Political correctness, Spring 2004 version. Yesterday, I was at my favorite café and they were playing very irritating music that made it hard to concentrate on the editing project I was struggling with. As one of the few customers (Sunday morning), I considered asking them to change the music. But I decided not to, because the music was distinctly ethnic, and I was afraid it would be taken the wrong way. This morning, Cheryl came to work wearing a rather insane jacket that was covered with large cartoon characters (I'm talking twenty faces, 5" in diameter).

That's quite a jacket!

I thought I needed to liven things up. But the problem is there are no persons of color.

Just when you're trying to amuse the students, who knows what risks of offense one takes? I think the students should be happy that the teacher is willing to wear something positively absurd in order to cheer them up. Would anyone really think: Hey, that jacket is not inclusive enough!

I pointed out that that faces on the jacket were white (that is chalk white) and orange, so there was color variety, but she clearly felt it was deficient that a more pronounced attempt at diversity had not been made by the lunatic that patched that jacket together. And I'm not disrespecting Cheryl's clothes. I think clothes should be amusing, at least much of the time.

Oh, I forgot I had the digital camera! Missed opportunity! Cheryl did give me permission to blog about her jacket.