Month: April 2017

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Of Holocaust and street riots: What’s wrong with people?

The last week of April brought together two horrible memories in modern human history.  One was Holocaust remembrance week, the other the 25th anniversary of the Los Angeles riots.  Both events have one thing in common: mob mentality.

The Holocaust didn’t just happen overnight.  It can’t be blamed singularly on Hitler either.  For centuries, before and after Christianity, Jews were a persecuted people.  Migrating to Europe and regions that would form Germany met with even more persecution.  For generations Jews could only hold certain jobs.  Non Jews would not associate, trade, or do business with Jews.  Sound familiar in our own American history?

Given where I grew up in Texas, I have known very few people who were Jewish.  One was through college, a piano teacher from Queens New York.  I have been privileged to have met a couple of Holocaust survivors.  One was a Jewish Christian; another was speaking on a lecture tour, his premise about how hate turns into evil.  He was 15 when his family was sent to concentration camps.  He still bore a tattoo of numbers on his forearm.  He said the Force put it there.  When he was 19, his camp was liberated.  He ran to a nearby house, was fed soup and allowed to shower.  He weighed 80 pounds and did not recognize the old man staring back at him in the mirror.  He ended up coming to Dallas and became prosperous in the scrap metal business, a trade his Nazi captors taught him as he had to take apart Allied planes downed by the Germans.

Words of hate

There was a phrase, a racial epithet, spoken throughout Europe that as a Texan I had never heard: dirty Jew.  I cannot recall any member of my family or friends ever saying it … or for that matter even the word ‘Jew’ other than quoting the Bible or speaking of Jesus.  We did not live in or near a known Jewish community.  Our only reference was from TV shows like “All in the Family,” Jewish comedians, movies or news from major cities like New York.

I grew up in a part of Texas where Jews were never spoken against but were never known, too.  They were a cultural mystery.  Only after high school did I realize there were a couple of classmates who were Jewish and kept it to themselves as the rest of us openly celebrated Christmas with presents and music and loving sentiments.

In recent years I learned of the centuries-old offensive phrase ‘dirty Jew.’  I could not imagine why anyone would say it or think it.  From my background, Jewish people were never ‘dirty.’  What could that have meant?  What’s the reference?  Why the word ‘dirty,’ meaning filthy?  Why that judgment against those people, a religious people, a righteous biblical people?  Why was it such a common thought throughout Europe and in some large multi-ethnic American cities with a notable Jewish population?

The only people who made Jews filthy were Nazi captors in the concentration camps where the only shower Jews may have been provided was a gas chamber to kill them.  Now who were the real dirty people—with ugly thoughts, filthy mouths, stained heart and soul?

There is a phrase, a racial epithet, spoken throughout the United States, maybe more so in the South.  I’ve heard it all my life.  I have family and friends who still use the word, the description of a people.  It is offensive to a lot of us in the middle-aged generation.  Yet the word is a source of pride somehow among some black youth and had become a notable lyric in rap songs, however still bleeped from public air waves on radio.

When the Los Angeles street riots happened in 1992, following a not guilty verdict of white police officers who beat a black man under arrest, Americans were shocked.  And that would have included me back then.  Turned out, only white America was surprised.  The black American experience is so different, so Bizarro World from white America, that it is and remains unbelievable.  Why would blacks riot, shatter glass on cars and business strips and then loot and set them on fire?

For three days white America could not understand, called it a shame, a pity, very sad.  Blacks understood.  They may not have a Holocaust tattoo on their forearms.  But they are born with a racial designation that has kept them down throughout American history—and many still insist keeps them down to this day.

Why can’t we all just get along?

Racial and ethnic segregation is created by the people in power.  It is innate and cannot be helped.  It comes from the brain, the primitive part of the human brain, the fight-or-flight part of the brain, the part that is fully developed in early childhood and never really changes despite higher education and continuous addressing of and focus on the issue especially at work and by law.

