Victor Davis Hanson points out the absurdity of racial identity these days:

We still live under antiquated, 50-year-old ideas that grant some ethnic groups privileges over others. Because these racial rubrics can be advantageous for things like college admissions and employment, and because the idea of racial purity is becoming ever more problematic, fantasy becomes inevitable.

That is why the charlatan Ward Churchill, a noted activist, tried - and succeeded in - fabricating a Native American identity to land a job at the University of Colorado. Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren invented a Native American pedigree and so became Harvard Law School's first recognized Native American professor. When other elites hyphenate their last names and accentuate first names, they remind us that without such IDs, one might not otherwise learn - or care about - their particular racial pedigree.