Kansas City Star apologizes to hyper-sensitive readers for word used to describe Michelle Obama

I was hoping this kind of stuff would die off now that the country has elected a Black president, but some people will never let it end. The Kansas City Star has apologized -- sort of -- for a word used in a column to describe a pose by Michelle Obama. Here is the column from the KC Star's "The Buzz":

First lady Michelle Obama will appear on the March cover of Vogue, the first first lady to be on the famed cover since Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In the cover photo, taken by Annie Leibovitz, Obama is leaning on a soft beige sofa at the Hay-Adams Hotel, where the first family stayed days before the inauguration. Obama is wearing a magenta dress by Jason Wu, who designed her inaugural ball gown. Her hand rests under her chin and her left hand is folded beneath her. She wears a diamond she is not often seen with.

Behind her, light streams in between curtains. It is the pose of the odalisque. The Buzz says it could also be the pose of the already out of touch.

Some easily-offended nitpickers Googled the word "odalisque" and found out it is defined as "a virgin female slave in an Ottoman seraglio. She was an assistant or apprentice to the concubines and wives, and she might rise in status to become one of them...Odalisques were usually slaves given as gifts to the sultan."

Readers rep Derek Donovan responded to the complaints. Donovan said the word "isn't overtly racist" but offered a semi-apology anyway and said journalists need to be more sensitive. I wish Donovan had told the humorless knuckleheads who complained to grow up. .

Hat tip: Bottom Line Communications
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