Rosie O’Donnell: Racist Jerk?

Sure looks that way to me. During a recent View Rosie O’Donnell in discussing the drunken appearance of Danny DeVito she launched into a strange mimicking of the Chinese language.

“The fact is that it’s news all over the world. That you know, you can imagine in China it’s like: ‘Ching chong … ching chong. Danny DeVito, ching chong, chong, chong, chong. Drunk. ‘The View.’ Ching chong,” O’Donnell said on a Dec. 5 episode of “The View.”

[snip]

“She’s a comedian in addition to being a talk show co-host,” Cindi Berger, O’Donnell’s spokeswoman, said in a statement. “I certainly hope that one day they will be able to grasp her humor.”

You mean like the humor of Michael Richards? Hey, anybody know any good lesbian jokes? I bet o’l Rosie wouldn’t be so amused to hear some of those. I wonder if Walters would yuk it up to such jokes as well. Then after that we can move on to jokes about Jews and Mexicans. Oh, and what the heck, lets do some fat jokes.

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Steve Verdon
About Steve Verdon
Steve has a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles and attended graduate school at The George Washington University, leaving school shortly before staring work on his dissertation when his first child was born. He works in the energy industry and prior to that worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Division of Price Index and Number Research. He joined the staff at OTB in November 2004.

Comments

  1. Len says:

    You will find, as you grow older, that you are not going to agree with everything everyone says. That’s life. It’s also a big reason why we have something called the First Amendment.

    By the way, there already are jokes about Jews and Mexicans, and fat people, and gay people, and Polish people, and blond people, and short people, and tall people, and skinny people, and… need I go on?

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

    Until such time as that amendment is repealed, there will be people saying and writing things with which you will not agree.

    Learn to live with it.

    1
  2. Tano says:

    Hmmm,
    So, a comedienne making fun of the way a foreign language sounds is now to be considered on the level of attitudes of racial superiority that have historically led to the enslavement and genocide of millions of people?

    I sure hope that you are not one of the people who has ever gone around whining about PC!

  3. floyd says:

    their is a !LOT! to criticize rosie for. THIS ain’t it!

  4. floyd says:

    there not their…my bad

  5. Christopher says:

    Len, are you on crack? Rosie is a racist. A liberal racist. For liberals, that’s the best kind.

    1
  6. shipmate says:

    I never did find her at all funny. Never.

    1
  7. anjin-san says:

    Considering the racist nature of many of the comments I have seen on OTB caption contests, I am not sure OTB should get into calling others racists. Best to first tend to ones own garden.

  8. Bandit says:

    Best to first tend to ones own garden.

    which is always why I wonder why liberals always spend so much time looking for racists when all they have to do is look in the mirror.

    1
  9. Steve: This is a huge stretch for you.

  10. Len says:

    Len, are you on crack? Rosie is a racist. A liberal racist. For liberals, that’s the best kind.

    So? You’re a conservative racist. For conservatives, that’s the best kind.

    I don’t believe I’m the one on crack here.

  11. TerraTango says:

    She’s a hypocrite. She gets on her anti-homophobia soapbox (which is her right), but then says no one else can get on her case and call attention the way she did to Kelly Ripa.

    I heard she has shut down her blog’s open forum and is picking only posts favorable to her. The View has also shut down her mailbox.

  12. Tano says:

    Gee, lets all have fun by sitting around and calling each other racists!

    OTB at its finest!

  13. Steve Verdon says:

    Tano,

    Please, you know you’d be all over a conservative who did this. At the very best it was in poor taste and at worst it was racist. And the history of the treatement of the Chinese in this country isn’t something to be extolling.

    Anjin-san

    Considering the racist nature of many of the comments I have seen on OTB caption contests, I am not sure OTB should get into calling others racists. Best to first tend to ones own garden.

    I never participate and the ones I’ve read could be listed on one hand (but don’t ask me to list them specifically because I forgot which ones they were). But in any event thanks for letting me know that since others are racist it is okay for me to be one too.

    Michael,

    Steve: This is a huge stretch for you.

    Really? So a comedienne making fun of gays as effiminate and lisping would…be fine with you?

