On Tuesday (May 29), Roseanne Barr went on a racist tweet frenzy which led to her being fired by ABC, the cancelation of her top-rated sitcom, and getting dropped by her talent Agency, ICM. Barr later deleted the tweets and apologized, calling her comments a bad joke. She also said she would be leaving Twitter. However, her proclamation didn’t hold water. Roseanne was back on Twitter hours later trying to do damage control, blaming the prescriptive sleeping aid Ambien as the reason for her racist and xenophobic tweets in the wee hours of the morning.

Hate is the problem, not medication

Ambien nor any type of medication has known side effects that include susceptibility to tweeting racial slurs. In fact, Sanofi, the makers of Ambien, tweeted a statement Wednesday (May 30) saying as much.

So, it would seem Sanofi disagrees with Roseanne's reason for her disgraceful comments. They also know what many Americans and other pharmaceutical companies know, racism is born of hate, not prescriptive drugs.

Racism and bigotry is a serious problem in the US and blaming Ambien is not a defense for the indefensible.

Let's stop pretending, shall we?

In 2016, former NFL player Colin Kaepernick tried to bring awareness about social injustices and violence in America against people of color when he began his kneeling protest during the anthem.

Unfortunately, the message was lost; overshadowed by voices who believed Kaepernick was unpatriotic and disrespected the flag.

Sadly, deniers are still in our midst and in the most egregious ways. For instance, there are individuals who turned their heads when a Black man was lynched and hung from a tree in Mississippi in February of this year.

Officials there released a statement asserting the man's death was consistent with suicide. Newsflash, Black people don't typically choose self-lynching as a means to end their lives. They just don't.

Caught on camera

Thank goodness for cell phones, maybe not necessarily the ones recently found to have Chinese government spying capabilities. However, where would the balance of social justice be if it were not for portable technology? If there were no recordings many would never believe the ugliness that is seeping into the moral fabric of our society. Hateful incidents happen frequently, and more often than what is reported by the media. This is where social media has been golden. Courtesy of Melissa DePino, America witnessed the Starbucks incident on April 12, where two Black men were unjustly arrested.

CNN reported these men spent nine hours being processed and booked by the police. And as a result, two innocent men ended up with a police record. Now they'll be seen as criminals just because they were waiting while black. Starbucks has since made strides to give racial bias training to their employees.

Other acts of racism on video

These types of acts have not ceased since Starbucks' embarrassing moment.

Take for instance the incident on May 10 in which a Black Yale student had the police called on her because she was napping in the student lounge. The student recorded the police interaction and shared it with mainstream and social media. So the new rule has become that one can't nap while black. Spanish speakers, Hispanics, and Latinos are also under attack. In fact, just recently, on May 16, two Hispanic-American women from Montana were detained by a border agent for speaking Spanish in a store.

And on May 15, in a New York store, Schlossberg, an internet famous racist-ranter, berated a patron for speaking Spanish.

All of it was caught on camera and posted by Eduardo Suazo on Facebook.

Then, on May 27, a Chinese flight student was kidnapped, had his passport unjustly withheld, threatened with deportation, and suffered a broken arm by his flight instructor. Luckily, the student is safe and the vile rant was captured on audio and given to authorities. This is the narrative of today's America.

What are we going to do?

First, we must recognize, identify, and own a line that we will not allow anyone to cross. This is essential because we don't currently have a commander in chief who will readily join us in the healing and restorative process. So we must be the example, and do it on our own--we the people. We can no longer stay silent, because to do so, sends a message of approval and normalization of racial profiling and hate-filled acts.

Americans cannot allow people to make excuses for bigotry and abhorrent behavior or blame medications for character deficits.

We must stand peacefully-united and protect the human rights of all--regardless of partisanship, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or color. We must stand up to bullies and oppressive natures in order to preserve those rights; rights afforded to every human who lives in the land of the free.
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