To most Americans, Los Angeles meant Hollywood, Beverly Hills, the movie and TV industry, posh, wealth, glamour.  For decades it’s been portrayed as the best America has to offer: sun and fun, money and privilege, youth and promise, clean and beautiful.  The other side of L.A. was never featured in the movies or TV shows because America did not want to see it.  Maybe I’m talking 1950s America.  But the same could be said of 1980s America.  What we put before our eyes on TV or the movie screen was what the people in power wanted to see.

Twenty-five years ago I saw the L.A. riots through live TV coverage.  I’ll never forget ‘rioters’ attempting to kill people, in particular that long-haired man dragged out of his delivery truck and smashed repeatedly with cinder blocks.  He could have been killed.  And we would have witnessed a real murder on live TV: blacks killing a white man.

Then a year or so later, we saw the trial of those caught on tape during the riots trying to stomp that man to death.  And we had to listen to the defense use ‘mob mentality’ to explain how the human brain reacts in such conditions: that people caught up in a raging riot just go along with whatever the majority is doing–and in that regard are not responsible for their actions.  Sound familiar in German history of the 1930s?

Anybody believe this?  The L.A. jury did.  The rioters were found not guilty of attempted murder.  Even more incredible is that the man they tried to kill—seen on tape just like the Rodney King police beating—forgave his assailants in the courtroom.  He held no grudge.  He remembers absolutely nothing of his brutal beating and near death.  Unrecalled memory is his blessing from God.

For the rest of us who saw it and remember, there is but one solution.  The solution is: Think before acting.  Don’t we teach children this lesson:  If your buddy is throwing a brick on another guy’s head, would you pick up a brick and do the same thing?

From Nazi Germany to modern-day American street riots, people have the power of personal responsibility.  We can blame people and circumstances for perceived miserable lives: from parents to teachers, schools, bosses, society, guns, gangs, drugs, police, racism, bigotry, poverty and prison. Yet there is no escaping the fact that each of us holds the power to control our tongues and thoughts, attitudes and behavior … before a hateful majority rules.

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Marijuana: all together now

Quietly—with little notice or even controversy—Dallas passed a new marijuana law.  Called ‘cite and release,’ the ordinance allows citizens to possess up to four ounces of weed without having to go to jail.  Like, wow.  This blows my mind.  Finally the Man gives a wink/wink to all the people, young and old, who smoke pot … who are never ever going to stop smoking pot … for the past fifty years or so … whether it’s legal or not.

We are seeing nationwide a huge shift in the marijuana debate.  There is no debate anymore.  NORML is normal.  Just breathe, breathe in the air …

It was bound to happen, though I figured it would be rather late in my lifetime.  I remember when Ann Richards was given a hard time by the mass media for not answering the drug question as she ran for Texas governor.  George W. Bush never had to answer the drug question either.  Barack Obama answered and still was elected president twice.  So our nation has changed.  The majority of Americans do not care about this particular drug being illegal anymore.

The ’70s show

You will not believe this but … back at my old suburban high school, there were two outdoor smoking lounges for the students.  Before my arrival, the campus had conducted a big debate and vote to allow a student smoking lounge so kids would stop smoking in the restrooms.  And it worked really well.  Yeah, in my day, the kids who smoked—and they were the cool kids even with subtle coughs and throat clearing and that awful smell on their clothes—would come to class, lay their pack of smokes on top of their desks, and pay attention to whatever subject was being taught.  I’m not kidding.

Of course, along with the leniency toward smoking cigarettes, which were somehow legal for kids to get in those days, (I forget this point; seems like only age 18 and older could buy them, so how were we allowing kids to smoke cigarettes anyway?) came a pushing of the envelope.  On occasion the sweet aroma of marijuana wafted from the teen smoke lounge and intermingled with the Camels and Virginia Slims.  Society forgot that kids push boundaries.  That’s what they do.  That’s what childhood is for.  Society also had forgotten that teen-agers are kids, albeit really big and immature kids.

I guess adults in those days were not going to see past the smoke and mirrors.  Cocaine and heroin were the big drugs that worried parents.  As the kids themselves would say, marijuana is like an aspirin compared to hard drugs.  Then some kids did get hooked, searching for that elusive high and rush from harder drugs.  But overall few who tried marijuana became drug addicts for any lengthy period.