    And Len, you are on something if not crack. I didn’t say that Rosie doesn’t have a right to spout here nonsense, but I also have a right to point out the racial overtones of here “schtick”.

  14. Steve Verdon says:

    Gee, lets all have fun by sitting around and calling each other racists!

    Well, it is good enough for the Left, why can’t we join in?

  15. LJD says:

    Ching-chong, ching-chong…

    Sounds more like bickering on blogs!

  16. anjin-san says:

    Steve,

    Go back a bit and look at the caption contest for the Buddhist monks.

    As for “But in any event thanks for letting me know that since others are racist it is okay for me to be one too.”… ahhh, grow up dude.

  17. Steve Verdon says:

    As for “But in any event thanks for letting me know that since others are racist it is okay for me to be one too.”… ahhh, grow up dude.

    Most amusing since you are using the old “But Moooooooooom, he did it fiiiiiiirrrst” defense.

  18. anjin-san says:

    Steve,

    Reading comprehension check. I am not “defending” anybody.

    As for Rosie O’Donnell, I think that life is too short to waste breath on her.

    My point is that since you are on the hunt for racists, you might want to look a bit closer to home. There have been quite a few offensive comments in caption contests, and sometimes the photos themselves have struck me as images that would obviously attract such comments…

  19. Ching Chong says:

    “Ching-Chong” is not just an imitation of how she thinks Chinese sounds.

    Make no doubt about it, “Ching-Chong” IS A RACIAL SLUR.

    The poster Len believes this is a free speech issue. It is clearly not. Rosie is free to say ching-chong, chink, spic, nigger all she wants.

    She just can’t say it on the air. ABC should be held to a higher standard. If this had happened on Howard Stern’s show, this wouldn’t be, and shouldn’t be, an issue.

  20. diana kim says:

    Her comments were not racist. They were ignorant. And to a few: learning to “live with it” is not enough. I think educating is the best way. And if people do not choose to be open minded we have to move on to others willing to listen. I am an asian american woman and although her statement was stupid, it was not racist. Sometimes we make foolish comments, and we should be responsible and live up to them and apologize.The world has many other problems to deal with than listening to some woman who isn’t even funny.Michael Richards on the other hand needs to be ashamed of himself.

  21. kellynn says:

    here’s my problem with Rosie.
    She is racist in the sense that she thinks everyone else is racis and out to get her and her gay ways. We don’t care if your gay …just don’t care. You don’t here Joy or Elisabeth constantly bringing up the fact that they are straight …because it’s not a big deal …Rosie makes it a big deal.

    I think Oprah is racist too. She is always bringing up African American issues. I know racism is out there but majority of people “live and let live” You don’t hear Martha Stewart saying things about being White all the time …because she’s not racis.

    I am offended by this OFTEN because my parents adopted a child of mix race and we have taught him it doesn’t matter. Hands down if he got on Oprah she’d ask him “so does it bother you that you live in a home of Caucasions when you are African American.” He’s my brother,he’s human,he’s loved and adored …. he’s not a race ….gRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

  22. Dan says:
  23. Ray says:

    Adam Corrolla, also a comedian, has been known to make fun of Asians in his comedy routines for many years. Recently, 11 months ago, he had a skit making fun of the Asian Excellence Awards using the same ching chong routine (see http://www.asianmediawatch.net/carolla/ ). Guy Aoki, the co-founder and president of the media watchdog group Media Action Network for Asian Americans, confronted him on national television on his TV show on ABC. He did give a formal apology albeit not a great one.

    Here’s the thing: People probably associate Adam Carrolla’s comedic “shtick” with some male quasi-chauvinistic characteristics. If THIS guy is able to have a big time Asian american representative invited on his own show, apologize, and have an open forum to discuss his actions— don’t you think rosie, who is on the same ABC network, should do the same if not better(she being a “progressive gay liberal”)?

    carrolla still tried to defend himself, and it wasn’t the best apology, but again, I applaud him for taking the initiative to discuss with a man who represented the group he offended and try to solve the problem.

    Instead, Rosie and the rest of the crew on “The View”, who are supposed to represent a progressive view from women, brush it off and continue to talk less about topics pertaining to real women issues and more about Hollywood gossip.

    I’m just sayin’