Now is not the time to ask how it all happened*

In a pivotal scene from some imaginary alternate-history movie about racism in America, where Blacks are the Man, the poor, white protagonist would break into the local library (from which his kind are barred during the day) and starts digging through old newspapers on microfilm, trying to figure out how the world got this way. As the music swells, he'd come across this headline, from the height of the white civil-rights movement of the alterna-'60s:

"King Endorses Ethnic Profiling"




Sadly:

"Declaring that airport screeners shouldn't be hampered by "political correctness," House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King has endorsed requiring people of "Middle Eastern and South Asian" descent to undergo additional security checks because of their ethnicity and religion.

Discussing the recent revelation of an alleged plot in England to blow up U.S.-bound airliners, the Seaford Republican said yesterday that, 'if the threat is coming from a particular group, I can understand why it would make sense to single them out for further questioning.'"


(Yes, "political correctness" - the most powerful force in the world, more powerful than organized religion, global commerce, and the Masons combined. Powerful enough to stay the hand of a mighty nation. There are few of us left now who still remember the days before all signs of racism and sexism were violently eradicated by the forces of Euphemism. Those of us who do remember those times have a haunted, hollow look in our eyes. We avoid other people, fearful that our faces will betray our thoughts, and the joke about the armless, legless homo we silently tell ourselves for comfort...)


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