All parties to the dispute agree that McKinney was not wearing a lapel pin that supposedly identifies her as a member of Congress. She walked by a checkpoint, which congresspeople are allowed to do, assuming that they are wearing the pin. A guard attempted to verbally get her attention three times. When she kept walking, he reportedly put his hand on her, and she hit him.

McKinney claimed that she was defending herself, and that the guard should have recognized her, even though she wasn't wearing her pin. However, she also stated that she recently changed her hairstyle, so she might have been harder to recognize.

Let me first note that racism exists in many places that you wouldn't normally think it would. I have seen racism from people of every race, and from people who I never would have expected to harbor such ideas. Sometimes the racism is blatant; just as frequently, it is subtle.

That said, even if the guard was racist, it is no excuse to violate a well-known security policy and then ignore warnings from the guard. In turn, her actions don't detract from the fact that the policy is itself stupid.

Congressional office buildings are prime terrorist targets. It's actually refreshing to see a security guard notice when people are improperly attempting to bypass a checkpoint and take a measured response of first verbally attempting to stop the person and then escalating the response when the person ignores those warnings.