Roseanne, Race and “They’re Just Like Us” | Psychology Today

Roseanne Barr has returned to television with her hit show of the 90s, “Roseanne.” It opened with a ratings smash, and has already been renewed for a second season. The show was influential before, and it seems likely to be influential again – not just because of its comedy, but also because of its outspoken star, who is renowned for her support of President Trump. Barr has even been called a Trump Twitter Troll. I missed the first two episodes, but got home just in time for a quip on the third episode that soon set the media buzzing.

Roseanne is on the couch with Dan, her husband. They’ve just woken up.

“It’s eleven o’clock,” Roseanne says. “We slept from ‘Wheel’ to ‘Kimmel.’” Dan replies, “We missed all the shows about black and Asian families.” Roseanne says dismissively and derisively, “They’re just like us! There, now you’re all caught up.”

Kelvin Yu, co-star of Master of Noneand writer on Bob’s Burgerswrote an attention-getting Twitter thread about the joke that turned into an Op-Ed in the New York Times (“Roseanne: When a Punch Line Feels Like a Gut Punch,” April 13, 2018). Emily Nussbaum of the New Yorker followed suit with a critical article that noted the dismissiveness of the joke and tied it to Disney/ABC’s wish to court the Trump administration for its pending purchase of Fox (“How One Joke On Roseanne Explains the Show,” April 21, 2018).

I felt something, too, when I heard that joke. A slight twist in the stomach, but nothing as dramatic as my reaction to Katy Perry’s 2013 performance in geisha costume at the American Music Awards (“Yes, Katy Perry’s Performance Was Racist, Here’s Why”, November 24, 2013). That blog post really hit a chord, and remains my most-viewed post of all time. (Indeed, studies show anger is the most viral emotion, as noted in my book Facebuddha: Transcendence in the Age of Social Networks – which just won a Nautilus Award, btw :))

I didn’t take to Twitter or write a blog post, though. I puzzled about my subdued reaction for days. Had I become inured to insults, after nearly 2 years of the Trump Effect? Was there just so much to react to that a TV character’s snide remark just didn’t rate? Had I grown too comfortable and privileged, resulting in apathy? Was I giving Roseanne the benefit of the doubt, allowing her to express an ignorant and condescending view while trusting the audience not to take her seriously? Was I trusting that the audience would laugh at her crassness, and not agree with her? After all, she was playing a character, not stating a Biblical truth. Was this kind of an ‘insider joke’ considering that the “Black and Asian” shows were both on ABC as well – all TWO of them?

Perhaps.

But as I thought about it more over the last few weeks, I think I had a less antagonistic and more ambivalent response because Roseanne touched on something which I and many others struggle with on a daily basis. At some moments, everyone is “just like us,” and at other times, we are all incredibly different, not just in categories of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc., but in every other nuance that makes us unique individuals.

We live out a duality of sameness and difference every day, and do our best to navigate the world while holding this duality. Both sides of the debate are true in their own way. Roseanne the character on the TV show and Roseanne Barr the actor and I share quite a lot, as human beings, as Americans, as fellow denizens of this peculiar moment in space-time. And yet we are incredibly different as well.

President Johnson famously stood alongside Dr. King and proclaimed that they were both of the same race – the human race. This was profound and important for its day, coming from the most powerful man in the world. In Barack Obama’s cadence at the 2004 Democratic Convention, this became “There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America—there's the United States of America.” Obama emphasized sameness and commonality of spirit as a unifying force, inspiring the nation and even the world.

But when power refuses to see difference, it devalues in its wake. In fact, there is a Black America, White America, Latino America and Asian America; a Gay America and a Straight America. We are currently in a furor over “identity politics,” with some claiming that this emphasis on difference is divisive. Yet identity politics exists primarily as a reaction to the invisibilising denial of difference, leading to disparities in opportunity, health outcomes, financial resources, and many other important domains of life. We emphasize identity when we fear erasure, when we experience the effects of not being seen.

Yet we must also lay down our differences as well, to reflect on our common humanity. For me, common humanity rests on a recognition of our underlying vulnerability as human beings. While there are some more vulnerable than others, we are all essentially vulnerable and insecure as human beings. Recognition of this fact is the basis of compassion.

So perhaps Roseanne, made uncomfortable by changing demographics and feeling her own economic and physical vulnerability, struggles with sameness and difference too – and is still unsure of how it all fits together. She is at times hostile and dismissive to difference, and at other times demands to be treated as unique. At other times, she does want to be just like everyone else. That’s what it’s like to be human.

In that respect, I think she is “just like us.”

Still, maybe there were other jokes that could have worked in that moment, allowing for some acknowledgment of suffering and different experience. Try these on for size:

Dan: “We missed all the shows about black and Asian families.”

Roseanne: “They’re just like us! There, now you’re all caught up.”

Dan: “You mean they’re fat and poor too?”

Roseanne: “I hope so.”

Or

Dan: “We missed all the shows about black and Asian families.”

Roseanne: “They’re just like us! There, now you’re all caught up.”

Dan: “Well, at least they’ve earned the right to laugh at us now.”

Roseanne: “Yeah, slavery and racism really paid off for them, huh.”

Or

Dan: “We missed all the shows about black and Asian families.”

Roseanne: “They’re just like us! There, now you’re all caught up.”

Dan: “They're just like us? You mean they're pretty?” (A big, hammy grin.)

Roseanne: “Yeah, black and brown are beautiful. Get used to it."

Are Whites just like Asians, Blacks or Latinos? Of course not, any more than any individual is just like any other individual. We have to be aware of and sensitive to diversity and the widely different life histories we bring to this moment.

But we do have to keep in mind our common humanity as well.

Our survival depends on holding this duality consciously. As that t-shirt popular in Southeast Asia proclaims: “Same Same – But Different!”

I hope Roseanne’s writers can look for this deeper truth, and not settle for cheap and devaluing laughs. We all need to laugh, these days – just not so much at each other’s expense. And we certainly don’t need power to punch down. We are getting too much of that as it is.

(c) 2018 Ravi Chandra, M.D., D.F.A.P.A.