A&E's "Duck Dynasty" hypocrisy

“Duck Dynasty’ is this era’s ode to “Amos ‘n’ Andy.” In that show — which aired on radio and television from the 1920s through the 1960s and which was created, written and produced by white people — Americans were given the opportunity to laugh at African-Americans, adding insult to the injury that this group of citizens was already sustaining before the civil rights movement.

Now, Americans have a new group to laugh at — a self-described “bunch of rednecks from Louisiana.”

Here’s the irony. This show is successful at least in part because the characters say things that many Americans consider colorful and crude. It makes them interesting. That’s the schtick of the Robertson clan.

Now Phil Robertson is in hot water for staying in character and saying something colorful and crude. That is, Robertson was suspended for doing in print what he has, for the last four years, been paid to do on television.

That’s awfully hypocritical of A&E.