In Nyack, New York, a law firm purchased some designer black jack o’lanterns from “Bed, Bath, and Beyond” as office decorations. Some residents complained to a local TV channel and to the law firm, claiming that the decorations were “racist.”

The law firm, Feerick, Nugent, MacCartney, immediately removed them, and soon thereafter, the household accoutrements chain pulled the item from its inventory. Now the law firm is busy grovelling, especially after the local NAACP accused them of “extreme lack of sensitivity.”

I think he meant “a lack of extreme sensitivity.” Isn’t that more accurate?

“We understand that someone complained about them and so once we got word of that we immediately took them down,” said Mary Marzolla, a partner at the racist firm. “We represent people of all colors and faiths, and we would never do anything to exclude anyone from any community,” she added,

What? How do black painted or colored pumpkins exclude anyone from the community? Is she really saying that if an individual, no matter how foolish or addled, complains about anything, then the firm is ethically obligated take remedial action? Is that the standard?  Let’s test it: I’m complaining about the firm’s conduct in capitulating to an idiotic and manipulative claim of racism. OK, Feerick, Nugent, MacCartney, the ball’s in your court.

Satisfy me.

Is there no way in 2019 to tell a hypersensitive wacko, “I’m sorry, but you are a fool. There is nothing to be offended about. I do not have to cater to your paranoia or contrived sensitivities, and I will not.”

Now partners at the firm are asking why the black faux-carved pumpkins didn’t “raise flags” at Bed Bath & Beyond, which has also apologized. Let’s see: the lawyers are saying that it was the store’s fault for selling  decoration that made the firm reveal its racial insensitivity? If the firm couldn’t tell that  black jack ‘o lanterns were on some double-secret race-baiter’s list for future gotchas, why was Bed, Bath and Beyond supposed to  figure it out?

Black jack o’lanterns have been around for a long, long time. One even appears briefly in Disney’s animated version of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” The black nicely contrasts with the flame-glow from the orange interior. How is that racist, by any definition of the word? It isn’t, of course, or wasn’t. NOW it’s racist, because some clever black activist figured out that they had an unexplored way to make white people feel guilty and beg for forgiveness.

Here are just a few black jack images from the web; I don’t know why these were not vetted in Nyack, which appears to be the Racist Pumpkin Authorities Center…

Forget Bed, Bath and Beyond, I want to know why the NAACP never told us for all these years that black pumpkins were racist. Isn’t that their job? Here we have been ignorantly using these things all these years, and the experts on detecting coded racism in every nook and cranny of our society, language, entertainment, advertising, looks, dress, and body language just let it go on so they could spring the trap in Nyack?

Better yet, I want someone to explain how coloring black a carved vegetable that does not represent a human being and that is traditionally orange, unlike any human without some kind of skin affliction ,can legitimately offend anyone other than those who are desperately looking for ways to be offended, so they can make people grovel for forgiveness.