Victimhood

The urban elite thinks they’re a victim class

I’m Facebook friends with a woman who has been in Democratic Party politics since we attended high school together. Since then, she’s worked for power politicians, (unsuccessfully) run for office, and played a central role in the public takedown of an elected official. She has a degree from an Ivy League institution, as does her husband, who works in finance. Hers is the quintessential lifestyle of the urban elites. And boy, do I mean elite. There are vacations to Italy and the UK, foodstagramming at prominent eateries and bars in major cities, shows on Broadway, and weekend excursions to country estates. There’s the constant churn of attendance at upper-crust city events at beautiful historic locations. And that’s just since the economy started tanking earlier this year.

When victimhood is a game, everyone loses

Black History Month is now over, and we’ve moved on to Women’s History Month. In April, we’ll get the best of both worlds, with Black Women’s History Month. May will be Jewish-American Heritage Month, and then in June the nation will enjoy a blowout celebration of LGBT Pride Month, if the normalization (and commercialization) of the cause in recent years is any indication. The point of all of this is to serve as an annual national re-ratification of diversity, inclusivity and equity as America’s preeminent causes (and doctrines, as Spectator World editor Matt Purple has so perceptively assessed).

I’m a Latinx person of letters

A development has reshaped the world of letters. The literary universe is no longer a boys’ club but the playground of woke Brooklyn ladies who’ve swallowed up editorships and literary-agent gigs. The results continue to be predictable: a constant bombardment of books from elite white women about the travails of neurotic Brooklyn ladies, and victim narratives about brown suffering. The fetishization of people of color has come to define the woke relationship with so-called marginalized communities. Virtually every literary book — except for those based in Brooklyn — details the struggles of a victimized minority. The Booker Prize longlist or the National Book Award finalists will annually bombard you with weepy tales of generational POC suffering.

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The language of the victimhood war

Language is used in a weird way in the victimhood war, where those who see themselves without agency bravely speak their truth to power. Their truth cannot be negated merely by examining the evidence, for it derives from lived experience. The powerful are axiomatically guilty, and must be called out for their behavior, or behaviors, as the new usage puts it. They must then own or take ownership of the issue. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex found themselves victims without agency in the racist world of the royal family. During their interview with Oprah Winfrey, they spoke of conversations between the Duke and a member of the family about their unborn son Archie and what color his skin might be.

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