ABC and Starbucks do the right thing
Race. It’s America’s Great Unhealed Wound. It’s a subject that requires that you tread lightly, lest you court hostile rebukes.
I’m not treading lightly here. I don’t care. These things need to be said. Roseanne Barr is a classic racist.
Last Tuesday morning, she blindly waded into a controversy of her own making.
In the midst of her rage-tweeting about Chelsea Clinton and political activist George Soros, she did the unforgiveable.
She referred to President Obama’s White House Senior Advisor, Valerie Jarrett (an African American) as an ape.
Certainly, Barr must have known that when a person of one race, calls a person of another race an animal; an ape; less than human – that’s the definition of racism.
That’s a festering wound that’s existed in this country, and among some of its people, since before this country was founded.
By afternoon, and despite her apologies, Barr’s ABC show was canceled.
Ironically, later on that same day, 175,000 employees at 8,000 company-owned Starbucks stores underwent sensitivity training.
It was a direct result of the recent incident in which two black men were arrested at a Starbucks in Philadelphia, for no better reason than that they hadn’t ordered one of their overpriced lattes.
The heads of Starbucks and ABC immediately realized that some wrongs can be overcome.
But there’s more.
Perhaps it’s not widely known, but there are some mighty good reasons why two of America’s major corporations acted so quickly to make things right in the face of bad behavior.
Those reasons are Channing Dungey and Rosalind Brewer.
Channing Dungey is black, and she’s the president of ABC’s Entertainment Group.
Rosalind Brewer is the Chief Operating Officer of Starbucks. She’s black too.
Dungey was the person who informed the public that Barr’s show was being removed from the air.
“Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show,” Dungey wrote.
Perhaps Dungey had known that Barr had also called President Obama’s National Security Advisor, Susan Rice (also an African American), an ape in a tweet back in 2013.
So, a black woman, who probably isn’t on board with somebody referring to other black women as apes, made Dungey’s decision understandable.
And, at the same time, Rosalind Brewer obviously had some input into Starbucks decision to gather its workers nationwide and instruct them on ways to avoid racially profiling its customers.
These moves say more about Dungey and Brewer than they do about Starbucks and ABC.
And it’s a good thing. A very good thing.
Whenever there are powerful people of color who are in decision-making positions, major companies can’t help but pay attention.
That’s not to say that Starbucks and ABC wouldn’t have acted in the ways they’ve acted.
They simply had the valuable counsel of accomplished women who should be taken seriously.
How accomplished?
Brewer is the former president and CEO of Sam’s Club.
Dungey is the first black president of a major broadcast television network.
Meanwhile, Barr is unemployed.
And that allows her to say what she wants to say.
That means she’s unencumbered from common sense and untethered from common decency.
The morning following her demise, she commenced another twitter-storm.
To defend herself, she re-tweeted a picture of Whoopi Goldberg wearing a t-shirt, with a picture of Donald Trump shooting himself in the head.
Barr’s point was that Goldberg, who appears daily on ABC’s daytime program “The View,” has done far worse than she had when she called Valerie Jarrett an ape.
Barr’s point was pointless.
Goldberg appeared later that day, and she provided proof that she’d never worn such a t-shirt.
She’d actually been at a rally, and she showed the real picture side-by-side with the photoshopped picture Barr had retweeted.
And the message on Goldberg’s t-shirt had nothing to do with Donald Trump.
Goldberg’s response, “Just because you were caught with your pants down, don’t try to drag other people down with you.”
Another more powerful black woman just put Roseanne Barr in her place!
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter and anchor for Entertainment Tonight and 20-year TV news veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.