Opinion: Fall back

At 2 a.m. Saturday the near nationwide psychosis known as Daylight Saving Time will come to an end for another year. The two states where this special brand of insanity does not apply are Hawaii and Arizona.

If anyone has problems remembering which way to change the clock, one springs forward an hour at the appointed time. This year, it was March 14. Then, one falls back an hour to end DST. It should be obvious I am not a fan. The thing I like the least is when the man says, “Why can’t they just leave it alone?” In all fairness, he also says that every time a new version of Windows debuts. We are both resistant to change.

I once saw a movie where a Native American character said something to the effect, “Who but the white man would think he can cut off the end of a blanket, sew it on the other end and get a longer blanket!”

I do hope that isn’t considered some sort of a racist comment. My husband is full-blood California Native American and my mother’s family was both Cherokee and Apache. I usually say if it weren’t for being white trash, I’d have no ethnicity at all.

People get so prickly and offended when the subject of race comes up. Roseanne Barr got fired from her relaunched, soon to be another hit television series for a drunk racist Tweet.

Anytime an actor gets fired from a job, replaced in a television series, I always wonder how long they have been skating on thin ice and the powers that be have been waiting to take an axe to the relationship. Everyone is supposed to believe Carsey Warner, the production company that is responsible for so many situation comedies, were so incensed about Barr’s Tweet they had no other choice but to fire her and cancel her show. The reruns on cable were also suspended for a time.

It seems like they had never met the vulgar, loud-mouth actor. Had they forgotten the horrible job she did when she attempted to sing the National Anthem at the July 25, 1990 Cincinnati Reds/San Diego Padres baseball game?

I saw her on a Johnny Cason Tonight appearance before the incident. Carson asked her if she could sing? She barked out a few bars of “Kung Fu Fighting,” and I remember thinking, “This will turn out bad for her, very bad!”

Even President George H.W. Bush made a public comment about the incident. Interviews with her afterwards indicated she had not figured out there are somethings one doesn’t disrespect, and the flag and the National Anthem are two of them.

If we consider Madison Avenue the creator of television commercials, since Barr was fired has anyone else noticed how they attempted to stem the tide of systemic racism through television commercials? Attempting to sell everything from automotive services to zip-lock bags, they have changed the makeup of its families.

Not too long ago, all members of a television family were heterosexual and basically all the same color, mainly white. Television families are no longer headed by the patriarchs and matriarchs of the Ward and June Cleaver type with two sons, Wally and the Beaver.

According to Statista.com the average American family consists of 3.15 people. Television families tend to be what is referred to as blended families. Grandparents, living with their children and grandchildren, have become more common as have gay couples and families of mixed ethnicities.

In an interview between Oprah Winfrey and Diana Ross, the talk show queen said when the Supremes appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, she about went crazy running up and down the hallway in her Chicago apartment complex yelling, “Colored people on TV, colored people on TV!”

It was an adorable and sad story of a little girl who would grow up to be a media mogul looking for the first-time people on television who looked like her.

According to the all-mighty Google, institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a term that refers to a form of racism that is embedded in the laws and regulations of a society or an organization. It manifests as discrimination in areas such as criminal justice, employment, housing, health care, education, and political representation.

There is a part of me who truly believes that racial equality will never be achieved until the Earth is invaded by another planet and there really is a race of aliens here to establish colonies.

Long days and pleasant nights, have a blessed weekend.

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Readers may contact Tami Jo Nix by emailing tamijonix@gmail.com or following @TamiJoNix on Twitter.