The A & E Network has announced that its "indefinite suspension" of Duck Dynasty head redneck Phil "Ducked Up" Robertson has ended, and that he will be rejoining the show when it resumes taping in January. So what that means is Ducked Up won't be missed in a single episode, since the show was on hiatus when he shot his mouth off and was "suspended." While he's taken considerable heat for his vulgar homophobic remarks, less has been said on his belief that African Americans were so happy in the good ol' days of Jim Crow segregation. You know, before the Civil Rights movement came along and made them sing the blues.
Fifty-two years ago, when then-Federal Communications Commission chair Newton Minow coined the phrase "vast wasteland" in describing TV at its worst, he had no idea how much further it would descend. The fact that bigotry and ignorance is proudly celebrated in some corners of TV-land is a blight on us all.
