THE PRIVILEGE IS ALL MINE (SUPPOSEDLY)

Move over, boys, I'm joining you.

 All the talk about being "woke" doesn't do me any good since it tends to put me to sleep. But then there are moments when I sit up and pay attention, if only to remind myself it's better to go back to sleep. 

Dr. Sherita Hill Golden works at Johns Hopkins University as "Chief Diversity Officer", which sounds like she has the power to arrest offenders. Dr. Golden recently gave her staff a heads-up in her "monthly diversity digest" regarding people who have "unearned benefits given to people in a specific social group". They are the "privileged", and are as follows:

Apparently, there are no people of color who fall into any of those categories other than, naturally, "White". Some would consider that racist. And the reason why "Jews" aren't on that list is likely due to Dr. Golden being cognizant of how well that worked out for the former president of Harvard University. Next year in Cambridge! (Fun fact: Dr. Golden herself falls into at least four of those categories. Does that make her 47% privileged?)

Since I have "membership", as Dr. Golden puts it, in eight of those nine categories (like it was a socioeconomic Playboy Club), I can consider myself part of The Privileged. Or can I? Once the List of the Damned went public (as these things always do, which shows you smart the doctor really is), two top faculty members at Johns Hopkins backed away from the email, which forced Golden to retract the statement thusly:

See, it isn't racist! It was just "overly simplistic" (true!) and "poorly worded" (meaning it's what she really means). Gee whiz, first I'm the proud owner of a gold key in The Privileged Club, and the next it turns out that it was all a mistake. There's no justice.

The thing that bugs me about this folderol is that I'm put, however briefly, in the same galaxy of imbeciles like Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Jr. and the vile Murdoch family, because they and their ilk are among the only people who brought this to the public's attention. 

Granted, the "monthly diversity digest" sounds like it would be the most boring reading matter since Siddartha (yes, I said it!). But still, there are plenty of loony right-wing statements coming out of less prestigious schools like Liberty University that get plenty of mention by the usual suspects like MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post, none of which covered the Johns Hopkins story. Come on, guys, don't make me keep linking to Fox News! Your audience is mature enough to be exposed to stories like this. I hope.

One more thing: if the job title "Chief Diversity Officer" doesn't sound privileged, I don't know what does. 

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