The dance continued until the mid 1980s when the student smoking lounges—did I mention there were two, one for the new freshmen campus—were closed down.  The times had changed dramatically with a full-fledged, alleged war on drugs in America.  Youth were being programmed to just say no to drugs.  But teen life and modern childhood come with a lot of baggage, more so if the kids come from parents who themselves do drugs.  And that scenario was played out in a major anti-drug TV commercial: the one where the father walks into his adolescent boy’s bedroom and confronts him about a shoe box of pot, demanding to know where he learned to do this sort of thing.  “You!” the kid retorts, “I learned it from watching you!”  The father hangs his head and turns sadly in defeat.

Half baked idea

From Woodstock when Jerry Garcia held up a joint and proclaimed “Exhibit A,” police departments cutting out marijuana questions on recruit applications, to all the free-wheeling, pot-smoking, drug-toking movies and rock lyrics and concerts of the past half century, finally the figurative smoke has cleared.  The debate is OVER.  Pot won.  My generation of former high school cigarette and pot smokers must be dancing in the streets.  That is, if we can get off our hind ends without a walking cane.

Medical marijuana is becoming legalized throughout the nation and is recreational in Colorado.  For the past few years, the Texas Legislature has some young elected official who tries to open the marijuana laws only to be shut down by the Old Gray Guard.  But it’s just a matter of time before Texas sees the light, like Dallas.  The majority of the voting public—democrat and republican—do not care about marijuana remaining illegal and especially with a prison sentence.  And our prisons are mostly full of people convicted of nonviolent drug crimes.

The reason for Dallas City Council’s change of heart to permit a small amount of marijuana without a trip to jail came from listening to minority communities.  A black ministerial alliance had asked for a cite-and-release solution for up to four ounces of weed, explaining how rare it is for black youth—but really many, many people of all ethnicities and ages—to get a break if caught by police for low-level offenses related to, say, driving, no license, no insurance, no registration, and then a bag of weed, too.  If someone’s in jail, that person often loses a job, and many other financial problems follow.  It’s a hole the individual can never escape financially.

The flip side, the law-and-order side, is Don’t Do Drugs.  It’s that simple.  But a society is not at all simple.  There has never been in the course of human history a simple place, a simple time, a simple era.  And societies evolve and change slowly yet radically … especially in the span of fifty to sixty years.

Marijuana may be nothing to go to jail over.  It obviously does not create a violent streak.  The effects of marijuana are not the same as legal alcohol consumption or manufactured illegal narcotics, even prescription drugs.  Some pot smokers may feel the need to try harder drugs and will even spiral into addiction and criminal activity.  But like the old hippies have been trying to tell us since the ’60s: Marijuana grows on God’s green earth for some reason.  What could it be?

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The O’Reilly factor. Figures.

When I was a newspaper reporter, I used to watch Bill O’Reilly every night.  I figured I needed to stay in the know, and his show did present several sides of an issue, at least two sides.  My liberal friends cringed at the thought and asked how I could stand him.  “I don’t like watching him,” I replied. “I like to watch the sparring.”

In the late 1990s, O’Reilly did seem to cover important topics, inviting many liberals to come on his show to debate.  He also had many show biz types like Suzanne Somers who was writing books about nontraditional and holistic cancer treatment.  Being a man, he fawned over her, smiling while discussing her monumental stardom after just one year on “Three’s Company.”  Keeping her hair white blonde didn’t hurt.  Besides, her eyes sparkled, too.

O’Reilly kept his show cool bringing in Republicans from heavy metal bands to Hollywood actors and actresses.  The question always came up about people of their stature turning conservative, usually a quality their fans did not realize or assume.  The answer was the same:  They had traveled the world and seen dire poverty and social injustice.  Their minds were opened to the benefits of capitalism especially in nondemocratic and socialist nations.  O’Reilly smiled, his eyes sparkled in agreement.

Then something happened that turned me off “The O’Reilly Factor.”  George W. Bush was running for president, and O’Reilly appeared to be his number one fan.  Bush would come on the show and unpretentiously say things like, “Why do I need to go talk to Al Sharpton?”  O’Reilly gushed: finally a political candidate unconcerned about political correctness.  O’Reilly had lost his objectivity.

