I don’t see the equivalency as valid though. I am white, but that’s not something I’d ever be proud of in itself because it’s literally just pigmentation alone. I’m so ethnically mixed and Americanised that I can’t really claim the English, Croat, or Scottish heritage I have got - despite being a British citizen living in England who eats haggis with enough frequency to disturb my family. I very much appreciate my heritage but it has no hold on me as an in-group identity. They don’t claim me, nobody needs to.

If I was to take the stance of being “anti-DEI”, which lets face it, it’s just white supremacism with updated buzzwords, I’d be taking the stance that my literal mere pigmentation is an equally valid source of pride as a black woman’s history of oppression, or a trans man’s struggle to be treated as their true self.

I’ve struggled, but I haven’t struggled from being white or cisgender. I’ve walked alone at night wherever I liked ever since I was barely a teen with hardly so much as a glance over my shoulder. Gone to other countries where I barely speak fifty words in the local tongue with nary a care. I’ve spent my whole life being given credit as the person I present as. I’ve been unafraid to take risks, and it gives me hell to know others haven’t been able to enjoy those things in life. It’s not even a huge amount of empathy we’re talking about here.

So that’s my story. Anyone who reads this and thinks I’m a self hating white is probably in need of a smack. I’m fine with myself. I want others to have a taste of being okay once in a while like I have, is all.