Proving again that inane leftist ideology still doesn't go over well in the real world, Johns Hopkins Medicine is scrambling to explain the thinking behind the decision for its "Chief Diversity Officer" Sherita Hill Golden to include a "privilege list" in January's issue of the "Diversity Digest" from the "Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Health Equity."
This list was included as part of the digest's discussion of the "Diversity Word of the Month": privilege.
Privilege is defined in Golden's digest as "a set of unearned benefits given to people who are in a specific social group" and operating "on personal, interpersonal, cultural and institutional levels" in a way that "provides advantages and favors to members of dominant groups at the expense of members of other groups."
According to the digest, in the United States, privilege has been "granted to people who have membership in one or more of these social identity groups," before providing the following list of identities:
- White people
- Able-bodied people
- Heterosexuals
- Cisgender people
- Males
- Christians
- Middle or owning class people
- Middle-aged people
- English-speaking people
Explaining that privilege "is characteristically invisible to people who have it," the "Diversity Digest" says that those in the "dominant groups" listed "often believe they have earned the privileges they enjoy or that everyone could have access to these privileges if only they worked to earn them."
"In fact, privileges are unearned and are granted to people in the dominant groups whether they want those privileges or not, regardless of their stated intent," the message claims.
So, being middle-aged and simply alive makes a person an oppressor now in the eyes of Johns Hopkins.
After some significant and justified criticism online after the "Diversity Digest" was circulated, Chief Diversity Officer Golden decided to try retracting the definition of privilege outlined above.
Golden referenced the definition in her message to the Johns Hopkins Medicine community and said it was something that "upon reflection, I deeply regret." As such, Golden wrote that "I retract and disavow the definition I shared, and I am sorry."
UPDATE: The Johns Hopkins DEI Office has retracted their "privilege list" after our post went viral and drew massive outrage https://t.co/DWirlJBpKg pic.twitter.com/j26FUKSp2w
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 11, 2024
"The intent of the newsletter is to inform and support an inclusive community at Hopkins, but the language of this definition clearly did not meet that goal," Golden continued.
Well, no kidding lady. How exactly did smearing people who speak English or are middle-aged, white, male, Christian, cisgender, heterosexual, or able-bodied create an "inclusive community" in her mind?
Rather than taking full responsibility, however, Golden's scrambling to do damage control saw her blame the "overly simplistic and poorly worded" definition she included in her message to the community. She noted that her alleged effort to create an inclusive environment "had the opposite effect of being exclusionary and hurtful to members of our community." You think?
But that's the nature of DEI — it's automatically exclusionary and divisive because it requires no action or words to declare entire groups of people as dominant oppressors. As the definition of privilege Golden is now scrambling to bury noted, such power is "granted to people... whether they want those privileges or not, regardless of their stated attend."
To be clear, Golden and the diversity office aren't actually sorry they shared the divisive definition — they're just sorry they got caught being absurd.
Golden's worldview was perfectly clear in her initial message: these people are oppressors and there's nothing they can do about it. Such a view is antithetical to inclusivity, and at least her half-hearted apology after getting mocked for the "Diversity Digest" admitted that an obsession with such ideologies is inherently exclusionary.
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