I stopped watching “O’Reilly” every night, catching it occasionally while flipping the channels to see a topic of interest.  What I started noticing especially on Thursday nights was the ‘babes’ he had on to ‘spar’ with him.  These professional women usually were educated attorneys well respected in their fields with specific details on topical and controversial court cases or arrests and could provide insight and maybe a counter to O’Reilly’s societal cynicism.

But I couldn’t get past the visual: the lips, the makeup, the hair, the tight dress, the full bosom, the cleavage.  What’s up with that?  The FOX network came along with shows like “Married with Children” and “The Simpsons” to cater to America’s love of the bawdy and OK maybe the body, the female body.  Somehow this in-your-face sex appeal crossed over into the FOX News division, too.  No other female network newscasters and reporters look or dress like the FOX girls.  There’s a reason.

Oh and somehow FOX News becomes the leader in conservative news.  How can this be?  Just put two and two together.  Or just two.  For all the sizzling hot female correspondents sparring on “the no spin zone,” O’Reilly remained aged and aging, turkey neck in check.  Never a face lift or jowl tightening.  Good thing for him there’s a double standard.

So what I’m saying is a professional woman cannot be taken seriously by men, white or blue collar, when she’s showing her cleavage.  It just isn’t possible.  My God, men are only human!  As much as I would like to blame O’Reilly for sexist jerk comments and boorish behavior—to the tune of millions of dollars in she-said-he-said pay offs—the women have to accept some part.  Sexy is a game we can never win in the real work world.  To my younger sisters who think they can portray themselves as overtly sexy and still be respected for brains and beauty … you can’t fool Mother Nature.

 

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Thirty years in the workforce: well deserved ‘tiredment’

Updating the ol’ resume recently, I just realized something.  I spent practically 16 years in one career and 14 in another.  That’s 30 years combined of full-time, real-deal working—and boy, am I tired!  No wonder.  I haven’t been a workaholic really, even was laid off a few times.  And those 30 years do not include part-time jobs in high school and throughout college.  I think my worker’s fatigue comes not only with advanced years of life but also from spending so much time and energy trying to scratch out a living, what has turned out to be two careers.

After college once I returned to the big city, I eagerly anticipated quick employment.  I’d fill out a bunch of applications and just sit by the phone and wait for the offers to roll in.  I was a college graduate.  At the time 30 years ago, not only were we in a recession of sorts, I had no real work experience.  All those part-time jobs—from slicing meat at a sandwich shop to waitressing at an Italian restaurant, writing freelance articles and tutoring college kids—didn’t matter much.  What mattered was real on-the-job work experience, 8 to 5 weekdays, for at least two to five years.  It didn’t matter the education in my pretty little head.  The lack of ink on my resume revealed an inexperienced applicant, a kid just starting out in life.

No Work Blues

Back in the late ’80s, I was one of those college grads living with the parents while searching for employment, any job to get on my feet.  I applied for teaching and newspaper jobs as those were areas for which I was qualified.  I even applied for a job I kept seeing in the Want Ads, something called an Underwriter.  Man, that insurance company must have thought, “This is what colleges are putting out these days?” because I had no idea what the job title meant.  I just saw ‘writer’ and went for it.  I had spunk.  And so dumb.  In those days, we didn’t have the internet to quickly search job titles.  So I humiliated myself, in the insurance world anyway.

I went on several teaching interviews.  No job offer.  “What is wrong with me?” I wondered way back then.  I still ponder why I never started teaching right out of college.  I think I may have come across as insecure, not too bright (well …), uncertain of my abilities and knowledge in my field, and intimidated by a confident older prospective employer who was a school principal.  I know I went into the interviews subconsciously thinking, “Why would you want to hire me?  Anyone else would be better than me.”  I had low self esteem because college had not been easy.  I may have sabotaged myself from getting hired quickly.

