Crybabies In The Courtroom

[VDARE.COM NOTE: this
column came with Creators Syndicate note saying
"Note to Michelle Malkin editors: the following
column contains language in the first sentences of the
third and 12th paragraphs that may be offensive to some
readers. Thank you for your attention. -- Creators
Syndicate, Inc." This crybaby
thing is catching.]

When I was a third-grader, a silly little classmate
named Kelly made a third-grade level ethnic joke at my
expense.

I was the only kid in my class of

Asian descent. Kelly and the popular girls on the
playground were playing

Chinese jump rope. "Why don`t you show us some
tricks?" Kelly taunted. I had never seen a Chinese
jump rope in my life.

"Ching chong chay. Me no play!"

Kelly cackled. Her friends chanted along. I cried when I
got home.

My mom gave me a quick hug, wiped my nose, and then
firmly told me to get over it. "Don`t waste your
tears on stupid things," Mom counseled. Invaluable
lesson learned. End of story.

Now, if this all had happened in 2003, and if my mom and
I had been properly brainwashed by the cult of

victimology, we all know where my little tale would
have ended: In court.

In the 21st century, no bad slur goes

unlitigated. No

playground bully goes un-subpoenaed. No
hypersensitive wallflower goes uncompensated. Can`t take
a dumb joke? Sue.

Which brings me to the pair of overgrown crybabies who
are suing Southwest Airlines over a ridiculously
misperceived racial insult. The Kansas City Star

reports this week that sisters Louise Sawyer, 46,
and Grace Fuller, 48, are headed to trial because their
feelings were hurt by a flight attendant who used an old
nursery rhyme to get meandering passengers to hurry up
and sit down before flight departure.

Sawyer and Fuller allege that they were discriminated
against on a crowded February 2001 flight after
Southwest Airlines attendant

Jennifer Cundiff said over the intercom: "Eenie,
meenie, minie, moe; pick a seat, we gotta go."

Everyone who has ever flown Southwest knows it`s a
different kind of ride. Among the ranks of Southwest
flight crews are many former and aspiring stand-up
comedians. The company encourages a little levity to
make crammed flights slightly more tolerable. A few of
the light-chuckle lines used by Southwest flight
attendants and reported recently by the Wall Street
Journal: "OK, people, it`s open seating, just
like at church — saints up front, sinners in back"
and "Remember, this isn`t a furniture store. You`re
only renting this seat for an hour."

The "eenie, meenie" crack was used by other attendants
and recycled by Cundiff on several flights. But Sawyer
and Fuller, who are black, felt ridiculed and persecuted
by Cundiff, who is white. Bingo: Racist hate crime.
"I was infuriated by the comment," Sawyer said.
Fuller whined: "It was like I was too dumb to find a
seat."

All together now: Awwwww.

The humor-challenged siblings preposterously allege that
Cundiff was making a discriminatory reference to their
race because there is an obscure adaptation of the
children`s counting rhyme that replaces the word "tiger"
with the n-word in the verse that ends "Catch a tiger
by the toe." Cundiff, 22, says she had never heard
of the offensive version. (Neither had I, nor, I
imagine, have most people in Cundiff`s generation or
mine.)

"The statement I made on Flight 524 was not racist or
discriminating, and I am offended that because I have
white skin suddenly I am a racist. Maybe those that run
around pointing fingers yelling racist should stop and
turn that finger around,"
Cundiff wrote in an incident report. You tell `em, girl.

The grandest insult, of course, is that a federal judge
allowed this litigious farce to

proceed. U.S. District Judge

Kathryn H. Vratil,  appointed by President Bush I,
has set trial for March 4. Cundiff and Southwest, which
is commendably standing by her, are entangled in

costly litigation over a word she never said and a
slight she never intended. Yet, Judge Vratil is
permitting Sawyer and Fuller to seek unspecified
compensatory and punitive damages for dubious
"physical and emotional distress" (including
Fuller`s "unexplained memory gaps" about the
flight). They are also demanding employee sensitivity
training. [Click

here for
the court order in PDF.]

Sniffle, harp and moan. Where are the grown-ups in the
judiciary to tell such

thin-skinned litigants to wipe their noses and stop
wasting time and money on phenomenally stupid things?

Michelle Malkin is author of

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