[The episode I'm referring to is the one that Dr. Oz had Roseanne Barr and Shmuley Boteach on and asked her about the "imfamous" tweet]
I am currently watching Dr. Oz and I am livid right now. I am very upset that Dr. Oz would have this circus on his program.
Roseanne Barr is rude, crude and very right wing. I find a lot of what she says offensive. BUT (and this is VERY important) this is not an offense that should be punished by having her lose her parnasa (her job/profession).
Dr. Oz, I might add, who I have up until now loved and respected, clearly showed a bias against Roseanne. He not only didn't want to accept anything she said (for example, she kept saying nothing is an excuse just an explanation and he kept mentioning her "excuses" and another example is when he claimed to understand what Jews, particularly pro-Israel Jews, feel because he's Turkish -- if he thinks that he clearly doesn't get it. When and where were Turks slaughtered? When and where was Turkey called an apartheid state? When and where did the entire world gang up on Turkey? But I digress....)
The panel that Dr. Oz had on afterwards blamed Roseanne for using words that real racists have used to describe African Americans. Firstly, Roseanne didn't even know that Valerie Jarrett was African American (she was born in Iran, after all -- what are there, 5 African Americans in Iran????) and secondly, she tried (with little success; when someone WANTS to be offended that person WILL be offended) to explain what she meant -- she didn't call her an Ape -- she was referring to the distopic movie Planet of the Apes which is a movie about humans rising up to overthrow their oppressors. I don't recall anyone on the left calling Pierre Boulle a racist for writing the book or saying that his intention was to portray any people as Apes in his book. Roseanne, FWIW, said that what she meant was that Valerie Jarrett (the author of the Iran "deal" that threw Israel under the bus and put my relatives and Roseanne's relatives who live in Israel in danger from nuclear attacks) was an enemy of the people for giving Iran that much power (at least that is how I interpret her explanation).
As a Jew, I find the term "Good Samaritan" go be highly offensive and Antisemitic. If you don't understand why, read the story as it is told in the "New" Testament. It intimates that Jews are hard-hearted and only a Samaritan was warm-hearted and helped this man. Ask the Haitians, the Japanese, the Chileans, Syrian refugees and many others which country sent help before all the others -- hint: it was Israel.
But, I must tell you, while I find it offensive, I understand why so many people use the term. I would never expect someone to lose their job or be excoriated for using this offensive term.
By the way, offending someone is not a crime. Even being a racist is not a crime (it is only a crime if it leads you to hurt or kill someone because of that racism). There is no law in the constitution (or even "on the books") guaranteeing people the "right" to not be offended.
The difference between when I am thinking something is offensive and when the "Left" is thinking something is offensive is I don't assume the person using the offensive term is an Antisemite. I don't assume the person who uses the offensive term in intentionally using a term I find offensive or is trying to offend me or say that I'm not as good as (s)he is because I'm Jewish. I don't talk to the NYT (not that they'd listen to me) and put on a hair-shirt and beat my chest over the terrible wrong that the person who said "Good Samaritan" did to me and my people.
Can we please stop impeding free speech by making everyone check out every perfectly good English word or cultural icon or pop culture term to see if it has buried somewhere in the minds of "Leftists" some "offensive" meaning because we might lose our jobs or our ability to inform because we unintentionally (or even intentionally) use a word that offends a segment of the population (and don't pull the "minority vs. majority" card on me -- I'm an Orthodox Jew -- we're only about 10%, if that much, of 2% of the US population and even less of the world population) might find offensive? Funny how "free speech" and "open-mindedness" are becoming more a part of the conservative agenda these days than of the "left" and "progressives" (Theordore Roosevelt is whirling dervishly in his grave over the use of this term by people such as Andrew Cuomo who think this country was never great). "Progressive" should not mean some Orwellian hell where words and meanings are twisted and people communicate through emoticons.
Roseanne Barr is rude, crude and very right wing. I find a lot of what she says offensive. BUT (and this is VERY important) this is not an offense that should be punished by having her lose her parnasa (her job/profession).
Dr. Oz, I might add, who I have up until now loved and respected, clearly showed a bias against Roseanne. He not only didn't want to accept anything she said (for example, she kept saying nothing is an excuse just an explanation and he kept mentioning her "excuses" and another example is when he claimed to understand what Jews, particularly pro-Israel Jews, feel because he's Turkish -- if he thinks that he clearly doesn't get it. When and where were Turks slaughtered? When and where was Turkey called an apartheid state? When and where did the entire world gang up on Turkey? But I digress....)
The panel that Dr. Oz had on afterwards blamed Roseanne for using words that real racists have used to describe African Americans. Firstly, Roseanne didn't even know that Valerie Jarrett was African American (she was born in Iran, after all -- what are there, 5 African Americans in Iran????) and secondly, she tried (with little success; when someone WANTS to be offended that person WILL be offended) to explain what she meant -- she didn't call her an Ape -- she was referring to the distopic movie Planet of the Apes which is a movie about humans rising up to overthrow their oppressors. I don't recall anyone on the left calling Pierre Boulle a racist for writing the book or saying that his intention was to portray any people as Apes in his book. Roseanne, FWIW, said that what she meant was that Valerie Jarrett (the author of the Iran "deal" that threw Israel under the bus and put my relatives and Roseanne's relatives who live in Israel in danger from nuclear attacks) was an enemy of the people for giving Iran that much power (at least that is how I interpret her explanation).
As a Jew, I find the term "Good Samaritan" go be highly offensive and Antisemitic. If you don't understand why, read the story as it is told in the "New" Testament. It intimates that Jews are hard-hearted and only a Samaritan was warm-hearted and helped this man. Ask the Haitians, the Japanese, the Chileans, Syrian refugees and many others which country sent help before all the others -- hint: it was Israel.
But, I must tell you, while I find it offensive, I understand why so many people use the term. I would never expect someone to lose their job or be excoriated for using this offensive term.
By the way, offending someone is not a crime. Even being a racist is not a crime (it is only a crime if it leads you to hurt or kill someone because of that racism). There is no law in the constitution (or even "on the books") guaranteeing people the "right" to not be offended.
The difference between when I am thinking something is offensive and when the "Left" is thinking something is offensive is I don't assume the person using the offensive term is an Antisemite. I don't assume the person who uses the offensive term in intentionally using a term I find offensive or is trying to offend me or say that I'm not as good as (s)he is because I'm Jewish. I don't talk to the NYT (not that they'd listen to me) and put on a hair-shirt and beat my chest over the terrible wrong that the person who said "Good Samaritan" did to me and my people.
Can we please stop impeding free speech by making everyone check out every perfectly good English word or cultural icon or pop culture term to see if it has buried somewhere in the minds of "Leftists" some "offensive" meaning because we might lose our jobs or our ability to inform because we unintentionally (or even intentionally) use a word that offends a segment of the population (and don't pull the "minority vs. majority" card on me -- I'm an Orthodox Jew -- we're only about 10%, if that much, of 2% of the US population and even less of the world population) might find offensive? Funny how "free speech" and "open-mindedness" are becoming more a part of the conservative agenda these days than of the "left" and "progressives" (Theordore Roosevelt is whirling dervishly in his grave over the use of this term by people such as Andrew Cuomo who think this country was never great). "Progressive" should not mean some Orwellian hell where words and meanings are twisted and people communicate through emoticons.
