Watching Jimmy Kimmel is Resistance

By Lori Perkins

America was incensed when ABC took Jimmy Kimmel off the air at what seemed the demand of two right-wing media conglomerates that own 20% of ABC stations in the country, the chairman of the FCC and the President over lines in Kimmel’s monologue after the assassination of a right-wing political agitator. 

Since January, so many of the day-to-day rights and expectations of what we all thought were a given in American life have been taken or whittled away (or taken away but postponed until later, so we can’t see their direct effect right now).

I put together the collection of essays titled THE BOOK OF EVERYDAY RESISTANCE and I asked myself, is there anything I can really do to counter this?  I mean I am an eyelash in the wind.

But then I remembered that I do have some social media followers (21,000 on BlueSky and about 5,000 on FB and X) and I posted that even if you live in a Sinclair or Nexstar area where Kimmel is blocked, you can still watch the show on YouTube or Hulu or just ABC.com on the internet or your cable provider’s on demand feature. Turns out a lot of America did that and the show where Kimmel returned was watched by 26 million people. That made a statement that cannot be ignored.

I was inspired by the American people’s reaction to this petty and ridiculous censorship.  It showed we do have power.  It showed we might just be able to effect change, if we really stick together and stick up for each other and what we believe.  And just maybe we won’t have to put ourselves in physical danger to do it.

It showed me that we have to think outside of the box.

I was so elated to be inspired by my countrymen and women, because I have not felt that in a very long time!