We’ve become a nation of wimps just waiting around to feel offended

I’m sick of people begging me to be offended at something they’ve imagined to be offensive. I’m suffering from “outrage overload” because so many people seem so eager to tell me I should be offended at an ever-growing list of things.

Here are two recent things that have me banging me head against the wall in frustration with the pathetic folks of the Fellowship of the Offended.

First, a black gymnast named Gabby Douglas won a gold medal at the Olympics and NBC’s Bob Costas had a segment about her being the first black winner of the all-around. Then the network went to a commercial break, which happened to start with a promo for a new NBC comedy called “Animal Practice,” about life at a vet clinic. The commercial imagines a monkey who lives at the clinic seeing himself (herself?) winning an Olympic medal. (See the video at the end of this article.)

The promotion had been running regularly throughout the Olympics as a tie between the show and the games. But because it happened to run after a black woman won a gold medal, well, you know the rest. The ad was clearly racist — and NBC was forced to apologize. (See this article for some of the outraged tweets about it.)

When I told someone the story Sunday night and asked for her reaction, she almost shouted her reply: “Tell these people to get a life!”

Why are people so eager to assume someone was being racist? Do they believe that someone at NBC produced that commercial weeks in advance — and ran it dozens of times ahead of time — just so some sheet-wearing racist could pull the spot out to run in the event that a black gymnast won something? Are these people honestly that stupid?

So that was the week’s chance to get many blacks and some white liberals whining about imaginary racism where none existed. Our second story is an opportunity for whites and conservatives to be offended about something done by a black athlete.

Serena Williams won a gold medal at the Olympics Sunday and she was obviously excited at the end of the match. She danced around the court in pure joy, at one point doing what some people refer to as the “crip walk.” Some people started going ballistic, saying she was “tainting” her gold medal with this little bit of joy. (Here’s an item from the Washington Post with a look at it from a more sympathetic point of view.)

Williams was raised in Compton, so this was just part of popular culture there. She wasn’t celebrating some street gang. It was just child-like exuberance. But some people, such as conservative blogger Debbie Schlussel , still want to be offended by it. She wrote:

“Yup, that’s what we need representing America, a Gold Medalist who, upon winning, glorifies hardened criminals who murder each other — and innocent Americans — for sport.”

To the morons such as those crying racism at NBC’s monkey ad and the other morons whining about Serena Williams’ little dance, I say, “Get a life.”

There are a lot of truly evil things about this world that don’t bother people in the least, yet they’re willing to be angry and offended by trivial things that aren’t offensive unless you bring your own twisted interpretation to them. The only thing that offends me is that people are so busy inventing new things to be offended about.

If this is you, well, get a life.