Last summer, I wrote a piece about The Basic History Bro, or BHB. A type of faux-history buff ‘political scientist’ (i.e someone who reads Cracked and has opinions) male who is really just a bombastic tool who propagates received wisdom and generic middle class American chauvinism, dumbing down any conversation every time. There is however, a female equivalent to this creature, and now is the time to turn our attention to that.

Before recently, I noticed these kinds of people, but never bothered giving them my bother due like I did the BHB’s due to the fact that I am fortunate not to come across them in real life so much. The internet, however, is where they thrive. And in the wake of several subsequent terrorist attacks, where they…’shine’.

The Bourgie White Girl, or BWG, loves to pretend that she is ‘aware’. In fact, one of her favorite words is ‘awareness’, which needless to say has basically become a punchline about her type of thinking by anyone who isn’t her. ‘Awareness’ of course means posting about top news stories with snippy little tag lines such as ‘Get Educated’ and ‘Inform Yourself’ but devoid of any analysis that shows their own opinion is either educated or informed. Above all, it is an opportunistic online form of being a vulture, exhorting you to ‘pray’ for victims of tragic events, be they nations of groups of people. Leaving aside the obvious point that praying is nothing, this is not a call to discourse, to greater understanding of issues, or to advocating anything to politicians or even really to their friends. No, it is just a call to have feelings about something and then share publicly that you do so in a meaningless and context free way in order to both bulwark your status of being *aware* as well as empathetic. Of course, such shallowness is neither.

The motivation for this is the same with the unwanted and uninteresting opinions of the BHB in that it is to pontificate without the effort to justify itself, though there is one key difference. The BHB wishes to create an inside/outside group dynamic to separate who to invite to the kegger and who to insult using insecure presumptions on their sexuality. The BWG, on the other hand, wants to install a more individualistic pecking order. One where she is looked up to as separate and above the pack. ‘Look at me!’ the duckface profile picture run through a French/Belgian/Turkish flag filter says, ‘Am I not educated? Am I not empathetic? Am I not informed?’

This however is really the only major difference between such people and their male equivalents. For the reaction when challenged is the same. Become uncomfortable, retreat into received wisdom, and rather than question your sexuality, imply sexism and or some other form of oppression. Because it is oppressive to disagree with rote-learned received wisdom, apparently-just as a BHB will assume such disagreements make you gay, so too must any disagreements with a BWG make you sexist, if male, or an insufficiently educated feminist, if female. The irony of course being that most feminist theories are not too into neoliberalism, which the BWG is buried up to her neck in.

This question then dovetails into what they actually mean when BWGs talk about education. I can only speak from personal sample size, which may be unreliable, but there does seem to be a correlation between small liberal arts colleges with nice campuses in rural or rustic locations and the BWG. Usually ones with large endowments and some name recognition but no actual academic reputation and especially not Ivy League status. Being a product of both brass tacks public university education as well as a fancy-pants one, I suspect that, much like the suburbs, these kinds of universities are really the worst of both worlds. A unique combination of entitlement in attitude and generic education. That is at least the impression which its alumni so often give.

Naturally, coming from a lifetime of rote-learning and uncritical mainline mythology indoctrination, the BWG believes she is educated and informed to the hilt but shows no actual evidence for this position. Much like the her male equivalent, it is entitlement alone that keeps her afloat.

I once ruminated on the political ramifications of the BHB, deciding it was a natural fit for rising populist right wing movements such as Putin’s vatniks or Trump’s, well…vatniks.  Turns out I was right. So what, if anything, is the BWG politically? Well, to their credit, they always hate Trumpistas. To their not-so-much-credit, they pretty much unflinchingly and unquestionably fall into the Clinton camp. After all, what does the name Clinton signify better than prestige for progressive causes while also doing everything possible to screw poor people? Well, she is a bourgie for a reason. You can starve to death in the gutter, but as long as its about the amount of money you have, rather than your race or sexuality thats A-OK! So this actually makes sense from the BWG point of view. Hillary Clinton is even better than Bill because she has all this plus the woman factor.This support, unlike the BHB’s for Trump is actually fairly logical. There is, however, one glaring problem.

Remember how this post began? It started with the ‘prayers for xyz who suffer from terrorism’ thing. Here is the problem: US recalcitrance to work with-rather than against-the Syrian government is holding up the destruction of ISIS. This prevents us from coordinating with Syria in the same way we do with the government of Iraq. So people who are even more hawkish than Obama represent the precisely opposite kind of response needed to actually reduce the amount of terrorist attacks. If there is one thing people who have actually been paying attention to know, its that regime change policies do not work and must not continue-they are the ultimate enablers of international terrorist movements. Politically opposing such policies is actually doing something, unlike for instance, prayer. Supporting someone who wants to continue these policies…well, this is why all they have is prayer isn’t it?

So, if on this issue and no other, Please Pray for the Bourgie White Girls.