted to most media, the participants, those mentioned as they said, took it on the chin, took it in the spirit it was meant a humorous rebuke, a roast of the media as a whole hopefully inspiring them to do a better job by correcting flaws. Addressing the attacks on her looks, that the Handmaid’s Tale comparison was a backhanded way of calling her ugly and drab not criticizing just policy defense, no Mr. Scarborough what leftwing twitter is telling you when you think they are saying her looks don’t factor into it is that it is the whole package of what Huckabee Sanders represents, what she puts out there while speaking for the Whitehouse and the president; much like what I said when talking about millennials who demand to be judged on work product not wardrobe and the encounters I’d had with decidedly older job placement workers, advocacy representatives. It was the stringy, windblown hair, sleeveless shirt no vest (though it was summer) and gum smacking on a white program manager who couldn’t be bothered to re-brush her hair and put it back in the scrunch-y. Knew nothing about my case, my history with the agency she was in charge of doing oversight for then kept inserting her 2 cents on current and previous happenings when her presence there was to evaluate my advocate’s job performance. Or the job placement worker who I asked to accompany me to a job interview the day before it was to take place, something this agency did, who was unsure if she would be able to attend covering for her boss who was at a conference, training event; only to show up outside the law office saying she wasn’t dressed to go in (an apt assessment) looking at the Capri pants, bright floral spring top and tennis shoes. My point then why not, being able bodied change clothes at work for this, change into more casual clothes for other jobsite, training work that day, what I would have done in her position. The local resources worker who showed up late to a joint meeting with agencies assisting me in finding employment as a person with a disability who was late, didn’t have information her and I discussed brining to share with the other entities since they wanted to see what the county resources could do to aid me where they felt they couldn’t, also dressed like casual black Barbie; it’s the clothes and, the physical features/looks and…Relating these to the Huckabee Sanders jokes about her looks cuttingly rattled off at the dinner it’s her ‘ugly outfits,’ ‘plain Jane’ features tacked onto the insult to the American people listening to her press briefings when they deign to hold one, the things she says in them not solely her looks. To that end no, the Whitehouse correspondents’ dinner does not take away from the credibility of journalism it ads to it the way the Daily Show when hosted by John Stewart and surviving a change of host, programs like Full Frontal add to it because they can say the things straight journalists can’t with opinion and humor. Contrary to independent media’s assessment the popularity of comedy satirical, mock news shows isn’t they do it better, are more honest than standard media, cut through the dross better than standard media it’s that they employ those 2 things exquisitely and exceptionally, why it works. Time place manner is a lecture/conversation for Rosanne Barr possibly the next paragraph’s subject Megyn Kelly not Michelle Wolf, not Samantha Bee; catch the clue bus, if you don’t want a Whitehouse correspondents’ dinner that looks like that every again the solution isn’t to discontinue having a Whitehouse correspondents’ diner, essentially throwing the baby out with the bathwater, the good with the bad. It’s to have a Whitehouse living up to its responsibility, administration members properly leading the nation. Goal achieved we can go back to having the correspondents’ dinner you were all expecting; Michelle Wolf’s only crime, as someone pointed out was telling the truth, plain truth to people who didn’t want to hear it.

https://indiemusicnews.com/blog/2013/its-all-quentin-tarantino-fault-gun-debate-reaches-new-low-as-an-old-scapegoat-is-revived/

https://indiemusicnews.com/blog/2013/miley-cyrus-isnt-hannah-montana-anymore/

https://www.salon.com/2017/08/29/fox-news-yanked-off-british-airwaves/

https://www.salon.com/2017/08/31/fox-news-abandons-uk-market-but-maybe-the-problem-was-crap-content-not-poor-ratings/

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/the-food-stamp-fraud-farce-843214403726

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-news-host-abby-huntsman-apologizes-on-air-for-baseless-report-on-food-stamp-fraud/

