Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) on Tuesday compared Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet about former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett to “a burning cross in the yard.”
“This was not a dog whistle, this was a burning cross in the yard,” Cleaver said on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” adding that there was “no confusion about this statement.”
The Democratic lawmaker speculated that Barr “probably thought” that she would be “applauded” for the tweet before ABC quickly rebuked her remarks and canceled her show.
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“She may have even wanted some applause to come to her from Washington,” he said. “And I think, in the absence of that, she may have realized not that she was wrong, but that she got caught and that she may have to pay for it. And I think that’s what her regret is.”
Cleaver, a former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said that Barr’s tweet apologizing for the comment “meant nothing to me.”
“What people don’t know — they hurt people, they hurt human beings and they can dismiss it and walk away,” Cleaver said.
ABC canceled Barr’s show “Roseanne” on Tuesday after massive outcry over the star’s tweet calling Jarrett the child of the Islamic organization the Muslim Brotherhood and the movie “Planet of the Apes.”
“Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj,” Barr wrote Tuesday morning, referring to Jarrett by her initials.
Barr later apologized and deleted the tweet, while the talent agency ICM also dropped her as a client on Tuesday.
“Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show,” ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey said in a statement announcing the end of the reboot, which had been a ratings behemoth.