DEI hires? What about WPA (White Penis Advantage) hires?

If we're identifying privileged pools of employees, let's at least start at the top.

WPA hires, every one

As we all know, recently any number of cretinous public figures have opened the moron maws in the faces to claim that Kamala Harris is a DEI hire.

It’s a thing lots of disgruntled racists people have been saying for a while now. “She’s just a DEI hire.” “He only got that job because of DEI.” That sort of thing.

“DEI” is the new dog whistle replacing “Affirmative Action.” It is so much easier to say. And it saves you the trouble of having to know what “affirmative” means.

Sorry. That was fully dickish of me. I just . . . arrrgh. But my bad, for sure.

It is fine and reasonable to acknowledge the instinctive moral grounding of the argument that no one should be hired for a job just because they fall within one of the classes of people whom DEI / Affirmative Action programs are meant to benefit.

In a perfect, color-blind world, DEI / AA programs wouldn’t be necessary. Of course they wouldn’t be.

But our world is color-blind like the sun is an ice cube. In our world, people of color are forever getting passed over for all kinds of wonderful opportunities for which they’re perfectly qualified. Why? Because those who are so often the gate-keepers for those opportunities are just like everyone else: if given a choice, they would prefer to hang out with people just like them.

People are people; people are tribal; people who aren’t born into the tribe that has all the power have a hard time getting into that tribe. DEI and AA programs are flawed, as any attempt at social engineering must be. But if you think they’re anything but good-faith efforts to level America’s playing field a little, then . . . grow up. Go meet some people who aren’t just like you. Please.

Equal-opportunity programs are grounded in—they necessarily begin with—the identification of the classes of people who are being systematically and institutionally disadvantaged. Which—duh. You can’t protect a class of people without first identifying who they are.

Which brings me to my point. If we’re going to employ a handy initialism to identify the people in our society who are most disadvantaged, shouldn’t we also have one to identify the people in our society who are most advantaged?

For sure! And it is for that very purpose that I would like to suggest WPA: White Penis Advantage.

“Oh, he’s a WPA hire if I’ve ever seen one.”

“How am I supposed to get ahead, when it’s one WPA hire after another?”

“That preening, braying insult to humanity is the ultimate example of how far just having WPA can get you.”

I mean, it works. And I think we need it.

Because WPA isn’t a problem. WPA is the problem. So the least we can do is name it.