Megyn Kelly’s portion of the Today Show, her producers too had an opportunity to use the program, the built in platform to talk about real issues relating to race, the latest spate of white people harassing back people for going about their lives, going into their own apartment, correlating it back to Botham Jean shot by a police officer who mistook his apartment for her own then changed her story multiple times while we got to hear about the marijuana in his system as if it somehow explains what happened to him. Yes we heard about ‘Barbeque Becky’ harassing back people in the park with barbeque supplies in the designated area trying to say it wasn’t before calling police, then bursting into tears when police seemed confused as to why they were there. ‘Permit Patty’ calling police on a little back girl selling water outside her apartment trying to afford a family trip to Disneyland when the adjacent office occupant called the police complaining about both noise and the child’s lack of permit to sell bottled water on a hot day, crouching behind a newspaper or postal stand when confronted by the child’s indignantly questioning mother, only for the caller to lose her cannabis for pets business when resulting investigative reporting revealed she was operating without the needed license. ‘I.D. Adam’ who called police on a black woman and her child for attempting to use the community pool though they had a keycard clearly demonstrated to police when they arrived worked perfectly identifying them as members of the community and allowed access, ‘Adam’ losing his home owners association position and his job. ‘Pool Patrol Paula’ caught on camera harassing a teen to leave the community pool for no readily apparent reason apart from he was young and black, resulting in assault charges for her when she can be seen on the footage hitting him though he was complying with an ‘elder’s instructions to leave. We knew about the group of black persons surrounded by police for removing their belongings from the previous night’s Airbnb supposedly concerned citizens calling police on black persons going about their lives chiefly because one of those persons was Bob Marley’s granddaughter; we knew about the CVS pharmacist who called police on a black woman attempting to use a coupon, he said was invalid without checking, on an item or prescription, turns out it was perfectly valid from the manufacturer, since removed from the job, dubbed ‘Coupon Carl.’ Likewise we knew about the Yale student who had police called on her for falling asleep in the common room then having to prove to police she was both a student and a resident there, nothing happening to the white student with a history of such behavior even from a school discipline, outreach for mental health support standpoint; later would come the student at Smith college who a professor called police about because she looked ‘out of place’ eating lunch in the dining hall forget she’s a teaching assistant. Another professor who called cops on a black student for an even more absurd reason, putting their feet up on the seat in front of them during class; police dutifully removing said student as if it were no problem, equally no thought to if this is what they should be doing keeping in mind it’s college not high school, or if you should ever do that, worse thinking you need the police to execute that move. There was the not one but 2 black political candidates approached by cops after a call for doing knock and talks, interacting with people in their community, telling them the office they were running for probably asking what they needed from that position holder to benefit their lives, working from a list garnered from the local political organization, a Sikh man was attacked while putting up signs for California republican Jeff Denham, or the canvasing volunteers speaking to persons in a gated community on behalf of a political candidate an interracial couple, one white one black, causing a white women to phone police then hide her face from cellphone cameras; just as a refresher canvasing is when volunteers working on behalf of a candidate go out into the electorate community remind people when election day is, remind them candidate X is running and for what office. Woman at Safeway helps homeless man, her reward, having cops called on her by store staff for shoplifting questioned by 4 cops in the presence of her kids because she gave the homeless person food and treats for his dog, in her car the whole time, sister giving out church care packages to the homeless; store staff apparently mistaking the good Samaritan for a shoplifter wearing a completely different outfit. How about the obnoxious white woman who confronted 2 black women outside of a building complex the only intelligible thing to be understood from the video, intelligible defined as words in the English language resembling a sentence or group of words which you can derive some meaning, is repeatedly asking the women if their boyfriend was there, if their ‘baby daddy was there; thankfully facing criminal charges and lost her job since she seemed to be drunk, high on substances or, if being generous, having a mental health issue, maybe medical episode. Next returning to name shamed needless white interference in black lives there’s ‘Golf Cart Gale’ who called police on a black father for ‘shouting’ at his son (in the name of being heard across a big field) to obey the call of the referee; wait younger adults are confused, isn’t this the kind of parenting we’ve begged for decades from the black community specifically, isn’t this the kind of support coaches, refs of youth sports would be ecstatic to see today? Another drunk on power person, who happens to be white thinking they are all that because they are a ‘field monitor,’ luckily witnesses backed up the man’s story he was only addressing his son. ‘License Plate Linda’ who responded to her neighbor’s party, cars blocking what was the man’s driveway not hers, by vandalizing the license plates of his guests, netting her charges from criminal damaging; does it go without saying he’s black and so were most of the attending partygoers and she’s redundantly white? Wonder if she’s besties, Facebook friends with the Portland Oregon woman this blog will call parking spot Peggy calling police because she didn’t appreciate a black couple’s parking job allegedly blocking the crosswalk. Neither should it surprise us the tiniest bit a black man babysitting white kids even in the 21st century would draw attention from someone and so it did; first the woman approached the car outside the store, proceeded to follow them in their vehicle ultimately calling the cops who pulled him over, had the children step out of the car, him having to call the parents and conform with the officer yes he is their babysitter. Also we heard about the homeowner who called police on a neighborhood boy who while mowing one ladies lawn accidentally got part of another law next door, we heard about the boy called in to police while delivering newspapers getting confused about who was to get papers and not, trying to correct his mistake so predictably another white woman has called police on a black child, you won’t believe for what, sexual harassment. Forget the kid doesn’t look like he’s remotely begun puberty, he and his sister sobbing outside the store with their mother as the woman on her cellphone demands cops appear; store video proving it was his backpack that pushed her backside as he walked passed, not grabbed her anywhere let alone her behind, her bent over reaching for an item. Instead of breaking down any of these cases we got a redundant repeat of black Hermione, Kendall Jenner’s (someone else who is back in the news for an ‘afro’ Vogue shoot except the hair is Jenner’s or extensions to match her natural hair