Hypocrisy is arguably the defining characteristic of the progressive Left today. Only in a time of unprecedented prosperity, and in a nation of unprecedented freedom, do people have the luxury of engaging in the unprecedented level of lunacy we now see.

How else to explain a group of white people living in the wealthiest counties in the country using tax money taken from working-class blacks, Hispanics, whites, etc., to pay for lectures by rich white liberals about their inherent racism and “white privilege”?

Yet that is what’s happening in the suburbs of Washington, DC, where half of the nation’s richest counties are located, home to extravagantly paid federal employees and wealthy lobbyists.

Last month, employees of several federal agencies received “diversity training” during a seminar entitled “Difficult Conversations About Race in Troubling Times.” During the training indoctrination, white employees of the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Office of the Comptroller were called upon to pledge “allyship [sic] amid the George Floyd Tragedy.” Employees were told that “virtually all white people contribute to racism” and “don’t support the dismantling of racist institutions.” Due to their inherent (if previously unrealized) racism, white employees must “struggle to own their racism” and “invest in race-based growth.”

“But what if,” a white employee might ask, “I hold no racist feelings and have never contributed to the perpetuation of racism?”

The race-baiters would curse that employee, because the fact that he has never engaged in overt racism is only proof of how subtle and deeply embedded his racism really is — and all the more insidious because of it. Wearing hooded robes and burning crosses would be less offensive than this hidden racism!

To purge themselves of their racism (just kidding … they’re white, so they’ll always be racist), “white managers” are taught to create “safe spaces” where their black employees can instruct them on “what it means to be black” and to be “seen in their pain.”

White supervisors and coworkers are instructed to remain mute and “sit in the discomfort” of their racism. What if the situation turns volatile, with black employees screaming, crying, or humiliating white coworkers? Too bad, racists! Whites “don’t get to decide when someone is being too emotional, too rash [or] too mean,” nor can whites object if a minority “responds to their oppression in a way [they] don’t like.”

Hilariously, the brainchild behind this “training” is Howard Ross, a white leftist who has bilked the federal government for more than $5 million for these seminars since 2006. With only a bachelor’s degree in history, Ross has grown quite wealthy as a “neuro-cognitive and social-science” expert specializing in “unconscious bias.”

But, as the NY Post’s Christopher Rufo notes, the irony is thick: “Ross has used his own privilege to enrich himself at taxpayer expense. In the language of his own discourse, he has monetized collective black pain to create individual white profit.”

Ross isn’t the only white liberal making bank on fomenting collective white guilt though.

Robin DiAngelo has become quite a progressive celebrity of late for her book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. DiAngelo is intimately familiar with the plight of oppressed blacks, having been born and raised in San Francisco (a city roughly 10% black in her formative years and 5% black today), and later receiving her PhD in “multicultural education/whiteness studies” from the University of Washington (where blacks are just 4% of student enrollment).

As National Review’s Kyle Smith notes, DiAngelo is a “capitalist marketing genius” of the caliber of P.T. Barnum, “a white lady who has gotten very, very rich speaking to litigation-averse corporations, campus groups, self-flagellating white progressives, and black allies joining the cause of white guilt.”

Like Ross, DiAngelo preaches that all whites are racists, whether they realize it or not.

And since white people are inherently racist and can never conclusively prove they’ve been purged of their racist tendencies, DiAngelo’s tutelage will always be needed … for a fee, of course. DiAngelo is currently raking in around $150,000 per month for her lectures (8-10 lectures per month), plus hefty royalties from her book sales.

Sadly, it is those who are most affluent (and therefore least likely to suffer from their stupidity) who are stoking this pseudo-intellectual idiocy — privileged white brats whose parents pay their high-dollar college tuition.

And that is tragic, because we are voluntarily giving up freedom and true privilege fought and bled for by our forefathers in exchange for leftist snake oil.

Will racial-guilt hustlers like Ross and DiAngelo improve race relations in America? It’s hard to see how. Blacks who’ve been taught that their difficulties in life are due to racism (rather than poor decision-making) will only get angrier. White people who know they’re not racist will grow increasingly resentful at the character assassination and guilt by pigmentation. White people who buy into this drivel will only feel more self-loathing. In the end, it will produce a nation full of hateful people — folks hating themselves, other races, or both.

But for the racial grievance-mongers, the checks will keep coming, and that’s what matters. Like an unethical therapist, there is no benefit for them in seeing the conflict resolved.