Roseanne is straight up racist.
I don’t know. She said something racist. I don’t know if that makes her racist. She actually had an episode about unconscious racism where she called out white people for unwittingly judging black people. Like I said in that list, you’d have to get rid of Elvis Costello, Lou Reed, and a ton of others if you judge people by one stupid statement.
I watched the reboot and the Yemeni/Muslim neighbor episode was the best one in my opinion. Anyone who called it racist or Islamophobic completely missed the point. And never mind that there are regular cast members on the show who are black, so calling Roseanne racist or the show racist implies that these cast members don’t know enough to make their own decisions about who they work with, which is condescending.
One of the reasons for the show’s popularity is that it represents how American families not drowning in PC culture actually talk in their private lives. Lots of people have weird ideas about other people, but that doesn’t mean they’re malicious in their intent or full-on racist.
However, everyone should know by now that comparing people with dark skin to apes has racist connotations (which is why it’s silly that some on the right are calling out Bill Maher for comparing Trump to an orangutan…it’s not the same thing). You just don’t do it.