Then I was interviewed to be a clerk at The Dallas Times Herald.  My new boss and I had a lot in common as far as love of the arts and news.  I was in awe of her.  She was high-profile, looked like Mary Tyler Moore, and had tons of success in the mass media.  I know because part of my job was to send out her bio prior to her speaking engagements.  I learned a lot at that big-city newspaper—to this day the friendliest place I’ve ever worked.  It was in downtown, and sometimes on pay day a group of us clerks-slash-wannabe reporters would walk over to eat lunch at the West End.  I figured my future was in the newspaper biz as a reporter someday.  I even got a couple of freelance pieces published.  I had spunk.

A clerk job paid only $6 an hour.  At the encouragement of some older colleagues, I asked for a raise.  I did what they said to do: set up a meeting with a supervisor, list my job duties and additional work I’ve taken on, discuss the current salary and explain what I need to live on my own.  I asked for $9 an hour.  The company gave me $8.  So that’s how the game’s played?  Next time, I’ll know to ask for $10 an hour.  A colleague pointed out my great success in getting such a significant raise, that probably someone else lost a job or some budget was reshuffled.  I moved out on my own, living in an apartment.  Life as an older 20-something was looking good.

A year later I was suddenly unemployed along with all 900 workers of that century-old Dallas institution.  We got two months’ severance with insurance plus any pay for sick days and vacation time we didn’t take.  Next I found myself standing in line at the state ‘employment office’ as a laid-off worker.  That was humiliating, but I met a lot of interesting people in that long line.  I pieced together any kind of work, including working at a homeless shelter where I used to volunteer.  Plus I did a lot of substitute teaching, willing to rise predawn whenever the phone rang and a computer listed a job to work that day.  After several months, I finally got a steady job at a major used book store, earning about what I used to make plus health insurance.

What color is my career?

At this time in my life, I could have gone in any direction.  I applied at all the schools as well as colleges and universities and any media outlet, even drove to Austin and other parts of the state doing the same, sometimes getting an interview.  During this time of possibility combined with depression, confusion and insecurity, I was advised to read career books.  I took lots of personality tests to figure out a career direction.  The psychological tests would guide me into an area that would make me happy and fulfilled while also being a productive citizen in society as a whole.  Whatever.  I was bored senseless and certainly had the time to take a bunch of pop psychology tests.

What I found out about myself at the time was I really wanted to be of service to mankind, to help humanity.  That was enlightening.  I used to want to join the Peace Corps.  After the career tests, I considered going into social work.  But that did not appeal to my creative side. Maybe I answered some of the questions wrong.  A few years later when I took all those career personality tests again, I found the one thing I must have as a worker is respect.  That was my top priority, a job or position whereby people would respect me or what I do for a living.  So why would I want to be a teacher?  Or a newspaper reporter?

By the end of 1992, I got a big career break.  I was hired as city editor at a small-town newspaper.  I moved away with my dog and got to work building a career, one week shy of turning 30.  In many ways, I knew what to do as a reporter.  If I needed advice, I asked for it and was willing to listen, and usually would do as suggested.  I’d say that ability or characteristic has been my saving grace.  I would befriend seasoned reporters and learn how to go about covering a story or issue.

However, I’m not sure how I came across as a co-worker in general, because I was all work and no play.  In the workplace I imagine anyone who ever worked with me or near me may have thought I shoot off my mouth, talk too much, try too hard to be funny.  Really, I think long and hard before speaking, precisely phrasing opinions or comments sometimes within a clever turn of phrase, and still I can come up with some very funny quips.  I know I kept myself in stitches all the time.  So another aspect about surviving the work world, to me anyway, has been levity: a much needed release from the seriousness of our workday lives.

I moved on to another small-town paper, taking on another title of entertainment editor along with government reporting, and flourished with a very supportive editor.  A few awards later I moved back to the big city and tried my hand at cub reporter.  It wasn’t for me, not anymore.  I had so much experience and had been virtually free to cover issues and subjects that were important to me (granted, I did grunt work, too), I was unfulfilled.  Maybe I was reaching a mid-life crisis, but at age 40, I wanted to be a teacher.  All along that had been my initial career goal.  When a teaching job was offered, I changed careers like that.  Snap.

