Woke Racism
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Average rating3.8
15
Ratings10
Average rating3.8
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER New York Times bestselling author and acclaimed linguist John McWhorter argues that an illiberal neoracism, disguised as antiracism, is hurting Black communities and weakening the American social fabric. Americans of good will on both the left and the right are secretly asking themselves the same question: how has the conversation on race in America gone so crazy? We’re told to read books and listen to music by people of color but that wearing certain clothes is “appropriation.” We hear that being white automatically gives you privilege and that being Black makes you a victim. We want to speak up but fear we’ll be seen as unwoke, or worse, labeled a racist. According to John McWhorter, the problem is that a well-meaning but pernicious form of antiracism has become, not a progressive ideology, but a religion—and one that’s illogical, unreachable, and unintentionally neoracist. In Woke Racism, McWhorter reveals the workings of this new religion, from the original sin of “white privilege” and the weaponization of cancel culture to ban heretics, to the evangelical fervor of the “woke mob.” He shows how this religion that claims to “dismantle racist structures” is actually harming his fellow Black Americans by infantilizing Black people, setting Black students up for failure, and passing policies that disproportionately damage Black communities. The new religion might be called “antiracism,” but it features a racial essentialism that’s barely distinguishable from racist arguments of the past. Fortunately for Black America, and for all of us, it’s not too late to push back against woke racism. McWhorter shares scripts and encouragement with those trying to deprogram friends and family. And most importantly, he offers a roadmap to justice that actually will help, not hurt, Black America.
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Woke Racism by John McWhorter
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Linguist and public intellectual John McWhorter considers the contradictions of the ideology of “woke racisms” and concludes that only a religion could be so incoherent, and, therefore, ideological wokeness must be a religion. From this, he concludes that those who have converted to this “religion” cannot be reasoned with but, instead, must be tolerated in a way that prevents them from imposing their religion on the rest of us.
McWhorter is not the first to note the similarity of woke ideology to a religion. Frankly, he is not even the best. Steven D. Smith provides a more compelling explanation in “Pagans and Christians in the City.” Smith argues that religions contain imminent and transcendent elements. Imminent religions find the eschaton in the here and now; transient religions place the eschaton in the hereafter. No religion is entirely one or the other, but secular leftism represents as close to the perfect imminent religion as possible, lacking any sense of the immortality of personal being and with it, an absence of hope in some time after our life. Christianity places its hope in a distant eschaton, but also believes that God is sustaining us in this life.
McWhorter notes the “catechism of contradiction” that is wokism's creed, such as not dating someone of another race is racist, but dating someone of a different race is racist because it “exotifies” the date. McWhorter's argument is that only a religion could hold such contradictions without melting down. This argument is illogical and, frankly, a caricature of religion. While there are religious traditions that revel in their illogic, there are also those like Thomism and Calvinism that are hyperrational.
But first, there is the matter of nomenclature. McWhorter opts to refer to the woke as “the Elect” because of their own emphasis on their own moral purity and elite status. This appellation is also apt in that it highlights the fear of contagion that these people have when faced with impure thoughts.
The burden of McWhorter's argument is probably that Wokism is not a science or scholarly discipline, notwithstanding its location in academia. Wokism is an ideology, like Communism, and Communism is certainly a faith with a creed, praxis, and eschaton. As such, Wokism is a faith, like a religious faith and is not properly treated like a scholarly discipline. To someone religious like myself, McWhorter's constant degradation of religion qua religion is not helpful, but McWhorter lives in the Woke world. For the secular atheists who also live in that world, the ignominy of being told that they are a religion may be the best tactic.
McWhorter also canvasses the reasons for Wokeness. He finds that it is so useless for practical improvements and logic, that it must fill some need in the woke individual. He channels Eric Hoffer's insights about the role that the desire to belong and the submergence of individual identity into that of a group plays in radical ideological movements.
McWhorter is at his best in explaining what should and should not be done in dealing with face issues. His plan to improve to the situation of blacks is to 1. end the war on drugs, 2. teach phonics, and 3. improve the standing and availability of vocational training. His explanations as to why these suggestions make sense are solid and, best of all, race neutral.
His solution for the problem of dealing with the Elect is courage and backbone:
“What we must do about the Elect is stand up to them. They rule by inflicting terror, either through invective or quietly trailing off with the likes of “Well, I guess if you think racism is okay, then . . .” They think that to require them to engage in actual reason is heretically “white.” There is nowhere to go with them from there.
Our response to this cannot be to simply fold, because this means giving up the post-Enlightenment society we hold dear. We must stop being afraid of these people, and once we do, there is something we need to steel ourselves against and get used to.
People often ask, “How can I talk to people like this without being called a racist?”
The answer is: You cannot.
That is, they will call you a racist, no matter what you do or say beyond what they stipulate as proper. Black people: Be ready for the alternate slam, that you are “self-hating” and “betraying your own people.” They will say this to and about you.
The coping strategy, therefore, must be not to try to avoid letting them call you a racist, but to get used to their doing so and walk on despite it.
Specifically, on top of all else we are required to manage, enlightened Americans must become accustomed to being called racists in the public square.
We must become more comfortable keeping our own counsel, and letting our own rationality decide whether we are racist, rather than entertaining the eccentric and self-serving renovated definitions of racism forced upon us by religionists.
When that type calls you a racist—and I mean white ones every bit as much as black ones—you need not walk off, “doing the work” of wondering whether your accuser was right. You are Galileo being told not to make sense because the Bible doesn't like it.
McWhorter, John. Woke Racism (pp. 172-173). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Being hated is hard. Being gaslit is harder. My advice is to have a group or a friend you trust to give you a reality check. We are pack animals and if everyone is shouting 2+2=5, we may need someone to remind us that is not true.
Also, read this book and others like it to avoid gaslighting.
