Army Bob: Being offended becoming our national pastime

by Robert M. Traxler

Ban it, limit it, destroy it, condemn it, and change it. What am I referring to? Who cares, as long as “it” is an act or object that makes “some people uncomfortable.” Our right to be free of what some folks call offensive objects, symbols, words, actions or thoughts is a surging tide that is reaching flood stage.

The Confederate States of America’s battle flag is offensive; the use of the “N” word is offensive unless spoken by an African American Rapper or the President of the United States; referring to Islamic Terrorism as Islamic Terrorism is offensive. Even certain cartoon characters are offensive.

The real truth is that if you want to be offended by anything, you will be. My favorite was the politically correct movement prevalent in the 1990s that maintained complimenting a lady on her looks is sexist and condescending. Even referring to a female as a lady was considered offensive; the politically correct term was woman.

The Rev. Martin Luther King would be considered a racist today if he repeated his iconic “I have a dream” speech. Reverend King used words like colored and Negro; he referred to African American male children as little boys. All unpardonable sin or worse; it would make some people uncomfortable today.

The American flag offends a growing number of folks who will say it represents imperialism, racism, sexism, capitalism and oppression. During the ongoing Confederate Battle Flag debate Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation Of Islam, called for banning the American flag altogether.

We have made being offended our national pastime, replacing baseball.

Governor Bobby Jindal is running in the Republican primary for president; it has been said he does not have one drop of Indian blood left in him. Governor Jindal’s parents are “off the boat” immigrants from the nation of India, but a large number of the folks on the left side of the political isle will not refer to him as a minority because his politics are not politically correct. Ethnicity, sex and race are becoming a state of mind or a matter of politics not a matter of birth, lineage or DNA.

Unisex bathrooms are rapidly becoming the new norm, as is gender identification; you are whatever gender you wish to be at any time you wish. An interesting offshoot of gender and race selection as opposed to the more traditional method of identification will be the opening of gender-based and race-based quotas to all. If you or I apply for a job and the employer tells us they wish to expand the number of minorities, we simply inform them as of today I feel I am an Eskimo, or Native American so the employer gets a minority for the affirmative action program.

The vilification of Wall Street chief executive officers as too white and too male is now solved; on the day the reports are published, half just say they feel like a female African American on that day and the goal of diversity is achieved. Questioning gender identity is socially forbidden and worse it would make people feel uncomfortable.

The unintended consequences of the liberal interpretation of race and gender identification is the birth of designer race/gender; is it in my best interests to be a woman, fine, I am a woman. It is good for me to be a Pacific Islander, no one in my family history has ever been to a Pacific Island, but that is the racial grouping I wish to identify with. Questioning my decision would make me uncomfortable and thus above debate.

If any radical right-wing Republican questions my race/gender choice I use the ”I am offended” card and, if necessary, the race card. I call them a dictionary full of nasty names and say their bigotry offends me, instantly cutting off debate. After all, no one should ever be made to feel uncomfortable or feel offended.

Rachel Dolezal (a Caucasian woman working for the NAACP who wished to identify as an African American woman) and Bruce/Kaitlyn Jenner (a multiple Olympic Gold Medalist, national and icon and biological male, who wishes to be a female) just may have championed the beginning of the end of race/gender division. The media is calling for tolerance and openness in race/gender selection.

We all need to pay close attention to the debate in the next few years; we just may witness the start of the end of two major social divisions. This may just be one more unintended consequence of the liberal social justice movement; a self-inflicted gunshot wound for the exceptionally lucrative and very large gender/race division industry.