MAGGIE M, Editor, Wedgee-in-Chief, theWedge.LIVE

My millennial and only son asked me during last year’s holidays, “Do you identify as white middle class male?” (Because I said something positive about one.) He could not see my face pursed out of shape as these words screeched in my ears over the airwaves.

Everyone partaking in our exchange via speaker went dead quiet.

I find the question ill-formed and generated out of windfall of propaganda from traditional media. The proper word would be “empathy,” but it was replaced by “identify with.” It’s a form of exclusion, elitism by design. It is far from the trumpeted inclusion.

It’s collectivist at its root. If you don’t adopt these recently baked notions you are  not “progressive.” Dystopia is reality and vice versa.

My son did not intend this of course. He was showing off his SJW linguistics. He’s young.

I do have a great deal of empathy for the white male. He has been pushed to the margins of late thanks a minority of employed willing participants. The “Me Too” movement may have exacted justice on those who abused their power, but every fish in the sea was pulled into their net. It has had the reverse effect on me. I have more compassion for white me now than previously.

We are all being played by linguists seeding our conversations.

The feminist movement was effective at leveling the playing field, but it decimated the family unit. Women tend to voice the words, “I am a stay-at-home mom,” as though it is stasis rather than a worthy-calling.

So, I paused. Then, without any reluctance I responded, “I identify with me. With myself. I am unique. I don’t identify with anybody else.”

This tendency to lump people together by gender, age, race, proclivities, as though they share newly-formed common characteristics is fundamentally xenophobic–exclusive.

I don’t “identify” as a white female. I AM a white female. And then what!

Everyone needs to tune out from these social justice warriors dividing people on so many levels we will soon be counting each others’ fingers and toes to find new xenophobic reasons to exclude persons.

Abraham Maslow identified the “need to belong” almost a century ago. The linguists know.

Fundamentally, SJW drive collectivism. Group think.

Count me out. I am me. I identify with me. Not you. Or a group. Or unicorns.

Individualism must prevail on itself not others.