The Legacy of a TV Bigot

Norman Lear just died. Does Archie Bunker live on?

In today’s Stick to No Sports effort, we appreciate Archie Bunker, talk Xavier’s malaise, lament Winter Meetings boredom and revive a long-lost classic tune.

Archie Bunker

Norman Lear died early this morning, at 101. Youse of a Certain Age will remember him as the creator of All in the Family, a groundbreaking, ball-busting TV comedy about a bigot living with his family in Queens, NY, in the early 1970s.

The protagonist was Archie Bunker, a blue-collar guy in a dead-end job who was either unwilling or unable to deal with a world passing him by. Both, probably. In ArchieWorld, his Polish son-in-law was a “dumb Polack’’, Black people were “jigaboos’’ and anyone seen as liberal was a “pinko-Commie.’’

Arch’s rhetoric dated from the late 19th century.

We laughed at Archie, if not necessarily with him.