not imitate a black persons, and the dress she’s wearing smacks of the Elizabethan or Victorian era outfit also explaining the hair in a frizzy updo the magazine says was aiming for a 1960-1970’s teased hair) Pepsi ad round table type discussion about a reality star’s Halloween costume because she’s white and decided to dress up as Diana Ross including a bad spray tan everyone began to call blackface. Enter Kelly’s comments believing it was ok to don such a costume for an occasion like Halloween as long as it was meant in admiration not traditional blackface meant in mocking and denigration. Spawning backlash encompassing fellow NBC colleagues Al Roker among them who post her apology said she needed to broaden it to every person of color in America, others who took the stance even during Kelly’s 1980’s upbringing she should have known that’s not ok. Independent what she should have been talking about is the latest pack of privileged, over panicked, obviously carrying too much time on their hands white people harassing blacks, think of it this way would we publically shame a white child who chose to dress up as Michelle Obama including makeup to match the former first lady’s skin color or simply shame her parents for allowing her to don the outfit? In all probability turn it into a gender conversation intertwined with anti-trans comments if a little boy chose to go out on Halloween as the previous first lady not the 44th president; if not, then we need to let this go, and if the answer is yes, we need to critically examine our priorities as a nation and specifically on the issue of race. Compartmentalizing all that, was firing her the right move over having the conversation about why she’s wrong, most believing she is, an independent media personality taking a different tact saying she wasn’t fired for her comments on blackface rather it was the final straw in a series of faux pas, terrible ratings and horrible viewer reception; causing this blog to ask a rare question of that entity, where is your evidence David Pakman? And if he is correct and it was a culmination of factors including low ratings, a failed trial for a first season show why wouldn’t they say so for their own reputations? I am a black person, a black woman and I don’t care what some reality star chose to be for Halloween, I was not, and will never be, offended by a white woman dressed up as Diana Ross for the occasion, would not have been if white people had dressed up as Destiney’s child, Earth Wind and Fire, The Gap Band, African Americans, persons of color part of The Village People, any primarily black music group, actors/actresses, legendary figures in baseball, basketball, football, extreme and X game sports, gymnastics, figure skating, you get the idea. As stated would we have ostracized a white child for daring to dress up as Michelle Obama, any black figure they admire no matter your age? Personally I remember donning ‘whiteface’ as a back student, for a high school acting class imitation of a Michael Jackson interview during an era where his skin looked white only to be praised by my acting teacher not because she was in any way, shape or form racist but because it went above and beyond the assignment taking the initiative to add that feature versus a student who was an African American male who did an interview of him from a different time period; also it was praise given in private with the caveat she would not have permitted me to do the reverse blackface showing her understanding of the sensitivity surrounding the phenomenon’s history. I could care less who is or isn’t appropriating black culture, my culture, I’m not going to scream about some white celebrity wearing dreads or sagging their pants, donning a do-rag; when Jesse Williams decided to do impromptu subpar poetry about gentrifying our genius I told him why he, not awakening white people, should sit down, as my work told the likes of Charles Barkley and Chris Rock where they could put their bad blacks trope and the former’s defense of spanking/beating black kids to make them more acceptable to a society who as it stands will never accept them. Now for this I will likely be labeled by some as a race traitor or be accused of having an oreo problem, more things I could care less about because as this supposed horrible appropriation happens wearing the listed items, doing the given activities becomes more accepted and it’s one less target on or backs, one less point of tension between us and society. I on the other hand am much more concerned about the African American young man told to remove his slave costume for his school’s ‘decades day,’ one in a long line of students asked to do so for adjacent type projects, the echoes of slavery still effecting their daily lives and their futures, I am upset about the military college students seen in photos sporting white hoods reminiscent of the Klan. Instead of either Megyn Kelly’s foot in mouth, what a reality star wore for Halloween, Kendall Jenner’s magazine spread I care about not only the white history student who dressed up as a KKK grand wizard for a similar event at a school in California earlier this year but more importantly the teacher who approved the student’s request to do the project complete with going around in said outfit, the fear it engendered in minority students and students of color versus an attempt to bring home the devastation of slavery to white students. Right up there with the Idaho elementary school teachers recently suspended after dressing up as ‘Mexicans’ and ‘border wall’ for the just passed Halloween, all the more because each instance represents educators who above everyday persons should know better because they are responsible for cultivating young minds. What I really want to have a conversation about are the child charges of that black babysitter afraid of saying the wrong thing to the cops when asked to get out of the car, asked if they were ok because some random white woman couldn’t fathom a black man being allowed to babysit white children; I want to talk about the lasting effect on children seeing people of color treated that way, the very real chance they will internalize it as normal as will white children grow up thinking this is how you treat people of color, treat blacks, or the more familiar narrative if a person of color, an African American is being treated like that they must have done something wrong. Let’s all talk about ‘Corner Store Caroline’ absolutely convinced the thing she felt bush her in the store was a boy grabbing her behind even after seeing his age, I want to talk about cellphone video of him crying on the street as she’s irately shouting into her phone wanting the police there talking about sexual assault by the 9 year old, I want to talk about her pathetically weak apology to the young man and his family post seeing store surveillance footage showing it was his backpack that brushed her as she bent over to reach something on a low shelf. More than that I want to talk about seeing his age and hypothetically for a moment assuming he did what he was accused of, why the immediate conclusion of sinister, sexual intent superseding the likelihood he was pushed by a sibling or friend from behind, bumped by an adult fellow shopper and thus through a physics chain reaction bumped in to her ‘grabbing’ her in an effort to catch himself/prevent falling, smacking himself into a shelf. He was walking along behind his mom with the arm on her side out brushing things dangling off the aisle because he’s a kids and he’s bored, not paying attention, lightly hits her on the behind because that’s the part of her body that was within his reach and either didn’t notice or was too scared to apologize because of exactly what ended up happening. I want us all to talk about why the police would ever have