I was shocked when I first read the headline.

It said, “Report: Humans Still Putting ‘Untenable Burden’ on White Males.”

The headline was over a news story by the usually reliable and respected State House News, so it had to be accurate.

But what was the story? A sympathetic understanding of the burdens of being a white man in today’s America?

Or simply a headline and story ridiculing white males, something that is common in the woke world we live in?

I put my reading glasses on and re-read the headline.

To my chagrin, the headline actually read: “Report: Humans Still Putting ‘Untenable Burden’ on Right Whales.”

The story told how the Right Whales, once so abundant, were in general decline off the North Atlantic because of human activity, activity that was creating an “untenable burden” on the whale species.

The New England Aquarium said the whales were being caught up in fishing gear entanglements and hit in vessel strikes.

This does not take into consideration the potential damage to the whales and other mammals and fish from the installation of offshore windfarms.

They are called “Right Whales” not because they are conservatives, but because they were the right ones to hunt.

So, I was mistaken. It was all about whales, not males.

The story struck a nerve, though, since what is being done to the Right Whale species could also apply to what Joe Biden and the progressives are doing to the white male species.

White males are about the only Americans not included in a protected class, even though they have fought in wars and have been the protectors of the protected classes.

Yet Biden has made a practice out of bashing white males by depicting them as swagger stick-carrying Nazis, instead of praising them as the men who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan to defeat Islamist terrorists.

The first thing he did — even before he shut down domestic oil production and opened the borders to potential terrorists — was to denounce white supremacy.

Biden did not name any white supremacist, or any white supremacist groups, except Trump supporters. He never does.  He may not know any.  Instead, he paints all white males with the same nasty brush.

He describes Trump MAGA (Make America Great Again) supporters, who make up half of the country and most of whom are white males, as “semi fascists.”

In a graduation speech at Howard University in May, Biden said white supremacy is “the single most dangerous terrorist threat in our homeland. And I’m not saying this because I’m at a Black university. I say this wherever I go.”

And he does it repeatedly. The rock throwing Biden, who once promised to unify the country, has done more to divide the country than the past dozen presidents combined.

He could have been looking into the mirror when he said to that Howard University audience: “There are those who would do anything and everything, no matter how desperate or immoral, to hold on to power.”

He could have been talking about himself. But he wasn’t. He was talking about the white male supremacists he sees in his dreams.

So, you can see how easy it was to have misread the headline.

Still, maybe it is time for us Right Whales to protest before it’s too late.

Or to just have a chuckle during these dark times.

Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.