Like People are Actually Offended...

The other day at work my manager and another employee were discussing the 3 hour free coffee promotion at Biggby's. During the discussion my manager noted that he thinks the name change from Beaner's to Biggby's is kind of dumb and he doubts anyone was really offended. I, so badly, wanted to ask the Mexican cleaning guy Miguel, who was standing in the same room as us if he agreed, but I figured that wouldn't be very wise. I've heard other people express these same ideas, but, apparently, according to the news story I linked to people did take notice. In fact, a couple friends who moved to Michigan a year ago were shocked that the name of a popular coffee chain was a derogatory term for Hispanic Americans.

My question is why do we caucasians have such crappy attitudes when other people feel offended by something? Shouldn't we respect other culture's feelings on such matters? Who are we to judge what other people are offended at? I understand that some groups take things too far, but I really don't believe this is one of those instances. Don't get me wrong I liked the name "Beaner's" very much, and I'll probably continue to call it that. The name Biggby-- don't ask me why, it's probably something from my childhood-- make's me think of a large, dumb cartoon dog Maybe they should have compromised and changed their logo to a large coffee bean to drive the meaning home.

But, in the end, shouldn't we consider this progress? Not that long ago in the 50's the government actually had a deportation program called, "Operation Wetback." We thought nothing about throwing around racially disparaging remarks. I'm not saying we should be politically correct, but historically we (caucasians) have done a lot of evil to other people in this country, and the least we can do is respect a racially oppressed people's right to be offended.