Good Grief!

Political correctness coming to a Halloween celebration near you...

I guess you have heard about the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employee (a white man) who showed up at a Halloween party at Julie Meyers' home (Julie Meyers is the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at DHS) dressed as a black inmate complete with skin paint, a prison outfit, and dreadlocks.

From the sound of things it must have been a pretty impressive costume.

Myers was on a three-judge panel that originally praised the prisoner costume for "originality."

That's when the problem started.

"There were a couple of people who were offended," Nantel said. "When it was confirmed through a conversation with the employee that he was wearing make-up" the employee was counseled and Myers sent out a note to employees apologizing.

OK, in today's world that was just a dumb idea. To suggest that his costume would be improved by making himself look black was an invitation to be excoriated. I do wonder however, if it would have been considered "inappropriate" if it had been a black man using white makeup and dressed as a prisoner. What if he had painted himself as an Asian or a Hispanic? What if, God forbid, he had come in his natural skin color and acted gay?

Director of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff said:

"I get very perturbed when there is anything that is done that suggests that with respect to the enforcement of the law, we are anything other than even-handed. I have zero tolerance for racism or discrimination in the area of law enforcement. We have to be tough but we have to be fair. ... The idea that you are going to come and impersonate someone of another ethnic group, I think, is completely unacceptable."

I think that the thing that annoys me most about this whole situation is the duplicity of it all. First it is considered a great costume. Then it was determined to be offensive.

"A department photographer took a picture of Myers with the man, but the photograph or photographs, originally posted online, were deleted after it was determined the costume was offensive."

Well, was it offensive or not? I contend that it would have been making the same exact statement had a black man been wearing the costume.

Robert D. Raiford has it right; we ARE the "United States of the Offended." We are so busy being offended and bending over backwards not to offend that we waste valuable government time (time that WE are paying dearly for) to deal with this stupidity.

If you want to read the whole article you can do it HERE, but I really don't know why you would want to.