There most certainly are people who have become celebrities off fostering the notion that true and abhorrent racism is everywhere. They make the news, they travel to picket, they write for newspapers, and in one case have actually been the subject of a South Park episode about creating racism out of nothing.
Likewise, there are religious figures who are making money off going on TV and shouting about how their religious freedoms are being trampled on and how it literally is an "us vs them" fight and if they lose it's game over for their deity.
Likewise, there are celebrities who get their paycheck in part or full from finding sexism in daily life. Ryan Singel just became one of them.
It's the power these people, few though they may be, hold over the discussions in society, the power to push political correctness and make people second-guess their words and actions to the point where it's impossible to keep up with what is polite to say and what will get you fired, beaten up, or cast out. There's money to be made in controversy, and that money isn't going uncollected.
True and abhorrent racism isn't everywhere, but it is endemic in most societies. And the vast majority of people who have reached 'celebrity' status for their writing on the subject have written because they felt a pressing need to do so, not in order to profit from controversy. If money is your bag, there are far easier ways of making it than trying to become a successful author.
I don't want to name names because for many of the people, breeding controversy is not their only goal. However, the Westboro Baptist Church and various notable Fox News celebrities (the ones who frequent the monologue of The Daily Show) are two cases where there is nothing going on except for profiting from false controversy.
Like I said, they are few. But they do exist, and they do irreparable harm to the discourse of political correctness by feeding off the fear that a group of people has of discrimination.
Untrue. I can't find the exact story I was thinking of, of a man in a wheelchair suing every business in his town that doesn't strictly adhere to ADA standards, but apparently it's not even as rare as I imagined.
And yes, you can say that these places should be handicap accessible, but there is no denying that some of these people are definitely making a profit from these lawsuits.
That's not making money off of feeling oppressed. That's making money off of successful serial lawsuits. Whether or not they feel oppressed doesn't enter in to the business model.
In the case of Hirsch, it's really hard to tell anything since an NY Post article (not a reputable source) appears to be the only primary source on the subject.
As for the ROHO post, the claim that they are raking in "huge amounts" of cash is pretty dubious. Even Hirsch with his 87 lawsuits would have brought in under $4500 total for his efforts. Not an insignificant amount of cash, but hardly a gold mine.
I would argue that it is making money off the feeling of discrimination. The serial lawsuits are just a tool being used to make this money. Just as Ryan's soapbox as editor of Wired is a tool, the media is a tool for getting out the message of the "War on Christmas", etc. You don't actually have to feel oppressed to use the fear of oppression as a tactic in getting what you want. In Wired's case, there was no sexism either implicit or explicit. But you know, calling sexism gets pageviews and attention. And those things lead to money.
Has Hirsch really been tortuously injured by the lack of handicap-accessible businesses? It doesn't matter. What matters is that he is using the fear of discrimination to justify a lawsuit (or 87). This is definitely going beyond my original point of the use of language. The original point was that I cannot give offense to you, offense is something that can only be taken. Therefore it is up to the audience to be damn sure offense was implied before it is taken.