been needed in this situation had her account been accurate as opposed to lecturing the parent about teaching her child better manners lest someone else assume the sinister and call the police; especially relevant and poignant considering new revelations about Emit Till and the fact the woman he supposedly whistled at leading to his death and touching off the civil rights movement made it up. I want to talk about the additional tears shed by this poor kid in an interview, I want to talk about what he told the ABC News anchor detailing he can’t think of anything but what happened, going home crying that night afraid he or his mother would be hauled away by police; I want to talk about his being humiliated, traumatized a week after the incident, another mother concerned her child will be permanently scarred mentally, psychologically, emotionally for interactions such as his happening daily while the white person in the wrong receives no consequences. Consequences for society even bigger because though misogyny, hated of women, domestic violence, rape don’t exclusively stem from scenes like what happened to little Jeremiah Harvey, does anyone think they help better young boys’ view of women, enhance their interactions with female authority figures, teachers, counselors, bus drivers, bosses, allow them to form healthy age appropriate teenage romantic attachments, first love; of course not intense chance it only fuels the incel phenomenon’s (involuntarily celibate right wing extremists) warped ideology. And should we be asking as a society, a community how many young men’s hatred of women started off just like that, started off with a female authority figure, domineering female relative who regularly humiliated a young man in their lives, possibly approaching abuse, crossing the line to either intense physical abuse with a sexual undertone or outright sexual abuse? Boys regularly subjected to constant unfounded accusations of touching girls inappropriately when the scenario is like that in the store, constantly accusing a young man of deviant thoughts, ‘sexual perversion’ for benign activities like hugging a girl, age appropriate sexual awareness, feelings, puberty associated erections, age appropriate relationships and typical sexual exploration? I want to talk about the adultification of black boys always assumed older than they are whether it was Tamir Rice 12 mistaken for 20, or 10 year old Legend Preston drawn on with guns by police because he fit the description of a robbery suspect in his 20’s; Michael Brown was 18, may have been considered legally an adult, though not yet old enough to buy a beer, but whatever his sins that day he didn’t have superhuman strength, he wasn’t demonic or possessing the strength of Hulk Hogan despite a somewhat bulky build, the last 2 descriptors used by Darren Wilson in an interview describing his interaction with Brown before pelting 6 bullets into him including the fatal shot to the top of his head. And Salon author Chauncey Devega, god bless him this time got it right, none of these were monsters or the racist buzzword of the 21st century, thugs. Still he is further correct adultification will mean more back children denied the innocence of childhood and taught they don’t get that privilege, running from the police later in life remembering earlier fear getting them killed while we talk about some white woman in a bad spray tan and a reality star’s magazine shoot. I want to talk about what it does to criminal statistics in society when mowing part of someone’s lawn gets the cops called on you at 10, 11, getting confused on a paper route the very first day gets the cops called on you, when shopping from prom attire means having to explain yourself to 3 patrol cars worth of officers, when eating at an IHOP as a group comprising persons of color means being accused of dine and dash, skipping out on your bill; clue bus rides again oops, it gives them no incentive, motivation to stay on the right side of the law, avoid breaking the law because no matter what they do right or wrong they are presumed guilty. So why not steal stuff, sell drugs making more money than any job they could get; why not succumb to the neighborhood gang, they have nothing to lose. Equally I am by far greater concerned about the Nazi salute prom photo at a school where instances of racism and bullying by white students of students of color, minorities, Jews, LGBT classmates was ignored, brushed off and in some cases defended again going back to the adults, educators supposed to be intelligent people, leaders. I am more interested in hearing about the rise in hate crimes seen from 2016 onward against all minority/protected groups, I like the rest of the country was jarred by the white nationalist, white extremist Trump supporter, his an covered in right wing propaganda who sent bombs to top democratic leaders Maxine Waters, to the 2 former presidents’ homes, former vice president Biden, to a famed democratic liberal supporter George Soros, actor Robert De Niro and tried to reach former CIA director John Brennan through CNN though he consults for NBC. Generating eerie echoes of the Austin package bombings carried out by a younger man spring of 2018 who was a conservative college dropout fired from his manufacturing job somehow thinking killing people would solve his problems, avenge him of a cruel world. I want to talk about the right wing rhetoric that preceded the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and perhaps if they weren’t constantly talking out the Jews, the Jews and all the problems they cause, the relentless campaign against George Soros who is Jewish, then maybe 11 people wouldn’t be dead in their place of worship, leaders there pushing back against the idea of armed guards there to protect religious observers; instead I spent almost 30 pages deconstructing why a comedians potty mouth isn’t our real problem and why reality star’s outfit really wasn’t racist and in either case unimportant, first. If there is anything else to be said about Megyn Kelly’s role in this, it is to ask why she isn’t up there on her now former show or taking the moment with the spotlight on her very high profile exit to tell fellow white people, fellow white women, her people to mind their own business, to know their neighbors not call the police on them, to pay attention to what the person knocking on doors is doing, notice if people are taking things into an apartment versus out of it, i.e. shock moving in, exiting an Airbnb with your belongings is not a crime neither is helping homeless people or being young and having a business or a job. Guests in your neighbor’s driveway are not your problem and the police are no substitute for basic interpersonal problem solving most of us learned on the school playground decades ago. Where is Megyn Kelly reminding her fellow white people black children are still children too, who make the same childish mistakes as white kids, get into the same minor/marginal trouble; the difference is, white children usually don’t have to worry about it costing them their lives when they encounter police, don’t have to endure police being called on them for normal/every day activities their white counterparts are afforded the luxury of taking for granted. The difference is the white child out with their parent doesn’t have to worry about that parent getting pulled over by police for erroneous reasons, come home from school to find mom or dad has been arrested or worse killed in a shootout with police for similar reasons; where is that blunt assessment from anyone in the white community talking to their fellow whites in a way they can understand so this latest round of racial targeting stops?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/idaho-elementary-teachers-dressed-mexicans-160127722.html

