Just as real progress was finally being made on discrimination, entire groups — ethnic minorities, LGBT people, religious minorities, women — turned the victim mentality into a currency. Victimhood became fashionable, even virtuous. The left made it that way. And it was only a matter of time before straight white men — watching everyone else cash in — developed a victim mentality of their own. Now, the so-called “anti-woke” right is neck-deep in the same identity politics they claim to despise, demanding special grievance status for white men. I’ve called out black people and LGBT people when they’ve indulged in the oppression Olympics. Now I’ll say this just as clearly to my white male cousins, uncles, friends, former lovers (not my late English grandfather, Raymond, who’d have laughed this nonsense out of the room — nor, for that matter, my still-living Ghanaian grandfather, Yaw): Drop the victim mentality. Instead, focus on family, faith, education, health, and building yourself up. It’s hard — no one said it wasn’t — but it is possible. Many of our fathers and grandfathers faced worse and still did the work. They didn’t sit around whining about what the world owed them like these false prophets online. They got up, improved themselves, and changed their situations. That’s the only way forward. Victimhood — for anyone — leads nowhere good.