Reflections, Reflections

This is precious. It did make me wonder if it was true, given what it was, but the reporter , Tim Chitwood, seems to have tried to confirm the truth of it. And I do know a lot of people who would do this, specially in the homo and women rights wars too.

Just think of all the ways a man might use a banana to offend a woman.

Then you may imagine why some people leaped to the wrong conclusion when a woman complained about a Columbus police officer eating a banana at the Civic Center as people gathered for a Jan. 15 civil rights march.

The woman was deeply offended, she told police. The police were deeply bewildered.

The offense was not what you might imagine it to be. I imagined the officer shoving the banana into his pants pocket to make others point at it and say, "Hey, is that a banana in your pocket or are you just glad to be here getting paid overtime?"

But that was not what offended the woman, who hung up on people who couldn't figure it out.

Then she called Mayor Bob Poydasheff. [...]

"She said, 'No no no no, when the buses pulled into the Civic Center, I saw a policeman eating a banana.' And I didn't know what to say," Poydasheff recalled. "I was stunned. I said, 'What's wrong with that? Police were on their feet for eight hours. They had to get potassium in their system.'"

He said the woman told him the banana "was an affront to me and to others, including a former state senator." She wouldn't name the senator.

Why was she offended?

Well, it seems that in the context of the march, she took the officer's banana eating to imply an analogous racial slur relating black people to apes.

This is the mayor's reaction (you can tell the guy is a good politician, promising career ahead...):

"I'm sorry you were offended, and let me apologize to you personally," he told her.

"Well, send it in writing," she told him.

So he did. Call it "The Banana Apology."

Dated Jan. 22, it says: "As I said in our telephone conversation, I am sorry you found Columbus police officers eating bananas on the street when you arrived in Columbus for the protest. Let me assure you there was no intent to offend. The officers needed some nutrition after standing long hours on the street and they particularly needed the potassium available in bananas and some other fruits."

Later the mayor writes: "There was no thought of insulting or offending anyone and perhaps this was thoughtless on our part. In any case, let me offer my sincere apology for anything our officers may have done that gave offense to you or anyone else."

This made me think of the crux of the argument regarding hate speech/crimes: it is not the thought that counts, it´s the PC thought that counts. You see, a policeman hitting someone on the head with a banana for no PC reason is just nonsense. If he smashes a banana into a person´s face simply because he was fed up with life, well, no harm there. But... a policeman who eats a banana as a snack in front of black people, that is evil. His clear intention at communicating to black passer-byers that they are apes makes this simply an unpardonable hate crime. It shows that hate speech-crime laws have not gone far enough. We need a special set of legal code to deal with highly offensive snacking actions.

We will not be safe until we have legislature to protect us. Are you still unconvinced? What about a policeman eating an apple in front of a woman? Trivial, you say? Think again. It is another horrible hate crime because we all know that his intention is to communicate to women they are the root of all evil, from the heyday in the Garden. A policeman snacking on onion rings in front of a homo should be thrown in jail because he is suggesting onion rings are like wedding rings and only for people with no homosexual mental problems. And how about that most horrible deed, a policeman blowing a chewing gum bubble in front of a politician? It can only mean a profound offense suggesting all politicians are empty headed! But wait, politicians are not part of the exclusive PC elite of victim groups (race, homos, women), so it´s OK. Bubble gum, ladies and gentlemen, is not an instrument of crime yet, if the offense is directed at non-PC victim groups. For a moment there, I got a little carried away and thought we all could be offended, equal rights and all that. No such luck in a liberal society.

A person can use a banana to communicate offense at other people in many real ways and we need to call them on it when that happens. Yes, a policeman could eat a banana in a way that communicated lots of ugly things to different people (in sexual and racial ways). By what was reported however, it doesn´t seem this was the case, specially by what the woman was reported to have complained about. So, what happens when there is no offense and the offensive act/intent is impinged on someone?

It reminded me of this ruckus at a college campus recently where a person invited an ex-gay to speak at an event. Calls and emails of protest followed saying what? That these people were offended by the idea. The speaker was cancelled. Censorship was enforced, the pro-homos exercised totalitarian control of information and speech. An offense, eh? An excuse for absolute unethical social control is more like it.

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