[Adventures] in Being Offended

[Adventure 71]

There is being offended and then there is being offensive. 

It is ok for companies and organizations to decide to change their name or the name of a product or remove something from their collection of offerings that is offensive, for the simple reason that it is offensive. And, because this is a free country, they have the freedom to do so. Or they can change the name of something because it better suits the product or line of products or even change their own name. 

What confuses me are all the people I see in my social media feeds who are offended by the name changes - and are complaining that people take offense to things too easily and that's why "the liberals" are forcing the changes. How can one both take offense to so many of these things and accuse others of being too easily offended? 

People who own the rights to a series of books decides to stop publishing the ones with racist images. Period. Blaming anyone but the people who made that decision is ridiculous. No one went after the owners of Dr. Seuss' estate to get the books banned. 

And then there's the Potato Head family being stripped of their Mr. and Mrs. status. Why can't the Potato Heads just be potato heads just like my family is the Steyers and my parents are the Talbots? You can consider the Mr. and Mrs. as implied if you'd like. Although not all couples are married. And some children may prefer to have mom and grandma potato head or dad and girlfriend potato head or mom and big brother potato head. 

And don't get me started on those gluten-hating liberals forcing Dunkin' to remove Donuts from their name. How dare they take away that essential part of my childhood. Fond are my memories of the treat of a dozen glorious donuts as a special celebratory breakfast or my Aunt Muriel teaching me how to eat the jelly out of a jelly donut without leaving any evidence as to what I'd done. Oh, wait, Dunkin' did that all on their own and no one really complained about it. 

But the removal of racist names or content or the omission of gender markers is offensive? That speaks volumes.