In 1989, NBC News did a special on race in America, in which it interviewed a young Donald Trump, who was then a couple of years younger than I am now.

“A well-educated black has a tremendous advantage over a well-educated white in terms of the job market,” he said. “And I think a black sometimes may think that they don’t really have the advantage, or this or that, but in actuality, today, currently, it’s a, it’s a great — I’ve said on more than one occasion, even about myself, if I were starting off today, I would love to be a well-educated black because I really believe that they do have an actual advantage today.”

I was a second-year college student at the time, striving, I guess, to become one of those “well-educated blacks,” completely unaware that the man who just months earlier had taken out full-page ads in New York City newspapers demanding the death penalty for the Central Park Five was pretending to covet my burgeoning position in society.

But of course, Trump was incredulous of his own comment, notable from the way he began to smirk as he mouthed the words “I would love to be a well-educated black.” It wasn’t sincerity but sarcasm. It was a way of making a point, not about jealousy but about resentment. It was a way of damning with faint praise the idea that the inviolable dominance of white male privilege in America was entering a period in which not every shred of advantage would redound to white men, even if a vast majority still did.