My reading of the essay is the elite are now completely out of touch with reality, and a complete abdication of their responsibilities. Also, the piece ties this prevailing ideological virtue signaling as a class indicator. It's been interesting to read the comments, as there are some serious knee jerk reactions to anything which questions the orthodoxy of prevailing thought in our universities or come to the conclusions I have. Ad reducto Trump, you see this on the other side as well; that's a whole other bag of worms though. We having something incredibly toxic in the air and the zeitgeist's humors are wildly out of balance. I'm going to address this thought below to inform you on why I have a different conclusion and the lens I see things through.
> The one and only theme is that racial equality activism should stop on the grounds that it is being done by rich kids
For right now let's get over the fact there is an elite. We are going to look at how this is playing out. Social hierarchies are pretty much built into all social creatures, and plain as day in human civilizations regardless of political, economic structures or point in history. The powerful have always ensured their progeny have a slot at their standing; it's what people of all societies do. From this axiom we can arrive at this conclusion, there will be a small group with more capital (social, political and economic) which have a heavy hand on the scale of power and structure of society and set the direction it takes. In the future we might figure out a system which mitigates this while preserving individual freedoms, who knows. Right now in 2019, this is the behavior we are seeing from the top echelons, the old guard have been rent seeking, while the new are hung up on de-gendering pronouns and outraged at tactless yelp reviews. We now have those people filling in slots at the top of the food chain now pushing their ideology, while maintaining the status quo.
One narrow anecdotal example (I know, I know, this is to illustrate how this behavior manifests itself) is the Advertising Club of New York. They give presentations on promoting women in advertising, it used to be a mens only club and how they are fundamentally changing the nature of the industry. Though, advertising still works as it ever did and showing no signs of stopping, but now women make up all executive positions of this group. Ambitious women should be allowed to succeed in their pursuits, there is no argument there, and I'm not saying it's an even playing field. The issue is we have this elite pat themselves on the back for promoting diversity, but none of the fundamental issues are addressed. The moral hazard of the pharmaceutical industry, payday loans, junk food, liquor or whatever social ill which gets your goat are still kicking hard and our 24/7 media outrage cycle are completely dependent on revenue from advertising. Basically, the money is too damn good, but our navel gazing makes this ok.
It's easier to create empty symbolic gestures, rather than actually address the issues. For the majority of Americans these are the real issues which impact millions on a daily basis: lack of economic opportunities, lack of social cohesion, decay of infrastructure, by age 23 49% of black males, 44% of Hispanic males, and 38% of white males have been arrested, living in a dangerous environment and the few options out there force crap decisions which nearly guarantee no social mobility. Just because we now have a few more rich (insert minority group) women at the top of the heap doesn't change the fact childhood diabetes is alarming high. The elite feign moral outrage on the inconsequential, while people are literally dying from their inaction. It's tone deaf, and comes across like a slide show of Christian missionaries in Africa painting a chapel.
Yale produces, whether you agree with it or not, the future elite of this country. They are not proposing real solutions to the problems above. Instead it's witch hunts, getting caught up in language we use, and the highest stakes seems to be throwing bike locks at each other. Do you think poor black single moms working working two jobs to support her kids are out there risking arrest to protest the proud boys? No, it's wealthy kids on both sides playing a really stupid game. What we want and desperately need is for our leaders to look at what's going on, stick their necks out there and take some real risks with the power they wield. 2 cent idea, setting up business centers with ability to loan money in impoverished neighborhoods with the goal of setting up local small businesses with tools to give them a solid shot. Here's another, ease the crazy zoning and approval laws in place to develop housing for working people in urban areas. How about this, implement the German system of unions on corporate boards. How about creating a new dealesque army corp of engineers? The fact there is no real risk taken on unsexy problems shows a lack of responsibility.
So yeah, I don't really have an issue with protesting anything. It's your right, and I firmly believe in the 1st amendment. The issue is these elite are squandering the opportunities they have, and lost the plot. Out of many countless people who don't have the opportunity, countless others which tried their hardest at the mere chance and failed, these select few which got in have a very real shot at improving society, and what are we getting? Can't use the word freshman anymore.