Sorry, not sorry (June 6)

DEBBIE NORRELL

Why are people looking for apologies for bad behavior? Raise your hand if you remember doing something you should not have done as a child and your parent—normally your mother—told you to say that you were sorry. Under your breath you said, “sorry.” Then your mother said, “say it like you mean it.” As your tears start to flow you say, “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to do it.” In many cases you did mean to do it but you didn’t know there would be consequences for it if you were found out.
This most recent mess with Roseanne Barr is crazy. Barr posted a racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett, a former adviser to President Barack Obama. In the tweet, Barr compares Jarrett, a Black woman born in Iran, to an ape. I say most recent because if you dig into her past this type of behavior isn’t new. She created a media frenzy when she was asked to sing the National Anthem back in 1990 during a Cincinnati Reds vs. San Diego Padres baseball game. Barr did an off-key screaming version of the anthem and added a spit and a grab of her crouch to the ending. The then president, George H.W. Bush, even weighed in. No one was happy. The crowd booed her off the field. Now the tweet read around the world, Barr has given a pitiful apology and blamed the tweet on Ambien. The makers of Ambien quickly jumped in and said that racism is “not a side effect” of their drug. The highly-rated show starring Barr was canceled.
Everyone is feeling sorry for the worker bees around the Roseanne Show but Roseanne will probably be just fine. Reportedly her net worth is $80 million. So she can afford to call you an ape. The people that went down with the ship are the ones that will suffer.
Now let’s talk about comedian Samantha Bee. According to Wikipedia, Samantha Jamie Bee (born Oct. 25, 1969) is a Canadian-American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actress, and television host. Bee rose to fame as a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, where she became the longest-serving regular correspondent. In 2015, she departed the show after 12 years to start her own show, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. On a recent show she called the president’s daughter the C-word. Come on now that is just crude. If you are in the public, comedian or not, you have to think this stuff out.
This is a new day people. With the Internet and social media the words you say can travel across the world before you leave the stage. When your words are your livelihood you better go over them before they come out of your mouth. Samantha said, “I would like to sincerely apologize to Ivanka Trump and to my viewers for using an expletive on my show to describe her last night. It was inappropriate and inexcusable. I crossed a line, and I deeply regret it.”
Obviously, someone believes her she still has her job.
(Email Debbie at debbienorrell@aol.com.)
 
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