So serial plagiarist and Professional Womyn of Color (Academic Division) Claudine Gay has been turfed from the comfy corner office at Hah-vaard, to the tune of much lamenting from The Usual Suspects. Frankly, I’m long past caring very much about what goes on in the hallowed halls of an increasingly overrated, intellectually debased institute of so-called higher learning. I was never in a position to be an Ivy student/alum, contribute monetarily to an Ivy, or in a position to hire a graduate from one of them, so the matter to me would be moot. Except …
Unfortunately, the ruling class, intellectual elite of this increasingly bedraggled nation have been overimpressed for decades with Hah-vaard and other enormous hedge funds with a finishing school of storied history attached, so willy-nilly, we must pay attention to the place. Apparently, MS Gay achieved her exalted position through the magical combination of possessing a vagina, a melanin-enhanced epidermis, and an expertise at vicious academic infighting, but no great intellectual shakes, literary skills, or any but the most banal insights into the human condition in evidence. Nice work, if you can get it, I suppose. A triumph of the Diversity, Inclusion and Equity industry, or as we like to abbreviate it around here, DIE.

Like all ‘brilliant’ progressive notions for reordering society in a manner more pleasing (to them) it sounds very good straight off the bat. You know – fair, humane… and what kind of awful person could be against such a reasonable effort to better conditions for those poor folks previously disadvantaged and discriminated against … the exact definition of groups held to be disfavored previously by things like color of skin, ethnic background, economic status, religion, or national origin tends to be somewhat elastic. Some humans, apparently, are simply more equal/disadvantaged than others, as Orwell noted in another context, and are more worthy of having advantages, scholarships, promotions and high offices bestowed upon them, regardless of actual talent and fitness for them.
But one does wonder – are the monetary and status benefits all that worth it to the designated recipients of such favors in the long run? Do those beneficiaries of corporate/governmental affirmative action and DIE programs look around from the eminence of their GS-whatever office, the C-level suites or the university chair and know in the depths of their souls that they got there because of color, ethnic identity and sex, and not ability? Do such people ever wonder if the perks and paychecks are worth the realization that that everyone looking at them knows – not just suspects – but knows that they are an incompetent, and relatively useless token, secretly held in contempt and derision by peers, underlings and supervisors. Competence or lack of it is a quality that just cannot be hidden for very long in an organization. Word does get around. I suspect that only the supremely and delusionally self-confident escape having such doubts at all – and such knowledge must be absolutely crushing.
Discuss as you see fit.