Insensitive comments coming from some of our nation's elected officials in Washington D.C. are commonplace anymore. That doesn't make it right. In fact, it is a sad commentary on the way officials treat each other - and us.
No wonder nothing gets done in our Nation's Capital.
Sexist, racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, the list goes on and on. Where did these public servants get their educations? Where did they learn their values and how can they go on minimizing tragedies because it suits their agenda or the audience they're currently addressing?
The examples of insensitive statements are mindboggling, and they would fill pages and pages of newsprint.
Maybe a history course and sensitively training should be mandatory before elected officials enter the Beltway and take their seats.
A recently reported comment came from a freshman member of the House of Representatives, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. In a speech delivered last month to the Council of American-Islamic Relations, she urged Muslim-Americans to "make people uncomfortable" with their activism. Taken in context, there is nothing insensitive about that statement. It is an attempt to raise the awareness that Muslim-Americans are entitled to the same rights as all Americans. Then she brought up the September 11, 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
She said "CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something, and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties."
Really? Some people did something. The worst attacks on United States soil were reduced to that statement.
George Santayana was credited as saying "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Omar was only 20-years-old when the attacks occurred in New York, Washington, D.C. and Shanksville, PA. Perhaps Minnesota is far-enough removed from those locations to shrug shoulders over the heartbreak felt by so many that day.
Or, perhaps she was too young to comprehend the tragedy or didn't know anyone who died on September 11, 2001. Too many of us did know someone who died that day, and forgive us if we believe the reason for their deaths is more than because "somebody did something."
Shameless insensitivity displayed by anyone towards a tragic event is never a proper way to present your side of an argument.
It's even worse when the words come from our elected officials.