“That’s mighty white of you.”

by David Benjamin

MADISON, Wis.—When I dropped in, the other day, on Wilhelm “Clorox” Bienfang, America’s foremost idea man, he was wearing a red baseball cap emblazoned with four cryptic letters: MEOW. Of course, I figured his latest brainstorm had something to do with cats.

Way wrong!

After Bienfang revealed that the acronym on his hat stood for “Make Everyone White,” I felt vaguely troubled. I’ve known Bienfang long enough to believe that he doesn’t have a bigoted bone in his body. Whatever he thinks up, he’s only in it for the money. So, I asked, where’s the profit in racism.

Bienfang’s explanation was typically direct. Rather than revisit the cotton empire of the antebellum South, which prospered on the backs of black slaves, he fast-forwarded to the most shameless ethnic cleanser operating in America’s current Jim Crow revival, White House obersturmbannführer Stephen Miller.

“As you know, Steve’s big idea was to deploy storm troopers, sweep all the mud people (excuse the expression) into concentration camps and one-way buses to Mexico. This purge was supposed to forestall indefinitely the United States’ transition to a majority-minority nation,” said Bienfang.
“But,” he went on, wagging an instructive finger, “not only is this strategy ineffective and politically toxic, there’s no profit. It’s a stick without a carrot!”

I had to ask: “What could be profitable about ‘Make Everyone White’?”

“You’re kidding, right?” said Bienfang. “Do you have any idea how much Michael Jackson spent to dye himself that ghastly shade of eggshell? Can you imagine how much Clarence Thomas would beg and borrow from his oligarch buddies to become as pink as they are?”

“But how—” I began.

“Don’t be silly,” said Bienfang. “There are millions of black, brown, bronze and swarthy Americans who are just sick and tired of the crap they have to go through every day simply because they’re not white. Offer them a chance to de-pigment their way to social acceptance and they’ll be lining up around the block.”

“Lining up where?”

Bienfang patted me on the head. “Now, we’re talkin’! There are skin-whitening products—which, by the way, are wildly popular, and lucrative, in Japan—and surgeries that can turn ebony to ivory in a matter of weeks. The problem I had to figure out was how to make this happen on a national scale. I mean, ya gotta have infrastructure.”

“And you came up with an infrastructure?”

Bienfang smiled. “Is a bear Catholic?”

He proceeded to unroll blueprints of what he referred to as millerizing clinics—“named for Steve,” said Bienfang—located in every community from coast-to-coast. The sheer scope of this “makeover” would create “millions of jobs, which would be steady because there would be ‘whitened’ moms still giving birth to brown babies, black babies, rainbow babies, who would have to be millerized as soon as they’re baptized.” Bienfang showed me sample brochures similar to promos for Botox Cosmetic and Colonial Penn Life Insurance, and a veritable snowstorm of dazzling AI-generated “before” and “after” images.

“How much,” I quibbled, “would someone have to pay for going, say from, milk chocolate to French vanilla?”

“Not a penny. It would be covered entirely by federal subsidies to the proprietors, doctors and beauticians of my National MEOW Network.”

“But, this would cost, my goodness,” I speculated, “billions.”

“Trillions,” said Bienfang, rubbing his hands together.

I still had objections. “But what about political blowback?” I asked. “What about your tired, your poor, your huddled masses. We’re a nation of immigrants.”

“Ah, but we are also a nation started by white males, for the benefit of white males with a Constitution that defined a slave as three-fifths human and denied women the vote for three hundred years. We’re a nation where three-quarters of our Congress are either white, male or both—and they’re all nervous.”

“Nervous?”

“Look, our white Chief Justice has declared that racial prejudice is a bygone fad and that a corporation is a person—five-fifths human! The Supreme Court says that people with the most money—we’re talking white guys here—are more ‘equal’ than anyone else. But the nervous part is that there are other people—the colored ones—breeding and voting and flexing their demographics.”

“So, what you’re selling is fear. You’re suggesting that the decline of whiteness is a shock to the system that could bring down the whole system.”

“Exactly,” said Bienfang. “No one knows how an America not manipulated, and suckled of its wealth by rich white male sociopaths could possibly function.”

“Wait,” I replied. “We’ve already had a black president. Barack Obama created the most diverse government in history.”

“And look what happened,” Bienfang retorted triumphantly. “The white panic triggered by eight years of an uppity Negro sashaying around the White House led to the election—more than that, the worship—of a tangerine-dyed geezer so corrupt, incompetent and just plain stupid that he shames every other white man (with the possible exception of Stephen Miller) on the face of the earth.”

“So, the election of a black president made America safe for white morons?”

“Right again,” said Bienfang. “And our best defense against a continuous parade of grossly unqualified Caucasoid shmucks is to outnumber them with smart, competent and civically conscientious white males.”

“Who didn’t used to be white,” I said.

“It’s the only solution, kid. America turned against one of most articulate, honorable leaders in our history and chose in his place—twice!—a sexual predator with the intellect of a hamster. There isn’t a political strategist anywhere today who would advocate for a presidential candidate who’s any shade other than colorless.”

“So, another colored president is a bad idea. But the colored folks will still want one. But if we get one, the white people—especially the men—will panic and get their retribution by making life miserable for everyone, regardless of color.”

“You’re getting there, kid,” said Bienfang, encouragingly.

“The solution we’ve just tried, ” I went on, “is to get rid of the colored people. But it’s too late. There’s just too many of them. So, for the sake of democracy, we need to turn the colored people white.”

“Bingo,” said Bienfang. “And the more people you turn white, the fewer people you’ll have who are nervous about the ones who aren’t white. You might even have formerly black folks refusing to hire unrepentantly black folks. Talk about reverse discrimination!”

“I see,” I said. “But won’t there still be ‘unrepentant’ colored people who don’t want to be … vanillafied? What happens to them? Won’t they feel left out? Won’t they be seen as a threat to white rule?”

“Don’t worry. Under MEOW, the persistently dark folks would be so few—and too scared—to trigger the sort of white paranoia that killed Dr. King. I picture these leftover remnants of DEI like Mammy and Uncle Peter in Gone with the Wind, groveling and scraping so they don’t get sent back out to the cotton fields.”

“Hm,” I said, thoughtfully, “bleaching our way to a greater America.”

Bienfang glowed with innovative pride.

“And,” I added, “a richer Bienfang!”

“Of course,” said Bienfang, with a bow. “I’m white. I’m male. I’m entitled.”