The Serena Williams affair is a reminder than in our current culture, WHO YOU ARE is much more important than WHAT YOU DO. America has come full circle and embraced the concept of aristocracy again.
We like to tell ourselves the new aristocracy is much better than the old version because it's not based purely on heredity, although we have clearly developed a fascination with dynasties and "royal families."
We also accept the new aristocracy more readily because its privileges are not usually backed by State power, as monarchial rule was - but the cultural and economic forces deployed in defense of the new aristocratic privileges are formidable, and State power IS often involved.
The dangerous thing about the return of aristocratic privilege is that it's a harbinger of collectivism. For all the caterwauling about egalitarianism and fixing "inequality," no form of collectivism works unless people are reconciled to a very rich and privileged ruling class.
Collectivists are therefore interested in getting the public to accept the notion of a highly privileged elite that "deserves" special rules, immense wealth, and a lavish lifestyle.
That elite in turn grows comfortable with preaching collectivism to the masses, advocating hardships for the little people which they personally will never suffer from: limousine liberals, billionaires for socialism, climate change activists with huge carbon footprints, etc.
The less concerned elite socialists appear to be with charges of hypocrisy, the more concerned average people should become with collectivism's growing power. We should get nervous when the aristocracy clearly isn't.
And we should resist in all ways this notion that WHO YOU ARE is more important than WHAT YOU DO. It's the core principle of toxic identity politics: different rules for different people, injustice committed today in the name of correcting injustices from yesterday. /end
