Leftists are so perennially incapable of backing their claim that “racism still infects America in a big way,” they are often consigned to inventing petty race grievances to “prove” their point. For instance, a new social media trend has emerged where homemakers post videos of their neatly organized pantries. Innocent enough. But alas, according to professor Jenna Drenten, the hoo-ha about having clean pantries is rooted in classism, racism, and sexism. But isn’t everything these days?From exercise to math to football to Looney Tunes and the Bob the Builder theme song, the Left will cite anything as “proof” we live in a deeply racist world.And now, clean pantries have joined the list.“Cleanliness,” writes Drenten, “has historically been used as a cultural gatekeeping mechanism to reinforce status distinctions based on a vague understanding of “niceness”: nice people, with nice yards, in nice houses, make for nice neighborhoods,” to which I respond, “Yes! Emphatically, yes!” What’s the alternative? Unpleasant people, with unpleasant yards, in unpleasant houses? What’s wrong with desiring niceness?Drenten tries to answer. “What lies beneath the surface of this anti-messiness, pro-niceness stance,” she says, “is a history of classist, racist and sexist social structures. In my research, influencers who produce pantry porn are predominantly white women who demonstrate what it looks like to maintain a “nice” home by creating a new status symbol: the perfectly organized, fully stocked pantry.”Yes, the awful, bigoted, perfectly organized, fully stocked pantry. How dreadful. Oh, the horrors of being anti-messy and pro-nice! It’s probably a threat to democracy too. SEE ALSO: Time magazine says exercise has ‘white supremacist origins’ Notably, the Left’s accusations of racism are almost always reactive. No one told us organized pantries were racist before they went viral. And Americans of all ethnicities had been exercising for decades when it was abruptly determined exercise had white supremacist roots. This is because the Left has a definition of racism that adapts to describe whatever Americans happen to enjoy, thereby always “proving” we are still racist. At the heart of the issue, our modern culture hates competence. It hates excellence. It hates anything that implies the existence of a meritocracy in which some people are better off than others.This is one of the criticisms of socialism: everyone goes down to the lowest common denominator. That’s where we’re made “equal.” At the lowest level. This system is so sensitive to discrepancies in equality, having organized pantries is seen as unjust “superiority” over those who don’t. Therefore, we cannot say, “Let’s go up to the highest level. Let’s become better. Let’s organize; let’s be nice,” because that would leave out the people who don’t do those things. Instead, we all have to go down to their level, the lowest level, despising cleanliness and nice neighborhoods as we go.Through the lens of this equity-sensitive outlook, socialism is the only way to achieve “equality.”But in addition to making an accidental case against socialism, Ms. Drenten also dispelled the Left’s race hysteria, inadvertently proving how non-racist contemporary society truly is. SEE ALSO: Morgan Freeman called black history month “ridiculous,” and this enslaved poet would agree To provide modern woke crusaders with some much-needed context, Frederick Douglass did not worry about white moms who cleaned their kitchens. And Martin Luther King was not disturbed by the supposed racism of going to the gym. They had bigger problems to worry about.Clearly, the “anti-racist” movement in America today does not.Actual racism is dying, which should be seen as a good thing. Instead, the Left, having lost the proof for its precious race claim, is relegated to concocting grievances and hoaxes.Modern society, thank God, is actually remarkably equal. Equal in a meaningful sense; in a way that actually matters. Maybe we don’t yet have equality between messy and clean pantries or pro- and anti-niceness, but for crying out loud, let’s not pretend it’s the next civil rights movement.Jakob Fay is a staff writer for the Convention of States Project, a project of Citizens for Self-Governance.
