Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

I come not to defend Roseanne Barr nor to bury her. I really don’t give a hang about what some actress says or thinks, and my only question is why is this world news, including being on BBC. Why in hell is what some random American actress, not particularly well known overseas, said or what she meant a reason to create a hue and cry in England? Except of course the left thinks it supports their narrative.

I really couldn’t care less about Roseanne. In fact, I had to look up her last name before I wrote this. If I ever saw her in anything at all, I don’t remember. Which is no big deal. I never remember actors. As my family has been known to say, “If mom starts recognizing actors and actresses, it’s time to look in the basement for pods, because that ain’t mom.”

The language, though, and the freedom to use it? That I care passionately about. And I’m getting sick and tired of words that are okay in certain circumstances and not in others.

So, this Valerie Jarret thing. Roseanne Barr apparently said she looks like a cross between the Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes.

She’s not wrong. Jarret doesn’t have particularly simian features, at least to my eyes, but her eyes have that curious flat, “odd” look of the actors in planet of the apes. I don’t know why. I mean, I know why in the actors. The makeup creates a certain immobility that gives the eyes a fixed stare. I don’t know why in Jarret. Botox, maybe? As for the Muslim brotherhood, that’s harder to defend. We know Jarret has family ties to it, but what does the Muslim brotherhood look like? Perhaps really angry? Which Jarret tends to look. Like she’s barely keeping from yelling at you.

So?

So furor erupts because apparently Jarret’s father is black. Guys, I’m pretty well plugged in to politics, and I did not know that. Not a clue. Jarret doesn’t look it. Hell, I have more African features, as does #1 son. (But then the technical term for black people whose ancestors have been in America very long is “Caucasian.” By the characteristics used in SA to determine the race of a foundling of no known parentage, most of American Blacks, from texture of hair to eye color at birth are white. Never has so much been made of such a tiny difference.)

So was Roseanne being racist? Who the f*ck knows? She’s an actress. She was being noisy and bombastic, after her kind.

The indications are, though, that no she wasn’t trying to be racist. If she were she would not have immediately apologized. And also, for someone who lives in the public eye, she would have “revealed” herself long before now.

The fact is that there is vanishingly little racism in America (trust me. Take a tour of Europe or yeah the middle East and you’ll see racism.)

But, you’ll say, there were early Darwinists who said blacks were closer to apes. And also people sometimes call blacks apes, and also—

I’m going to stop you right there and call bullshit. Stinking, runny bullshit.

Yeah, some people might have compared blacks to apes. SOME PEOPLE HAVE COMPARED ALL HUMANS TO APES. A common term for kids is Yard Apes. Granted, some humans look more simian than others. I haven’t noticed it following any kind of race lines.

I mean, we had George “Chimpy” Bush (and yeah, I know what people were seeing) and people have said that Trump is “half orangutan” and “watches the gorilla channel.” Are those racist? Would they have been racist if said about Obama? Would they be racist if said about me if you didn’t know I have African blood? What if you did?

Look, the idea here is that Roseanne Barr has really always been racist and chose this moment, now, when she has a hit show and has declared her support for Trump and the left is out for her blood to let her freak flag fly. This makes sense in what land? She’s been an actress in the public eye a long time. Were she a massive racist, people would have talked before now. And knowing the environment she works in, she HAS to know they were out to get her. So why would she choose this moment to betray her racism?

“Oh, it was unconscious.” Really? Really? So her unconscious racism analyzed Jarret’s DNA and decided to go public with her racism now?

Unconscious racism doesn’t work like that. She would have to look at Jarret and see “black” first. She obviously saw Arab (which is what sane person sees)because she used that first. So the planet of the apes is not a race-whistle.

In fact the only people who think blacks look like apes are the left. Have to, because not only do they keep bringing it up again and again, but they excuse referring to white people as apes (no one who called Bush chimpy lost his job/show/whatever, and they were all making jokes about Trump and the gorilla channel) and only get upset if black people are compared to apes. That means in their minds, all black people are associated with apes.

Yep, we found the racists. It’s THEIR problem, not anyone else’s. They’re looking past the tree trunk in their eyes and seeing specs in everyone’s.

And this pisses me off, because I’m tired of it. Recently, someone I know got in trouble, in an academic setting for using the phrase “niggling doubt.” Oh, the administration knows what niggling means. They just thought it was his “unconscious racism” causing him to use a word that sounded like “the n word”.

Seriously? I’m done. All these amateur Freudians think that we say something when we mean our mother, when the obsession is in THEIR minds, not ours.

Is the left enormous racists? Indications are yes. I say they need to deal with it, instead of running around calling everyone else racists.

Are there racists among us? Probably. Let them do so and they’ll self declare (I could point you to blogs, guys! They’re not shy about it.)

Thing is, see, racists are not ashamed of being racists. They don’t use code words or try to “imply” (again I can point you at blogs.) They just SAY it.

It’s only the left that’s neurotic enough to both be racist and try to hide it. It would help if they came to terms with that “party of slavery” thing already.

Meanwhile what I really care about: the English language.

If I decide my kids are yard apes, I’m going to call them that. The same for adoptive/fandom grandkids, who are so pale they reflect the sun. They are cute little monkeys. If I think someone is acting like a monkey or has the curious, flat look of actors in planet of the apes, I’m going to say that. And I’m not, now or ever, look at their DNA test before calling them that.

That’s not how racism works guys. Racism is out and proud, not hints and inferences.

And humans are great apes. ALL HUMANS. Which is why George Bush got called a chimp. It’s the brows and the expressions. And it wasn’t racist, unless you’re accusing him of being a member of the human race.

Not one more word, left. You’ve corrupted the language enough, until you’re talking in a completely different tongue which, to be understood, relies on a repository of Marxist crazy, where wearing the wrong dress to the prom is “problematic” and Niggardly and Niggling are “racist code words” against all linguistic sense. Oh, and “Ladies” is an insult to all women, against all linguistic AND historical sense. And “history” is sexist, because what about “herstory.”

You can choose to be illiterate morons, but you can’t choose what the rest of us think and say. We’re tired of your games, and we’ll say what we please, and if you take offense we’ll tell you Honi soit qui mal y pense. Or for your historically illiterate selves we are rubber, you are glue.

When we say something we don’t mean your mother. We will tell you right out that your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.

And we’ll tell you that we don’t care what words mean when you spin them through the tilt-a-whirl that passes for your brain. Your tantrums and insanity only ensure you get more Trump. If that’s what you want (seems to be!) carry on.

Meanwhile, you shall not take a single word more from our repertoire. Not one more verb, adverb, noun, adjective or yes, article. Hands off the English language. You want to speak crazy tongue, do so.

But stop psychoanalyzing everyone else. It is you who are crazy.

 

Reproduced from According to Hoyt for May 30, 2018.