The aristocrats
By 
Because we live in Donald Trump’s America, racists are feeling much freer to express their racism in various racist ways (I may be playing the race card here).
For example, a former member of the Texas State Board of Education decided it would be a good idea to publicly ask ask a high school student who was a complete stranger to him if the student’s acceptance to Harvard was merit or quota-based:
A former member of the Texas State Board of Education took a shot Friday at a biracial California teen who was accepted to Harvard University.
George Clayton of Richardson replied to a tweet posted by Drake Johnson of Marina, Calif., in which Johnson wore a Harvard sweater and announced he would be attending the Ivy League school.
“It’s official, I’m Harvard bound #harvard2022,” the senior tweeted.
Clayton tweeted at Johnson, “Congrats. Were you admitted on merit or on quota?”
This being Texas and all, being an egregious racist on the internet may well be an election strategy:
According to his Twitter bio, Clayton is running again for a spot on the state board, but there is no record of him filing for candidacy. He previously held the District 12 seat from 2010 to 2012, when he defeated conservative Geraldine “Tincy” Miller in a surprising upset. Miller took the seat back in 2012 and announced in December she would retire when her term ended.
At least white people have the satisfaction of knowing that, when they get into Harvard, it’s because Daddy gave the school $2.5 million of their totally objective wonderfulness.
This also reminds me of a story told by an LGM commenter whose nym I can’t recall (ETA: the commenter was Harry Hopkins, h/t lornix):
“I remember back in the late 1990s, when Ira Katznelson, an eminent political scientist at Columbia, came to deliver a guest lecture. Prof. Katznelson described a lunch he had with Irving Kristol during the first Bush administration.
The talk turned to William Kristol, then Dan Quayle’s chief of staff, and how he got his start in politics.
Irving recalled how he talked to his friend Harvey Mansfield at Harvard, who secured William a place there as both an undergrad and graduate student; how he talked to Pat Moynihan, then Nixon’s domestic policy adviser, and got William an internship at the White House; how he talked to friends at the RNC [Republican National Committee] and secured a job for William after he got his Harvard Ph.D.; and how he arranged with still more friends for William to teach at Penn and the Kennedy School of Government.
“With that, Prof. Katznelson recalled, he then asked Irving what he thought of affirmative action. ‘I oppose it,’ Irving replied. ‘It subverts meritocracy.’
ETA: Turns out Clayton has a regular ongoing hobby of harassing teens on Twitter about their college acceptances. (h/t DN Nation).