So, as the song goes: That’s life.  That’s what they say.  Mine has been that of a career woman with all the connotations that go with it.  The past decade and a half, I’ve worked in the public schools and taught thousands of kids from pre-kindergarten to 8th grade.  And I’ve been laid off as a teacher, too.  I even got additional certification to teach journalism.  I figured my newspaper experience could teach any kid to be a reporter, and I do mean honest reporting.  No fake news.

After three decades in the work world, spanning two careers, I’ve learned: Diplomacy is a must along with self assurance, think before speaking, do a job well, and aspire to be a consummate professional.  Every now and then I see on social media old high school classmates retiring as they reach the 30-year milestone, gladly saying goodbye to their dutiful yet required time spent in the workforce and set careers.  I have never thought of myself as retiring or even retired—though I am indeed tired.  I’ve always seen myself in the future still working, here or there, in this field or that … till the very end.

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“Roseanne” bar none

I’m a little ashamed to admit this, but I’ve seen every episode of “Roseanne” so often that I could teach a college course.  I mean a brief Continuing Education fun course.  So here goes.  “Roseanne” was a situation comedy created by the star and namesake, comedienne Roseanne Barr.  The premise revolved around her working-class family life with a husband, three kids, and a close sister.  The show ran from 1988 to 1997 on ABC.

When this show first aired, it was a phenomenal success along with the comedy musings of Roseanne Barr herself who sardonically titled her comedy club act “The Domestic Goddess.”  She made fun of her daily life as a wife and mother with lines like ‘We’re starting a natural food kick at our house, so we switched to brown sugar.’  Her comedy was down-home, family-centered though not always G-rated, with lots of die-hard feminism and blue-collar pride.  Her show followed suit.

Because she was a wife and mother and also obese, probably in the 20+ size range, the network suits did not know what to think.  These were the years of other hit comedian shows like “Seinfeld,” “Drew Carey” and Tim Allen’s “Home Improvement.”  Roseanne did not fit the mold.  Not only was she a woman, a loud-mouthed, wise-crackin’ mother, she was not thin and attractive.  And Roseanne cast as her TV husband Dan Conner an actor equally large, John Goodman.  She can laugh about it now, but in those early years, the tabloids, media and late-night comics were unfairly rough on her because of her weight.  The truth was the higher-ups in show biz could not believe a loud funny woman who was as large as her opinions—spewing left-of-center politics and controversial views—would draw tens of millions of viewers and fans.  They lost a bet.

Americans are big and fat

People saw in Dan and Roseanne Conner couples who look like them, like everyone else, or like most people if we’re being honest.  A precious few Americans can keep the weight off for a lifetime, not without some kind of little helper or great self control and maybe metabolism.  So the fans cheered on Roseanne for years.  She even tells of a time when the network execs bought fancy sport cars for two of the male comedians whose shows were in the top ratings, along with Roseanne’s show which was probably number one at the time and beat “The Cosby Show.”  And what did they get fat Roseanne?  A chocolate rose.  Probably a big chocolate rose.  The sexism and body shaming speaks volumes.  No doubt Roseanne would have enjoyed a new sports car, too, as sincere appreciation from the TV execs whose pockets her talent helped line.

What the suits didn’t understand is “Roseanne” episodes dealt with real-life everyday situations with poignancy and heavy doses of humor.  It was blue-collar comedy.  There was nothing like it coming out of L.A.  Throughout the years, the Conners worked fairly hard: Dan, a dry waller who later chased his dream of revamping classic motorcycles until the shop went belly up; Roseanne faithfully working a variety of menial jobs until starting her own diner which stabilized the family income.  Still in the lean times, the Conners played some games about paying bills (like not signing the check) or misusing coupons (erasing the expiration date).  There was the time during an extreme financial low, their electricity was shut off.  Critics didn’t like watching a sit-com about a low middle-class family laughing their way through a mountain of problems.  I guess they figured it was unbelievable.  Let me tell you, it wasn’t—as many of us who’ve had to rough it can attest.

