Professionally Offended

This whole thing with Rep. McKinney is so ridiculous. The woman bypassed a security checkpoint at the US Capitol and then ignored police commands to stop and identify herself. When finally accosted, she was unable to present her identification. So, obviously the security team is totally at fault here. They should not be stopping an unidentified black woman trying to get into the Capitol building without going through security. What do they think she's going to do, bomb the place?

Of course, lots of people are taking the opportunity to be offended and get their faces on TV again. There are people I call the professionally offended. They take any chance to be offended at anything that will get them publicity, attention, or money. I've actually read of two women who were offended and suffered emotional distress because some flight attendant uttered the words, "Eenie, meenie, minie, moe." Needless to say they took advantage of the phrase, and a knowledge of its fairly obscure history (an older version of the nursery rhyme contained a racial slur), to try to cash in on their offense and "distress." (One woman, this is hilarious, "claims hearing the rhyme caused her to be bedridden for three days and suffer from 'unexplained memory gaps.'")

Now many will use McKinney's failure to present identification as an opportunity to pontificate about racial profiling. I guess the view is that obviously a white person trying to sneak past security to get into the Capitol would be allowed to go through. (Get that al Qaeda?) Whatever gets you on TV, I guess.