https://www.salon.com/2016/09/01/a-10-year-old-boy-an-84-year-old-grandmother-police-brutality-will-not-end-in-america-until-cops-stop-perceiving-blacks-as-monsters/?TB_iframe=true&width=369.9&height=3674.7

https://abcnews.go.com/US/nordstrom-rack-president-apologizes-black-youths-wrongly-accused/story?id=55011518

https://www.salon.com/2017/12/02/should-we-be-ashamed-to-watch-a-kevin-spacey-movie_partner/

https://www.salon.com/2018/11/26/hud-inspections-pass-dangerous-apartments-filled-with-rats-roaches-and-toxic-mold_partner/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-15/shulkin-to-pay-back-some-expenses-after-europe-trip-faulted

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/21/zinke-security-team-personal-vacation-429302

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/2/17/1486899/-Is-Donald-Trump-Suffering-From-Delusional-Senile-Dementia

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/03/23/donald-trump-elections-2016-diagnosis-narcissism-personality-disorder-column/82128174/

http://www.salon.com/2016/04/25/maybe_donald_trump_has_really_lost_his_mind_what_if_the_gop_frontrunner_isnt_crazy_but_simply_not_well/

https://www.salon.com/2018/12/04/trump-fans-have-trait-toddlers-grow-out-of-doctor-says_partner/

