Usually, the first day back at work after a long weekend is an uneventful one, but Roseanne Barr’s proclivity for tweeting xenophobic and racist trash had the news cycle running full tilt. Early Tuesday, the Roseanne star posted a “joke” on Twitter, comparing Valerie Jarrett, who served as senior advisor to former President Barack Obama, to an ape. The online backlash was swift, of course, as was ABC’s decision to cancel the sitcom revival, despite its successful comeback. But network president Channing Dungey made it clear that Barr’s “repugnant” remarks were “inconsistent with [ABC’s] values.”
Jarrett was actually scheduled to participate in an “Everyday Racism” town hall for MSNBC on Tuesday, where she followed former First Lady Michelle Obama’s advice (“when they go low, we go high”), encouraging others to view Barr’s bigoted attack as a “teaching moment.”
It doesn’t look like Barr is trying to learn from her experience, though. Despite announcing that she was leaving Twitter, the actor-comedian, who’s also been dropped by her talent agency, has been retweeting fans’ defense of her actions, as well as retweeting (then undoing) a debunked post that claimed Jarrett once said she make America “a more Islamic country.”
