Racism is racism: So why the obvious double standard in Hollywood and the media?

The response from her bosses at ABC and Disney was swift, and her wildly popular show, “Roseanne,” immediately canceled.

And to the reflexive First Amendment champions attempting to argue her “freedom of speech” was infringed upon – stop it. We all understand the despicable association the comedienne was making in comparing a prominent African-American woman to a simian.

This wasn’t “edgy comedy.” This was racism. Pure and simple.

Mel Gibson famously chalked up his anti-Semitic tirade during a 2006 DUI arrest to an addiction and issued an apology. And though he has directed several movies in the wake of that disgraceful incident, he never truly recovered from his speaking his “heart,” while under the influence.

Barr faces a similar fate. After she tried to blame Ambien for the racist tweets, the drug’s producer, Sanofi, responded and said Ambien may have certain side effects, but “racism is not a known side effect.”

Funny how when folks get liquored up, or claim to be under the influence of medication, they seem to be so much freer to express their real self.

So, let’s save our weeping and lamentations over the career derailment of Barr or others for accidentally allowing their true feelings to surface and then put them on blast.

But some have pointed to past incidents in Barr’s past and question why ABC/Disney would have consented to a reboot of her popular 1990s sitcom. That’s more than a fair question. But are we only asking it because Barr is an unapologetic supporter of the current president?

Why does it seem that as long as you have a (D) next to your name or consistently champion left-of-center causes, you are entitled to “checkered” pasts that highlight your own racism, bigotry, or homophobia, and your careers may continue relatively unaffected by boycotts or suspensions, or employment terminations?

Last night, the “Reverend” Al Sharpton and Joy Reid actually helped to host a town hall discussion on cable television, entitled, “Everyday Racism in America,” and invited Jarrett on to weigh in on the Roseanne controversy.

Anyone miss the obvious irony in Reid and Sharpton hosting a summit on “race”?

I come at this as someone who served as a young law enforcement officer in New York City during the early 1990s, when Sharpton was the polar opposite of a “unifying force.”

Sharpton was a vocal and unrepentant critic of law enforcement and the perpetrator of one of the greatest racial hoaxes of all time, the Tawana Brawley case. Along with fellow race-baiters Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason, Sharpton sought to sell the preposterous claim that a young black girl had been kidnapped, raped, assaulted, and smeared in feces in 1987, by an upstate New York assistant district attorney, Steven Pagones.

While Brawley has made an effort to pay some of the civil damages awarded to Pagones when the hoax was exposed, Sharpton has stubbornly refused any recompense and steadfastly resists calls to apologize for his part in the shameful episode.

And then in today’s New York Daily News, Sharpton provides an ironic op-ed entitled, “After ABC cancels ‘Roseanne,’ media must continue to be held accountable for racism.”

Wait, what?

Sharpton benefits from favorable mainstream media coverage that downplays his considerably ugly past related to racist and anti-Semitic remarks. And no less a kingmaker than Obama considered Sharpton his “go-to black leader” and counselor on race matters. And a slew of prominent politicians seeking votes cozy up to him and fawn over the “civil rights leader.”

Hell, heard Sharpton’s “greatest hits” compilation lately? A cursory Google search finds the following strident language and outright racist, bigoted, and homophobic utterances:

Sharpton described Jews as “diamond merchants” at a Crown Heights, N.Y., funeral in 1991.

In 1994, Sharpton slurred gay men as “homos.” And then during his “rehabilitation” in 2013, called for those who used the term to be fired.

“White interloper” and “white cracker” — racist rhetoric from Sharpton that resulted in the firebombing of Freddy’s Fashion Mart, a Jewish-owned business in Harlem, N.Y., in December 1995, which resulted in seven innocent deaths.

And in 2007, during the presidential campaign, Sharpton disgracefully said of Republican nominee Mitt Romney: “As for the Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him.”

Sharpton’s fellow host last night, Reid, has had her own brush with an embarrassing exposure of her own homophobic rants in recently uncovered blog posts. Reid first apologized, then claimed to have been hacked, and once that story was debunked, half-admitted culpability, but laughably maintained that “I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things.”

Um. OK.

Look, instances of racism, bigotry, and homophobia should be called out. And the media is right to cover them. Sunlight is said to be the best disinfectant, as former Supreme Court Associate Justice Louis D. Brandeis once famously stated.

But be fair. And let’s apply our anger, disgust, and disdain for those espousing hate evenly. Save the one-sided, partisan recriminations. Let’s call things what they are and in our efforts to be more inclusionary, let’s accept that neither side of the partisan divide has a sole claim to hatred.

It’s not OK to engage in hateful rhetoric as long as you ascribe to a particular political ideology. That’s the definition of hypocrisy.

And ABC and Disney should sense that. Firing Barr was absolutely the right thing to do. But it doesn’t absolve the corporation of their responsibility by also ignoring what Keith Olbermann does unfiltered, or for two folks like Sharpton and Reid to pontificate on race and corporate responsibility.

Fair is fair. There’s no room for hate, no matter what side you adhere to.

But let’s dispense with the hypocrisy.