Roseanne Barr should have been a football player.

She may be on the air yet, starring in the well-received revival of her hit series, after being “penalized” by her employer in ways that were not disclosed.

Alas, Roseanne was not that lucky. She worked in television, an industry that is quick to pull the plug on stars, and others, who are accused of transgressing certain standards, usually determined by moralists, who differ from the moral, and who are often the targets of people who just don’t like their politics.

Roseanne is one of the more outstanding victims of what has become known as “cancel culture,” a dangerous movement in which people who claim to be offended, hurt, or frightened are not content to talk things out or let chips fall where they may with the viewing public deciding by ratings whether the celebrity’s welcome is worn.

Compare Roseanne’s fate, and transgression, with that of DeSean Jackson, a Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver who, in a Tweet, the same medium Roseanne used, repeated nonsensical tripe about Jewish people and their history that came from the bigoted Louis Farrakhan who was quoting Adolf Hitler.

Yes, that Adolf Hitler.

The connection could not be missed. Hitler’s name, and the words, “Hitler said,” were on Jackson’s Tweet.

Jackson insulted an entire group of people with discredited information from a discredited source and was able to get away with apologizing and saying he didn’t know what he was doing, and he didn’t mean to hurt anyone.

Somebody get a violin.

The Eagles did not help matters. They issued a formulaic statement about how what Jackson said, added that they had spoken to their player extensively, and ended with the unenumerated “penalties.”

Jackson did something egregious. A grown person should know that “Hitler” is not a person to quote. Everyone involved, including the Eagles, a team with a Jewish owner, Jewish general manager, and Jews among its fan base and ticket holders, should admit that what Jackson posted was blatantly anti-Semitic and hurtful to all Jewish people. The team should also have listed the penalties.

They obviously do not include summary dismissal, which is what Ms. Barr was handed by ABC and its parent company, Disney.

Roseanne’s gaffe was misguided, and like Jackson’s unnecessary, but on a scale of horrible, ignorant things to Tweet, it is a 4 to Jackson’s off-the-chart 11, exacerbated by former NBA player Stephen Jackson who defended his DeSean and even cited history to back up that defense.

To remind, Roseanne was branded racist and taken off the air a few weeks into the renewed success of her TV show, “Roseanne” when she posted a snarky Tweet about President Barack Obama’s assistant for public engagement and intergovernmental affairs, Valerie Jarrett. In that Tweet, she referred to Ms. Jarrett, who is Black, as an “ape,” a terms used pejoratively by bigots to refer to Blacks.

Was the Tweet wise? No. Did it violate civility, decorum, and taste while possibly exposing bias? Yes.

Does it warrant banishment and the “cancel culture’s” demand of never working again? No.

People say misguided things. I haven’t spoken to Roseanne Barr in 36 years, but I wonder, as I’ve always wondered, and expressed before, whether “ape” was what she meant say, or an unfortunate first thing that came into her mind. Had she used “worm” or “weasel,” would the outcry and punishment be as great?

What I look for is proportion. If Roseanne Barr can lose everything she’s worked for because of an ill-chosen cognate for Valerie Jarrett, someone, for all her power in the Obama years, few people know or care about, why does DeSean Jackson get such a light, and rather coddling, wrist slap when he repeats foul fantasies that affect a whole people?

Interesting, and perhaps surprisingly, I don’t want the Eagles to cut DeSean Jackson or the NFL to prohibit his playing.

The proportion, or parity, I’m looking for spares everyone from “cancel culture.

If DeSean suits up with the Eagles, and accepts New England Patriot receiver Julian Edelman’s invitation to have a discussion with him about Jewish reaction to his statements, shouldn’t Roseanne Barr be able to apologize and keep on making people laugh. (“The Conners,” the show ABC made from the ashes of “Roseanne” has gotten good, but “Roseanne” with Roseanne was better.)

If the Eagles could be so benign and businesslike, can’t ABC. Is it so afraid of advertisers, it can’t give someone a new chance?

Wouldn’t have been nice if Valerie Jarrett, not known for her graciousness, had come out to forgive Roseanne the way Jewish groups are falling all over themselves to do for DeSean?

People are people. They make mistakes. At time they behave foolishly. And they often speak out of turn.

Roseanne was driven from television by a network and company I consider cowards rather than upstanding preservers of decency and good feelings to doing it. DeSean, whatever the unknown “penalties” is being embraced and “understood.”

Am I the only one who thinks this smacks of hypocrisy and a double standard?

If it was up to me, Roseanne Barr would be back on television, Curt Schilling would be a commentator at a major sports outlet, Woody Allen films would play at theaters, and DeSean Jackson would be on the field for the Eagles.

I believe, as Portia says in Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” that the quality of mercy should not be strained. As Portia goes on to explain, both the person who forgives and the person who asks for forgiveness is blessed.

To continue with Shakespeare, this time from “Hamlet,” if everyone is excoriated for every act, “who shall ‘scape whipping.”

The world has gone babyish. It’s not enough to call a foul. “Cancel culture” dictates the person who draws one should never be able to play again.

Neither Ms. Barr nor Mr. Jackson committed a crime. They used their First Amendment right to communicate. They used it stupidly, but one got clobbered when the other didn’t cause a national stir.

As I doubt Roseanne would have if the “cancellers” didn’t go into immediate uproar.

Could the difference Jackson might make on the 2020 team be the deciding factor here. I see folks who gnash their teeth at Roseanne wondering out loud how they should deal with DeSean. Would the Eagles have unloaded DeSean, justifying Chip Kelly’s assessment, if his ouster wouldn’t cost $4.8 million in guaranteed payments and damage to their salary cap?

Maybe so. The treatment of Jackson, by the Eagles, the NFL, Julian Edelman, and fans in general, may set a new standard of acknowledging celebrities are human (and shouldn’t make political statements anyhow).

Let’s be more charitable in general. Let’s push back at the advocates of “cancel culture” and tell them we’ll decide who we want to watch or cheer, as will be apparent ratings.

Let’s stop the hating and baiting and villainizing and let people, those who do nothing criminal anyhow, be themselves.

Perspective and proportion are everything. I’m happy the Eagles know that. I wish the entertainment industry, and its television section in particular, did.

Sports and race

In preparation for this past weekend’s 31st Annual American Century Championship, a golf tournament that features sports and entertainment celebrities, including for the first time this year former Phillies second baseman Chase Utley, GOLF Channel’s Damon Hack held a series of roundtable interviews with stars about “Race and Sports in America.”

Included in these discussions, which air at 8 p.m. tonight on NBC Sports Philadelphia and the NBC Sports Network, are two of the greats from Philadelphia Sports, former Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins and former Sixers favorite Charles Barkley. They and others, such as Golden State Warriors stickout Stephen Curry, talk with Hack about social justice, locker room conversations about race, and how sports can be a tool to fight inequality.

Smerconish gives theater its due

The theater has been an integral part of my life for more than 50 years. In this world of care and quarantine, I cannot attend a theater. In fact, I worry live entertainment will be one of the last and most difficult forms to present safely given that dialogue and songs are projected, and an audience is required.

I can act out plays, script in hand. I can see productions via video or on television. Lantern Theater put on a fine “Two Gentlemen of Verona” with the actors reading from their homes.

I still miss being on site. So I enjoyed it when Michael Smerconish did his first CNN hourlong special from New Hope’s Bucks County Playhouse.

Yes, I like listening to Michael, but seeing the Playhouse on camera was a special delight. I may have to go to its Deck Restaurant for a meal, maybe a Friday lobster roll, to slake my anxiety.

Neal Zoren’s television column appears every Monday.