Sorry, No Offense...

Have you ever been offended for someone else? You know, you hear something that is completely insulting or insensitive, but it doesn't apply to you, and you still get offended because it's just so wrong?

I have to admit this doesn't happen to me often because I guess you could call my sense of humor inappropriate. Growing up Polish I had to learn to laugh at myself or get into a lot of fights (this was when Pollock jokes were a national past time). As America slowly grew out of that phase I now find myself in a world where "middle-aged white guy" is a punch line for a lot of minority humor. So I'm not normally overly sensitive when I hear stuff.

Until now.

I heard an ad for Dairy Queen the other day that made me do a double-take. It was for a new amaretto/coffee/whipped cream drink called Moolatte. It sounds like mulatte, a combination of mulatto and latte. A mulatto is a light skinned black person who usually has one white and one black parent. They are probably the same color as this new drink.

When I heard this, my second thought was, "How insensitive!"

If we live in a time when Tiger Woods can't say the word "spaz" without starting an international incident, what are the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons of the world going to do with this? This is far worse than a black man getting slow service at Denny's. This is name calling. Mulatte. What were they thinking?

I can only imagine what's next on their menu. Will they start serving Octorino? A word combination of octoroon and cappuccino having only one eighth the caffeine of regular cappuccino. Or will they serve a new high caffeine version of Mellow Yellow called High Yellow?

So yes, I have finally been offended for other people. Shame! Dairy Queen, shame!

Oh yeah, my first thought was, "Does Dairy Queen come from gay bulls? C'mon! It's not that much of a stretch. They're already dressed in leather..."