Posted by
Ed Lilly on Tuesday, November 06, 2007 1:40:50 PM
Imagine your employer has a Halloween party and one of the white employees shows up with make-up to darken his skin, wearing a prison uniform, and hair in dreadlocks. Problem? Sure.
But now
imagine it's the Department of Homeland Security having the Halloween party and this happens. From the story:
WASHINGTON — A top immigration official has apologized after awarding "most original costume" to a Homeland Security Department employee who dressed in prison stripes, dreadlocks and dark makeup for a Halloween gathering at the agency.
Julie Myers, assistant secretary overseeing Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement division, was part of a three-judge panel that lauded the costume, worn by a white employee, last Wednesday. ...
...
The photo of Myers with the employee and any others taken by the official photographer showing the costume were discarded, Nantel said.
...
Even among the supposed Neanderthal conservatives at Fox News, the headline focuses on the offensiveness of the particular costume described.
I guess I'm just continually out of step with the news judgment of the mainstream media. I'm much more bothered by the fact that the Department of Homeland Security would even have a Halloween party, presumably during the workday. And I'm rather blown away by the fact that they had an official photographer at the event.
Runaway illegal immigration? Ongoing threat of terrorism from Islamic fanatics? Who cares!? It's Halloween, and Homeland Security has to make sure to celebrate it, in a politically correct way, rather than keep its eye on the ball. They'll have no one but themselves to blame when this kind of thing gets dragged back into public view after the next big terrorist attack in the U.S.