The true coarsening of our culture is the citizens who voted for Donald Trump despite the grab women by their genitals Access Hollywood tape, the public, including conservative women, who voted for Donald Trump in spite of the exposed repeated alleged instances of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment going back decades; stories issuing from women coming forward after he lied on TV about things they knew he had done to them. All holding common threads, and not in a way that suggests women got to together comparing stories, lining up their stories to maliciously take him down, but the common threads shared by victims of Bill Cosby who was ultimately found what— guilty by a jury of his peers; victims of Harvey Weinstein leading to his arrest and subsequent booking on rape and sex assault charges currently on bail pending trial. Honestly finding out Bill Cosby, the man, was far removed from the lovable Dr. Huxtable many grew up with, a man we once were proud to think of as America’s dad; a reputation he cultivated and played on to sell books and do speaking engagements telling his community in essence how to parent, not to mention used to lure women into his trust and next forcibly into his bed. Once telling press he did the Cosby Show because he was tired of programs where the kids were portrayed as smarter than their parents; black community doubtlessly feeling vindicated nearly 2 decades after his ‘pound cake speech’ little more than black respectability politics repackaged. Telling children, today’s youth to stop wearing their clothes backwards a full decade after the music group who made it popular had exited the public scene and pull up their pants; knowing full well not only couldn’t he keep his zipped, but with all his fame and fortune unable to satisfy his lust for women sans drugging and raping, something most pants saggers aren’t remotely guilty of. Cosby chastising parents for being uninvolved in their children’s lives sobbing at them wearing an orange jumpsuit but unaware they had a gun, asking why they were stealing pound cake and coca cola before America as a whole understood the tragic fate of young black boys/men at the hands of police, do-gooder vigilante citizens like George Zimmerman; well preceding Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner or Alton Sterling. Latter 2 individuals well grown men who were fathers, trying to earn dollars for their children killed by police in minor altercations that shouldn’t have ended in death; never mind the parents who are absent due to excessive incarceration that had more to do with their skin color, race, ethnicity, their neighborhood than their actual offense, added realities the black community has been aware of much longer than the nation as a whole and Cosby should have been if he was going to open his mouth saying that. Nearly forgotten the people of color whose offenses get ratcheted up several notches to felonies limiting their options for meaningful work, gainful employment post serving their jail time leading them to hocking CD’s out of the back of a car, selling loose cigarettes forced to place themselves in higher risk, more dangerous situations; the gun they found at the bottom of Sterling’s pocket gotten due to local muggings, robberies happening while he was trying to get by, the phrase how dare you comes to mind when anyone not recognizing these facts talks about fatherless children. Or that Steven Collins had virtually nothing in common with the lovable religious reverend Camden, his past abuse of a teenager outed during a marriage counseling session and proceeding a nasty divorce, well before the onslaught of the #me too movement; one fan struggling with if its ok to like Kevin Spacey movies in light of what a fellow actor credibly accused him of when said actor was 17. What he again was credibly accused of doing to a journalists son, plying him with alcohol until falling down drunk once he lied about his age saying he was legally able to drink, that journalist, his mother, describing the devastating impact of the idolized actor shoving his hands down the 18 year old’s pants, what it has done to his sexuality, sense of self, his view of himself as a man, Spacey in his 50’s at the time. Resonating again is what this blog said about the Cosby and Collins stories’ effect on Americans, forget the endless stream since then— there are no heroes, role models anymore real or depicted in film, in television, real or imaginary in the form of superheroes; you can no longer find a person in your chosen profession, living their life well to emulate. The true coarsening of our culture is that Roy Moore, credibly alleged pedophiliac, was on the ballot in Alabama’s senate race after repeated proof he couldn’t follow the law when it came to not displaying the 10 commandments on government property and refusal to enforce the supreme court ruling permitting same sex marriage well before the nation discovered what locals had rumored if not fully known for years; worse is what it says about the Yellowhammer state and America when voters asked about Moore seemed to normalize his behavior to the time (30 odd years ago not 50 or 100), relating stories of how many had experienced similar situations with people coming on to them, flirting with them as teens, parents who would have been ecstatic to have someone as prominent as the county DA interested in their daughter, teen or no, meeting the accusations with a shoulder shrug. The reverberating coarsening of our culture is the congressman expediently post candidate Trump’s election and swearing in to office arrested for groping a woman in a stairwell citing newly minted president Trump and no longer needing to adhere to political correctness, keeping your hands off women without their consent to touch them in a sexual manner being his idea of political correctness. It’s the teachers Chris Mathews talked to who said they cannot get their students to behave, when called out for their unacceptable and inappropriate words/actions they all have one refrain: ‘the president does it;’ not a new phenomenon as during the campaign 2, far past grown, white bothers beat up a homeless Latino veteran citing Trump, recently a ranting women yelling at a worker asked why she hated him responded ‘because you’re Mexican’ feeding directly from the statements made by the president and regurgitated via Fox News. The true coarsening of our culture is the constant coded language, dog whistles turned bullhorns our commander in chief, defacto moral leader now Donald Trump sends the shadowed them once relegated to the corners of society and for good reason, telling the worst of us their expressions of racism, violence against minorities, ethnicities, women and others is essentially ok, they can come out of the shadows, live fully in the daylight misogyny, anti-Semitism and all; why you saw men carrying Tiki torches and chanting the Jews will not replace us, a woman was run over at a protest while our commander and chief said there were good people on both sides. Alt right group the proud boys was seen on video beating up people in New York after their leader spoke at a nearby venue and so called incels think the problem is feminism’s effect on woman not that they view woman as objects, only want certain types of woman including exclusively virgins, and virgins who behave a certain way, i.e. subservient to men, no thought given to making yourself more desirable to women be that physically or simply not being a