Yamiche Alcindor on Roseanne: Racism in America in 2018 Sometimes Still Gets You Fired

‘What you found out is that racism in America in 2018 sometimes still gets you fired’

EXCERPT:

ALCINDOR: "I mean I think that yes, ABC knew that they were getting someone who's provocative and getting someone who's probably going to make headlines and make some people uncomfortable. The show itself, even though I didn't watch it, when I would read stories about it, the fact that she didn’t like her Muslim neighbors there were some kind of back and forth about whether that was an appropriate way to talk about those issues in the show. The point is that in this case she not only picked a pretty racist tweet, she also picked someone who has a lot of sway and has a lot of power. Valerie Jarrett if you’re going to be racist, that’s the wrong person to pick to talk about. Valerie Jarrett obviously apart from being an adviser to the Obama, she’s also someone I think a player in Washington, someone who a lot of people respect. And as a result, she’s not going to just be maybe some, some person that you see on the Internet, who you could throw racist things at, but who maybe doesn’t have the power to fight back. So what I think we saw was Roseanne thinking, OK, well I can be a little bit more -- I can tweet this and be a little bit more provocative than usual because now I have the number one rated show and I have all this kind of cache, and what you found out was that racism in America in 2018 sometimes still gets you fired, not all the time, but sometimes."

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