Shoulda Known

Cameron Diaz has landed herself in some hot water for wearing a messenger bag that she purchased in China while in Peru. It turns out that there was a Maoist insurgency in Peru in the 1980's and 1990's, which resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people. As per the script, she has issued the expected apology.

"I don't think she should have used that bag where the followers of that ideology did so much damage."
Pablo Rojas, described as a "prominent local human rights activist."

This is where political correctness goes off the deep end. Who on Earth would have expected Cameron Diaz to be tuned in enough to the history of Peru to realize that a random piece of Chinese communist kitsch would be seen as expressing support for an insurgency that ended more than a decade ago? Most Americans who even remember the Shining Path are unlikely to be able to tell you much of anything about them, let alone their particular brand of Communism. While I think that putting Ms. Diaz in the role of victim is overstating it, she does seem to have become a useful conduit for attention. I'm pretty sure that thousands of tourists every year visit Peru and say, do, or have something that could remind people of the Shining Path. But since celebrities will generate international headlines, they're much better targets for hurt feelings.