bigoted, misogynistic jerk to solve your involuntarily celibate status. Or go to the gym, take up a sport, go jogging, biking, hiking, but don’t engage in street fights, racist, sexist targeting, if necessary invest in a sex doll, hire a prostitute willing to engage in whatever kink your into, maybe take up a hobby to meet the kind of people you want a sexual relationship with, make use of your hand and a porn video but don’t engage in alt-right violence. The parallel lingering and continuing coarsening of our culture exists in the repeated older, supposed to be elders, pillars of wisdom Trump supporters on camera standing behind him no matter what, figures of the religious community the aforementioned group listens to who do the same regardless of it flying in the face of many tenets of their religion, supporting a president whose character doesn’t hold up against any standard in their religious text in massive ways affairs, porn stars, rape, sex harassment and sex assault allegations, cheating on your wife, divorce, multiple wives. A president who during his candidacy advocated beating up people, vaguely suggesting assassination with his second amendment people comments, calling NFL players sons of bitches, the latter a 4 letter word, a vulgar phrase for kneeling during the national anthem in protest of police brutality against black and brown people; brutality he passively gave a green light to telling police not to be too careful with arrested individuals heads when putting them in the police car, because they dared advise a person hands cuffed behind their back when and how to bend their body as not to smack it on the ceiling of the vehicle. Advice the head of police departments had to come out and refute that no, they would not be following the president’s implied directive. Religious leaders supporting government policy on the border, regarding immigrants counter to what Jesus said about welcoming the stranger into your land and not ill-treating them, treating badly solely because they are a stranger, lock step behind republican policies on the poor gutting food stamps, affordable housing initiatives; when bothering to quote a bible verse to go with their cruelty, they opt for the one about if you do not work you shall not eat as opposed to Jesus’ words regarding looking after the fatherless, the widowed and the poor, not too difficult to extrapolate the disabled, making up the majority percentages utilizing such programs, more importantly, needing such programs. The jarring, lasting coarsening of our culture is that our children are seeing/experiencing what is happening whether it’s those children and what transpired with their black babysitter or the young man whose backpack brushed a women in that corner store then what he was immediately accused of; video proving him wholly innocent but not before the damage was done. Or what they hear the president say, hear about him doing on the news, see in action on video footage of rallies, meetings, events; not only is it a possibility they will internalize the vulgarity and violence, rudeness and mean spiritedness, what teachers told Chris Mathews demonstrates they already are. Hardly an isolated incident, compartmentalized to one school, district or state, region of the country when directly after Trump’s election students chanted build that wall at fellow classmates or those at a high school who gave the white power sign while walking a Trump banner through the hallway, kids getting bullied and beat up at school for theirs or their family’s political beliefs usually opposite the general area conservatives in a predominately democratic neighborhood, town, county, democrat in an overarching republican section of the country; schools who had to stop mock elections mirroring wider national democracy because of name calling, slurs and general chaos created. The problem isn’t that we have a Whitehouse correspondents’ dinner, it’s that we have a president who, the only people he knows are grifters, con men and greed obsessed individuals he then hired a collection of to work in critical sections running the government; EPA director Scott Pruitt who used the EPA’s government budget to give himself an 18 person 24/7 security detail, expensive biometric locks and a sound proof communications booth for his office, known for expensive first class flights and overseas trips, used his staff as his personal assistants to drive him around to Ritz Carlton hotels for lotion, tasked them with getting him a used mattress from a Trump hotel, thousands of dollars spent on fountain pens just scratching the surface of what he thought his government job was there to do for him, not what he was there to do for the American people. Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin who took a military plane to sit atop Fort Knox to view the recent eclipse, along with his wife disembarking from a different government plane wearing expressive accessories drawing ire on social media and elsewhere for advertising exactly what she was wearing as a defacto ad for the designers while her husband works for the government and again tone deafness to the majority of the American people just trying to get by; having the brazenness to ask to take a government plane on their 3 country honeymoon, thankfully that was denied. Ben Carson who bought $31,000 worth of a dining set for his office on the government’s dime then threw his wife under the bus blaming her when confronted about it, outrageous money spent despite an office decorating budget of $5,000, eventually canceling the order once it was made public knowledge; Carson who later dared asked what would happen if we didn’t remove lead paint from public housing (ignoring completely the devastating effect on children’s cognitive development, children a large percentage of those also living in public housing beside their parents) and recently certified as safe public housing units across the country with rats, roaches and toxic mold. The thousands of dollars spent on curtains for UN ambassador Nikki Hailey’s office customized and mechanized, former VA secretary David Shulkin overseas vacation and accepting Wimbledon tickets, former secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price’s extravagant travel is what lost him his Whitehouse position, Department of the Interior’s Ryan Zinke who can always find money to fly home, give his security detail lavish vacations but wants to shrink the size of national monuments for oil drilling; never mind what they and others have done in their respective offices to decimate their organization unto either telling the American people it doesn’t work so let’s get rid of it or privatizing it to make huge dollars for private contractors. The problem is it took the Whitehouse correspondents’ dinner and a hard hitting, no nonsense comedian for some elements of American society to see how bad things were getting only slated to get worse as the march of time proved; the problem isn’t that Samantha Bee said the c word on cable TV to the shock and horror of older adults clinging to their cords and her show as opposed to younger audiences and their streaming services, it’s that she felt compelled to use the c word, a word with such vulgar connotations to get her passionate point across. Sticking up for people, mothers and fathers who have nothing, who should be able to hold onto their children while making an asylum claim beside a self-absorbed first daughter lacking empathy to understand she has her child