Sam Bee used her TV show to send a message to Senior Adviser Ivanka Trump

And then all hell broke loose.

WhatsTrending:

“Let me just say, one mother to another, do something about your dad’s immigration practices, you feckless c*nt. He listens to you. Put on something tight and low cut and tell him to fucking stop it. Tell him it was an Obama thing and see how it goes, OK?” - Sam Bee, May 31, 2018 on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee

In one of the most bad faith campaigns in a career of many of them, hard right wing groups demanded an apology from Samantha Bee for calling Ivanka Trump a “feckless c*nt” after Ivanka Trump posted a photo of herself holding her baby as the story of the missing 1,470 migrant children who went missing raged on.

My love! #SundayMorning pic.twitter.com/CN5iXutE5Q

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) May 27, 2018

The apology demand was done in response, in part, to Roseanne getting her show canceled for comparing a black woman to a cross between Planet of the Apes and the Muslim Brotherhood, which, one would posit, is a lot worse than one woman calling someone mocking grieving immigrant mothers the c-word, but, hey. That’s neither here nor there!

Sarah Huckabee Sanders is upset about "silence from the left" re Sam Bee calling Ivanka a "feckless cunt" for swanning around on social media, hugging her son amidst news of children being ripped from their parents by ICE. So I won't be silent:https://t.co/FA79R4sWgT

— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) May 31, 2018

1. Language's ability to inflict harm depends on power of who's wielding it & against whom it's being wielded. Not just individuals, ie, it's not about Bee/Ivanka or Roseanne/Jarrett, all of whom have power. It's about power of entities & ideas individuals are representing.

— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) May 31, 2018

3. You can not like the word "cunt" for feminist reasons; you can--& should!--think about why a term for female anatomy is such a potent pejorative. But use of it in this context is not reinforcing or replicating the crude harm it has been used to inflict historically...

— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) May 31, 2018

5. It is fundamentally different from Roseanne comparing Jarrett to an ape, a racist locution w deep racist roots, bc unlike Bee's deployment of cunt AGAINST a misogynistic, racist administration, Roseanne's racism is deployed IN SUPPORT OF a racist, misogynistic administration..

— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) May 31, 2018

7. Therefore, Roseanne's utterance mirrors & reinforces harm being inflicted by most powerful against least powerful, while Bee's challenges that power dynamic

— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) May 31, 2018

9. The illusion of persecution of the powerful is made possible by the powerful's ability to fashion a public narrative around their own interests & to normalize to the point of invisibility the ACTUAL harm done every day to the less powerful.

— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) May 31, 2018

10. Cause remember kids, SHS can say w straight & righteous face that a comedian being mean to Ivanka on TV is "vile" "vicious" "appalling" & "disgusting" but would apply none of those descriptors to administration she's fronting for, which takes CHILDREN AWAY FROM PARENTS.

— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) May 31, 2018