Is society really getting this petty?

Remember that incident just a couple of weeks after the 2016 Election Day, where a woman at a Michael’s crafts store in Chicago got all riled up over what she saw as poor service, and thought it was non-white workers trying to punish her because she was a political backer of Donald Trump?

Is the kid on the right a 'trouble-maker?'

Perhaps we should have seen that incident as evidence that the level of stupidity would continue to rise. Perhaps we shouldn’t be the least bit shocked at any of the nonsense we have endured recently.

HOW ELSE TO describe the incident in Cleveland suburbs last week where police were called on a 12-year-old boy who engaged in the kind of activity we’d like to fantasize many kids would do – pull out the lawn mower and engage in some grass-cutting activity to try to raise some money.

I know my own father insists on doing his own lawn cutting, but I know many people who’d rather pay $20 or so to have someone else sweat their buns off while mowing the lawn.

But in this case, the kid who was doing the grass-cutting was black, which seemed to offend the sensibilities of a neighbor of the woman who had offered to pay the kid some cash for his labor.

When the kid inadvertently let his mower wander over onto a part of her property, her reaction was simple.

CALL THE COPS!!!

I wonder if in her mind, a SWAT team would swarm onto the grounds and haul the little kid away for daring to be seen near her property – which probably is his real offense. She probably thinks the real culprit is her neighbor who didn’t have the sense to hire the “right” kind of kid to do such work for her.

Now to their credit, the police in Maple Heights, Ohio, had enough sense to realize at the scene that nothing of a criminal nature was taking place. The kids, according to the Washington Post, were a bit freaked out at having uniformed police officers arrive, but nothing more became of the moment.

The real 'crime' was naming Billy Thomas' character "Buckwheat"

Perhaps the day will come that they’ll be able to laugh it off.

MAYBE THERE ALSO will be a humorous ending for the incident earlier this year when a kid, who made the “mistake” of being black, tried selling bottled water in San Francisco near a stadium. She wanted money to help pay for a family trip to Disneyland.

In that incident, a white woman insisted on whipping out her cellphone to contact the police so she could report the great criminal offense of selling something in public without a permit.

The woman tried denying her account, but the San Francisco police on Saturday made public the recording of her 9-1-1 call to complain about, “someone who does not have a vendor permit who is selling water across from the ballpark.”

Which may have the San Francisco Giants upset that someone thought to buy water from a kid, rather than the overpriced carbonated beverages on sale within the stadium. Although just about every stadium I have ever seen will have someone similar peddling H20 to make a few bucks.

THERE HAVE BEEN other similar incidents of black people becoming the focus of complaining calls to authorities because of someone who is white feeling offended, or possibly threatened, by their very presence.

Calling out the National Guard?

It actually reminds me of people I have heard in the past who try to claim they aren’t racist because, when they were growing up, there were no black people for them to be offended by.

Is that their vision of a perfect world? One in which they think this Age of Trump somehow legitimizes?

What next? Someone will demand that a governor call out the National Guard because they think there’s a “criminal conspiracy” at the sight of several young black children trying to operate a lemonade stand?!?

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