Pity the staff at the human rights commissions who have to sort out the hierarchy of victimhood. A real doozy has just landed in the laps of the Manitoba commission.

The head of a women’s shelter finds comments the deputy premier made in an e-mail offensive, so she’s filed a complaint. It’s pretty clear who the victim is here.

But wait! The perp is not a white oppressor — he’s Aboriginal! And his comments were made in agreement with similar ones made by an adviser on Aboriginal women’s issues.

And a hush comes over the social justice crowd. Suddenly life is not so simple. Suddenly the “j’accuse!” of Islamo-homophobia, heteronormativity, slut-shaming, etc. is turned upside down.

Don’t they teach some sort of equation in social justice class that calculates who the victim is in these cases? Maybe a points system? Like being female is worth one point, Aboriginal is worth two, gay is worth three and being a trans-person is a daily double.

Last November the clothing store Foxy Shoppe wanted to do a burlesque show to raise money for Osborne House, a women’s shelter. Aboriginal women’s adviser Nahanni Fontaine wrote to deputy premier and Aboriginal affairs minister Eric Robinson: “This is so bad and looks so bad and is simply a bad idea on the part of the Osborne House E.D.”

Robinson agreed: “On the surface it is not a very good idea and moreover further exploits an already vulnerable group in society. It also further demonstrates the ignorance of do-good white people without giving it a second thought.”

The basic idea presumably being that paying to catcall women trotting around on stage in their undies is not the best route to assist battered women.

So here are two Aboriginal people fighting the social justice fight against the white oppressors. Just look at the words Robinson uses: “exploit” and “vulnerable group.” They must be on the side of the righteous — speaking truth to power and exposing our preconceptions!

Now if everyone is honest, we can agree this has nothing to do with Robinson using the phrase “do-good white people.” It’s the context.

If a bunch of frat boys filmed a dirty movie to raise money for a rape crisis centre, suddenly Robinson would be the hero and his words would ascend to the top of the hierarchy.

The problem here is Robinson and Fontaine are out of touch. They haven’t been following the hipster scene enough to understand that burlesque is “in” again and has been re-appropriated by the social justice crowd.

Sure, it was once borderline stripping and associated with minstrel shows. But now burlesque is considered empowering, particularly because these days it’s really only done by the older, heavyset or alt-culture types. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that! Check out Foxy Shoppe’s Facebook pics — they’re quite the lookers.) It’s akin to black rappers using the N-word.

Never forget, when a skinny hot girl does something sexy it’s because she’s a slave to misogynist culture. But when a heavyset or unattractive girl does it, she’s empowering herself (seriously, would anyone be denouncing Miley Cyrus’ performance if it had been Queen Latifah in her place?).

So here we are at a crossroads. The chair of the Manitoba HRC — himself Aboriginal — has his work cut out for him.

The lesson? Well, one online comment on this subject directed readers to articles on “white privilege” so they could understand their role. So apparently it’s still all my fault.