This handful of people who were apparently disturbed by Chan bearing her shoulders on a Saturday morning in LA, forced a major television station to take steps to correct the “problem.” Our quest, as businesses, governments and individuals, to not offend anybody for any reason has taken on a monstrous life, practically destroying any common sense interpretations along its path.

A small group, crying loudly, and fueled by non-stop searching for “news” by 24-hour news services, can gain the spotlight and grind any group, company or organization to a standstill, causing them to bend over backwards to comply with whatever request they can to leave those people un-offended.

What should the station have done? Probably just ignore the emails and continue with the show as it was. But the fear of bad publicity forced someone to feel they had to take action. I’m sure someone on the station’s staff immediately visualized the front door besieged by protesters, clamoring for Chan’s firing for committing such an offense, and the removal of the station manager and staff for not having a policy in place to prevent this from happening in the first place.

Ridiculous, you say? Just look around the nation today. Almost every news cast has a feature where someone was denied something by someone else, and a group of sympathetic people take to the streets, carrying signs supporting the cause, and being met by opposition forces taking the other position. We do this under the guise of racism, sexism, gender-bias, and all sorts of other worthy causes that are being demeaned by the usually self-serving actions of a small group that was denied something, or offended by some trumped-up comment. And many of the “protesters” don’t even know what the offending comment or action was.

The truth is, the path of least resistance is to give in to the demands and make the issue go away, no matter the cost. I doubt the station received any emails complaining about the grey sweater Chan was forced to wear, although there seems to be a ground swell action supporting Chan’s wardrobe decision and the protesting the station’s actions to cover her up.
Here we go again.

I’m still waiting to see if some librarian defense group will protest Chan’s comment after donning the sweater.