Long before “diversity, equity, and inclusion” became the reigning orthodoxy of American institutions, I warned that the obsession with ethnic categorization would end not in justice, but in absurdity. The warning was simple and, at the time, widely dismissed: when a society replaces citizenship with identity checkboxes, it ceases to evaluate individuals as human beings and begins managing them as statistical assets. The result is not fairness, but a bureaucratic parody of it.

I was told that these boxes were harmless. Necessary, even. That they were temporary correctives meant to level a historically uneven playing field. But systems have inertia, and incentives harden into norms. What begins as remediation ends as entitlement. Today, one can be biologically white, check the box marked “Black,” and face no meaningful scrutiny. Questioning the claim itself is treated as a moral offense. The system does not care about truth. It cares about compliance.

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