Kitsch of the Ultra Wealthy

I didn't notice that a Ruth Bader Ginsburg Woman of Leadership award was created back in 2020. I don't remember hearing who it was awarded to in the years since then, or that it was funded by the Opperman Foundation.

The Oppermans are a Minnesota name, since their company, West Publishing (creator of Westlaw), was based in Saint Paul. Vance Opperman, son of founder Dwight Opperman, is a name I know as a big-money DFL donor. These days, he's part of the very centrist wing of the DFL in Minneapolis that tries to stop what I consider to be changes needed in the midst of our multi-crises.

Be that as it may, he's still a Democrat. I don't know about his father. But I do know about RBG, as do we all.

Well, this year Opperman's stepmother, Julie, who appears to run the foundation, decided to expand the award to include men. Which could be a reasonable thing to do. Sure, there are men whose work is in keeping with RBG's legacy. I could get behind that.

However, it's a little odd to go from giving one award per year to a woman to now giving five awards, with four out of the five of them going to men.

The biggest problem, however, is that two of the men are people who it seems 100% likely RBG would disavow completely: Rupert Murdoch and the Elon Musk of 2024.

Two of the other three people named are convicted felons: Michael Milken and Martha Stewart.

Altogether, that's quite a group, when Sylvester Stallone is the only one of the five who might pass the smell test. I don't know what Stallone has done to advance equality for women, but maybe he's done something.

Here's a gift link to the Washington Post story about the Opperman Foundation canceling the awards. The Library of Congress, which was to have been the venue for the gala event, even felt the need to issue a statement saying it was not associated with it; it was just a hired space.

In the foundation's statement about canceling the awards, the writer made it clear that they were using the awards to honor "iconic" people (not, as I would have thought, people who advanced women's equality or women's leadership).

More notoriety for iconic people: that is surely what we need in this society.

This post didn't fit into my usual categories very well, but then I realized that these types of awards and the expensive galas where rich people get together to congratulate each other are just another type of kitsch. So that was its label. 

I don't think this is the way to honor RBG's work and unless the award and its process is completely changed, it should stay canceled.