Recently Rosanne Bar said a racist thing on Twitter and got her show cancelled.  It was heartwarming to see pretty much everyone agree that (a) she said a racist thing and (b) racism is bad. 

Samantha Bee, the host of a TV show that makes fun of current events, called the daughter of the president of the United States a "feckless cunt" for posting mommy-and-me pictures on social media while failing to utilize her familial connections to do something positive about immigration policies that are literally separating mothers and children. 

Some of those same people who applauded the cancellation of Rosanne called for the cancellation of Sam Bee's show.  Rosanne said a bad thing and got cancelled.  Sam Bee said a bad thing and should get cancelled. 

But here's the thing:  There's a difference between racism and mean things.  Our society has collectively agreed (somewhat recently) that racism is unacceptable in a lot of circumstances, and racist people should be punished, perhaps not by legal action, but definitely by negative attention.  This is a remarkably progressive viewpoint from our largely regressive populace.  Good on us. 

But Sam Bee said a mean thing.  Maybe someone was offended.  Our society hasn't yet taken a negative stance on being offensive.  We're generally ok with it.  Also, being offended by something doesn't actually mean anything other than the fact that you can't deal with your own feelings in a healthy way.  That's a personal problem. 

To be clear, both things were mean.  But one of them was also racist, and racism is a specific kind of mean that we don't put up with.  This whole episode was yet another false equivalency. #entertainment