Watching the episodes in reruns, we see Roseanne’s weight shifts but a little.  She is a TV character, from the health-conscious ’90s, who will remain forever overweight, morbidly obese at times as was her husband.  But have you seen Roseanne today?   She did it!  She lost the weight and at no small price.  A rags-to-riches story does not mean instant weight loss and body perfection.  She has been candid about cosmetic surgeries and a weight-loss procedure that seemed to not take effect until years after her famous show ended.  Still, she lost the weight.  ‘Quite a load off, huh,’ the Roseanne character might say enviously.

Shut up!

Critics also objected to the yelling, what seemed to be constant loud and heated arguing back and forth between parents and kids and husband and wife.  Roseanne held her ground and refused to cut the yelling from her TV family, maintaining this was realistic family life whether people acknowledge it or not.  She was perceptive as most comedians are.  In the family unit, members do not perceive how loud or angry they come across to neighbors, friends and onlookers.  Roseanne believed most families yell on occasion if not often.  Prudish folks wouldn’t understand and felt as parents they were in charge and their power never challenged by their children even during adolescence.  Get real, Roseanne would reply.

What made the show tick was the family unit, the three kids growing up with obese parents.  The wealthy and upper-middle class do not relate to a show like “Roseanne.”  That’s because when it comes to families, the poor and low class care about their children because they have nothing else while the middle class and the wealthy care about their children’s education.  Roseanne’s oldest daughter found this out the hard way, again during the Conner family’s lowest economic crisis.  Becky Conner assumed her parents had a college fund for her, but they didn’t.  Through the years, they needed money for housing, utilities, food, clothes, bills, other priorities and emergencies.  So Becky, without graduating high school, simply ran off to marry her boyfriend who had taken a job out of state.  It was a shocking moment in TV history.

Writer’s block

As a fellow writer, I noticed through studying the series how Roseanne’s character occasionally lamented how she had not done anything special with her life or had become someone special, specifically a writer.  She spoke of her high school dream of moving to New York City and writing for Mother Jones, of being a children’s book author someday.  Possessing a creative imagination, she could spin an original bed-time story for her son every night.  As a birthday gift one year, her family turned the basement into an office just for her to write, a quiet place away from the chores of wife and mother.  The next scene, Roseanne is dusting and vacuuming her new office.  She does not have a writer’s drive, the ability to collect and organize thoughts then sit down and punch it out on a typewriter or computer—both devices she never learned to use.

This is where I cannot relate with Roseanne the character.  My middle-class background led me to take every advantage of writing, from tall tales in elementary school to junior high poetry and newspaper staff, continuing on in high school.  A couple of weeks before starting my senior year, I walked into the hometown newspaper office and talked to the editor about a part-time job.  I could type and was on the newspaper staff, I told him.  I would have swept the floor and laid out the paper old school with glue and light boards.  But he needed a high school correspondent and so hired me on the spot, paying me $10 a story.  That experience helped me in college when of my own volition I wrote freelance features for the town newspaper, which led to becoming a news correspondent for the university news service, and later a writing tutor at the college.

But Roseanne Conner never pursued real writing, any writing, writing just to write, like this blog here.  [The real Roseanne of course has a blog.]  All those years, especially when her children were in school, she never thought to drop by the local newspaper (the town had one) and start writing a column or go to a community college (there was one nearby) and take a writing course.  Other TV characters do just that.  But those other TV shows were written and created by middle- and upper-class folks, people with built-in drive and a lot of self confidence.  That is what Roseanne—very overweight, economically and emotionally depressed at some level yet always quick-witted with razor-sharp hilarious perceptions of men and, well, every kind of person—never had: self confidence.  That counters the real Roseanne.  Her TV character never figured out that through pursuing a passion, doors open that lead to opportunities like a fulfilling job, career and success.  The comedian clearly brought success on herself but did not instill her own drive and ambition into her TV show character.  Wonder why?

Now Roseanne Barr has become a Trump supporter, strange given the American TV audience still believing her to be a big ol’ feminist.  But she’s proven once again, like her working-class sit-com—entertaining through deep characterization and blunt bawdy humor for loads of laughs—she has her finger on the pulse of real America.