next to her and how they must feel facing that opposite void; totally unprepared for the inhumane separation adding an emotional blow that lead one father to commit suicide in detention. Compelled and contrasted against older adult supposed to be venerable, upstanding members of society, based on their age, who are fine with literally putting children in cages, any human being really but especially children who have committed no crime, content blaming the parents vindicates the actions of both the Trump administration and border agents. The problem isn’t that Roseanne Barr tweeted something racially offensive or a conspiracy theory like she has done numerous times before or that she did so while actively on a TV show just getting its revival off the ground, faux pas compounded by the turbulent times we live in, what we as a society have no longer come to tolerate since she was last a household name in the ‘90’s. ABC’s imprudent decision to reboot the show with her and her increasingly crazed, raciest history rather than making the show about the rest of the cast writing something along the lines of how they brought back John Goodman’s Dan though he died according to information in the original series finale, how the Gilmore Girls miniseries reboot handled the absence of Richard Gilmore post the actor’s real life passing. The problem is like so many lay persons, unknown names until they are headlined for their newly garnered police record they’re genuinely shocked they’re facing involving violence, hate crimes, sex assault, plain old assault on someone with differing views, of a different race, ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, suspected of being an immigrant or of a particular religion she felt emboldened by Trump, by her advancing age, her once, or growing in the modern era, celebrity status to say such a thing minus consequences; possibly bigger problem enveloping her is mental illness, several who know her, director Rob Reiner to name one, say both the racist and conspiracy comments are not like her. Bill Maher challenged her currently shouted political persuasions pointing out she correctly pegged most billionaires as violent pedophiles (now look at the #metoo movement) reminded her she’s a socialist and been one for decades, highlighting in the opening episode of the reboot her and her TV husband on the show were swapping each other’s meds because they couldn’t afford the all the ones they need correlating that to Trump’s repeated bait and switch promises talking tough to the pharmaceutical companies then selling out by doing nothing, sabotaging Obamacare instead of doing what he said he would ensure everyone was covered at lesser cost, Barr despite previous decades espousing opposing political views a Trump voter and avid supporter. The problem is the thousands to millions of similar age bracket older Americans she represents and what we haven’t done about addressing dementia, Alzheimer’s, cognitive decline, organic brain disease in said population, the persons close to Trump supporters who aren’t pushing them to get tested for those listed things, screened for mental illnesses potently there all their lives but growing to prominence, uncontrollable sans medial intervention in their older years, unto getting them urgently needed help. In fact we’ve normalized it as part of aging, as being either a grouchy old crank, a bitter old lady or if wealthy/rich, eccentric; yes racist old people are being outed in video on social media highlighted on the news usually facing charges for assault, harassment or hate crimes, like the old woman harassing 2 women for speaking Spanish in a grocery store, how common such instances have become and the recurring theme of graying hair and older age. But too often the focus is on the racial, bias, hate speech, hate crime element, what is says about larger society as a whole that an old woman can send a note to a family about their black child talking about it being a white neighborhood adding a veiled threat plus toilet papering the home, not about how unwell this person must be and how big a trend that component is as well. Nor is the problem with a thanksgiving argument between 2 sons and their father over NFL players kneeling, the fisticuffs ensuing among the adult children, the shotgun their father trotted out later telling police he felt physically incapable of breaking up the fight (why he ‘needed’ to shoot) injuring his own child, who thankfully didn’t die. The problem is older, particularly but not limited to, white people seem to have only 2 defaults for problem solving; call police on random black people doing normal daily activities, assume the worst of them like Corner Store Caroline did with a child, or bring violence into it. Whether that’s Ted Cruz telling people at a 2016 campaign rally just prior to his dropping out of the race the child heckler who told him he sucked, exercising his freedom of speech, were they in his house, his offspring they would get a spanking mimicking the countless teachers and resource officers caught on video being violent with students for relatively minor infractions; or, thinking you need to bring a weapon, not merely a gun, into breaking up a fight between your own grown children that consisted of one throwing the others bags/clothes into the yard. The problem is we have a president going all the way back to the campaign who had mental health professionals extremely worried, telling citizens he was exhibiting signs of a specific type of dementia, was exhibiting specific aspects of mental illness under the heading personality disorders and enough people voted for him anyway that he was able to obtain the electoral college vote count to win the presidency; the problem is the correlation between his mental un-wellness and the majority older persons who readily voted for him and their very possible un-wellness also horrifically impacting society. The problem is, as a prominent psychologist told Salon.com in the most updated piece, how many persons exhibiting this very clear personality disorder, cluster of combined disorders are being elected to powerful positions CEO’s to the president and the growing number of people willingly voting for them because they suffer from similar mental health struggles. The problem isn’t Meygn Kelly’s clueless, insensitive, ill-informed, ‘white privilege on steroids’ comments about blackface or that we can’t tell the difference between the old minstrel blackface denigrating black people as a race and ‘blackface’ makeup authenticating Halloween costumes, costume party outfits in admiration of known black persons media shown pictures of white people dressing up as the rap group NWA one of many examples, though that’s a smaller piece of it; the problem is when given a show to reach the masses talking about issues even in a morning talk show format she chose to talk about this particular sliver of race in America. Sadly we and NBC rose to the bait they fired Kelly either because it was a final straw coupled with her show’s persistent low ratings on top of her controversial comments or due to them alone owing to it being such a stunning public blunder none of which opens the conversation about why what she said is so wrong or the nuance laid out between denigration and admiration. And the last thing we should be doing is chastising comedians for pointing out its original source no matter how uncomfortable it is for their audience—us.

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