The Barr-iers to Speaking Frankly

[XLFD]

Whenever anybody tries to communicate to others, there is always the potential for a misunderstanding to occur simply because the receiver cannot read the mind of the sender and that their own experiences may render their interpretation of the message as something completely different as it was intended to be.  

This was nowhere more apparent here in Ludington back in the summer of 2016 when the city manager and a councilor took offense at words printed on this website by two of our more vocal members.  Neither of the two members said anything explicitly threatening, rather the two 'victims' read a lot more into the words than was ever meant (as both members told the LPD in their investigation).  

The end result of that investigation was a memorable meeting involving all local media outlets where the LPD Chief and the two 'victim' took terms lying without limit between spats of name-calling somebody whose only offense was that he allowed such inoffensive talk to not be censored.  While the incident likely cost me a lot of votes in that year's election, it also elicited a lot of sympathy from those who investigated the facts and came to the same conclusion as me, that it was nothing more than a witch hunt used to discredit two honorable businessmen who compete with the city's marina business, and a city council candidate looking to change the status quo.

In the same vein, a simple Twitter remark made by an eccentric actress who has had a surprisingly successful new network program has been interpreted by millions of people as saying a lot more than what it actually says.  Unless you've been living in a spider hole, you have probably heard of the tweet numerous times over the last three days:

Comedienne Roseanne Barr is obviously trying to create a mix & match joke, which typically starts off with the words:  "What do you get when you cross a _____ with a ______?"  At first glance the 'joke' does not appear all that funny, since few people know much about Valerie Jarrett to begin with to associate the two 'parents' with her.  Likewise, the Muslim Brotherhood is a religious group normally associated with terrorist acts, and the "Planet of the Apes" is a movie based on a French novel, rendering the baby-making difficult in the first place.  

Nevertheless, millions of people immediately either remarked or agreed with it being a 'racist' remark, rather than being just a very poor attempt at humor.  Frankly, I had never really noticed the race of Jarrett (pictured below) before, nor is it important to me.   The charge of racism, however, was noticeably found all over the place, and so I tried to figure out why.

 

Most pundits and reporters seemed to suggest that a "Planet of the Apes" reference in regards to a person who has any black ancestors was racism.  I disagree, and would suggest that such a connection actually implies that the person making such a link has their own failed issues with racism.  Let's consider that Barr is old enough to remember when the original movie came out and had likely viewed it over her lifetime.  

A look at the cast of characters of that movie shows that there was only one black actor used-- and that he was one of the astronauts (Dodge) who land on the planet, which we eventually find out to be a future earth.  It should be noted that there were no black Americans serving as astronauts until 15 years after this movie.

Every single ape, chimpanzee and orangutan in the film was portrayed by white folks, most considered handsome or beautiful at the time, such as Kim Hunter as Zira:

Racism was definitely not a main theme of the novel (1963) or the original movie (1968), but like any good work of art, some made those connections, like Sammy Davis Jr. who said the film was the best allegory on race relations he'd ever seen.  This was definitely understandable with the racial tensions of those times.  The main themes of the movie seem to be allegories of an apocalyptic and dystopian future, and about animal rights.   

As the Muslim Brotherhood's membership is not restricted by race but by religion, the racism reference definitely is misplaced regarding that.  It should be noticed, that Jarrett had often served as the Obama Administration's liaison between Muslim organizations of questionable reputation and the White House, where she was a key advisor to the president.  She has never revealed her own personal faith during all that time.

So where does the charge of racism come from?  Roseanne appears to not have meant any herself from her tweets immediately following the outrage, she only begins to apologize later on when the chorus of racism becomes overwhelming.  Why do some people want to assign their own limited perceptions to another person's words when the meaning is far from clear?  The poor mix & match coupling choice had people wondering what her "Planet of the Apes" reference was all about, and a tweet doesn't offer a lot of room for instant explanations.  

The critics and name-callers may have attached their own internal racism and prejudices against the unapologetically conservative actress to what was a poorly constructed and conceived joke.  Those are the prejudices and racisms we all need to curb, rather than use that ignorance for some nefarious or political purpose as too many folks are wont to do.  Such incidences of intolerance only goes further to erode our First Amendment protections.

[Willy]

Stump is only relaying his experiences and perceptions just like everyone else does. Can't fault someone for that just because somebody may disagree with it. In my opinion there are a lot of conservative blacks who are also intimidated if they do not support the leftists agenda.

[stump]

  As the guy said in the video, the only color that matters is the RED WHITE AND BLUE  and I still think ROSEANNE is a slime  ball.