The new CBS series Superior Donuts premiered on Thursday night with a surprisingly free-wheeling, non-PC attitude. Within the first few scenes it’s mocking a millennial in a gender studies course and a businessman from Iraq. However, to exist in this country, I guess you have to make one offensive joke for every decent one, and demonizing cops is as insulting as it gets.
In the pilot episode, Franco Wicks (Jermaine Fowler) is determined to work for Arthur (Judd Hirsch) at his donut shop. After doing a little redecorating, he’s introduced to Arthur’s friend Officer Randy DeLuca (Katey Sagal) - insert cop eating donut joke here. Of course, the moment couldn’t be wasted without mocking the Chicago police for brutality.
DeLuca: Hey, where'd that come from?
Franco: Oh, I painted it. Let me show you. Oh! I must really trust you. I just turned my back on a Chicago cop.
DeLuca: I'm not gonna shoot you. I got my body cam on.
In case you thought that joke was a fluke, the episode later caps off with Arthur covering for Franco with the police after the latter defaces a Starbucks next door, with Franco exclaiming, “Once again, the white man gets off!” They were really banking on the idea that Chicago police are awful to black people.
Never mind that Chicago had no fewer than 762 murders, 3,550 shootings and 4,331 shooting victims in 2016. Or that 75 percent of murder victims and 71 percent of murderers in Chicago are black. Or that the former Chicago Police Superintendent says Black Lives Matter is responsible for rising crime in the city. Or that Chicago police officers have the highest suicide rate in the country.
Against that backdrop, I don’t think the false BLM trope of the trigger-happy cop shooting innocent black men for sport should be played for laughs.
