On December 5, 2006, Rosie O’Donnell on ABC’s The View made a racial slur by using a series of ching chongs to imitate newscasters in China.
O’Donnell made the comment in reference to people in China who were reporting about Danny DeVito’s drunken appearance on the show.
“You know, you can imagine in China it’s like, ‘Ching-chong, ching-chong. Danny DeVito. Ching-chong, ching-chong-chong. Drunk. The View. Ching-chong.”
The Asian American Journalists Association said her comments were “a mockery of the Chinese language and, in effect, a perpetuation of stereotypes of Asian Americans as foreigners or second-class citizens.
The association also added that the remarks gave the impression that Chinese people are substandard to English-speaking people”.
In response, Rosie O’Donnell’s representative Cindi Berger said: “She’s a comedian in addition to being a talk show co-host. I certainly hope that one day they will be able to grasp her humor.”
On December 14 on The View, O’Donnell claimed she was unaware that ching chong was an offensive way to make fun of Asian accents, and she was informed it was on par with the “N-word”.
While she apologized to “those people who felt hurt,” Jeff Yang, who tracks Asian and Asian-American trends for a market research firm, said Rosie O’Donnell shouldn’t have apologized for people’s hurt feelings. “She should have apologized for spreading and encouraging ignorance.”
O’Donnell then ridiculously warned she would be racist again telling everyone “there’s a good chance I’ll do something like that again, probably in the next week, not on purpose. Only ’cause it’s how my brain works.”
Time called it a “pseudo-apology.”
So what happened to Rosie after her racist outburst and what action did ABC take?
Nothing, nada, zilch.
In-fact, O’Donnell was allowed to continue on the View. That same month of December she hit out at Trump for reinstating Miss USA Tara Conner, who had violated pageant guidelines, accusing him of using her scandal to “generate publicity for the Miss USA Pageant.”
Rosie faced no consequence for her racist remarks from ABC at all. quite the contrary, they were in contract talks for her to stay on The View. Ultimately it was O’Donnell that opted to leave the show.
On April 25, 2007, ABC announced that O’Donnell would be leaving the show before the end of the year because of a failure to reach agreement on a new contract.
But then seven years later, and after many jobs, ABC hired Rosie AGAIN for the View.
Not only that, they not long ago put her the T.V show “SMILF.”
Did ABC forget about her racist outburst? did they not care? did they forgive her?
Her so-called apology wasn’t really an apology and Rosie admitted: “it would happen again.”
So the big question now is, why was Roseanne’s hit T.V show canceled?
Sure, without a doubt what Roseanne Tweeted was racist, inappropriate and offensive, Roseanne admitted that herself. She also apologized and took full responsibility for her actions.
But does everyone truly believe Roseanne Barr is racist? surely not, she made a mistake and took a joke too far, and to be fair so did Rosie.
However, ABC canceled Roseanne’s show as soon as the incident took place. They didn’t give her a chance to discuss her remarks or her intent for that matter. The network just promptly canceled the show which made Roseanne’s apology look like it was after the fact.
But with Rosie they didn’t say a word, they allowed her representative Cindi Berger to address her racism and it wasn’t until December 14 on The View that Rosie made her half-assed apology. She made the racist remarks on December 5, let that sink in.
Obviously, any racist remarks toward any ethnicity or race is wrong. but if ABC can forgive Rosie who didn’t really apologize but said it would happen again and keep hiring her, why didn’t they allow Roseanne to address the situation with them, face the heat and continue her show?.
What is really going on here?.