The Woke "Ideological Reign of Terror"

Revisiting John McWhorter's Book "Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America"

Can social movements cause more damage than good? When do social movements stop being movements and become a drain on society? The US has certainly had successful movements that moved the needle in a positive way. But what if a movement is more performative than substance, hunts down its dissenters and tries to implement its ideology by intimidation? What if it preaches tolerance but only their specific ideas are tolerated? Shouldn’t it be discussed? And if a movement is not helping those it targets, shouldn’t it be re-examined?

I had the honor of hearing Columbia University professor John McWhorter speak at the Dissident Dialogues conference earlier this year. McWhorter is the author of Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America. His book is controversial for sure, because McWhorter speaks out against a social movement that he, among many others, believe has far overstepped its boundaries. McWhorter, who is black, wrote a compelling book about why he feels that the woke movement has betrayed the black community by demeaning them and precluding real change. It may be controversial, but it was an important book to write. At the conference McWhorter was insightful, practical and clearly has put a lot of thought into this argument.

From the very beginning of the book, McWhorter sets a clear direction for where the is going.:

I write this viscerally driven by the fact that the ideology in question is one under which white people calling themselves our saviors make black people look like the dumbest, weakest, most self-indulgent human beings in the history of our species and teach black people to revel in that status and cherish it as making us special. I am especially dismayed at the idea of this indoctrination infecting my daughters’ sense of self.

McWhorter obviously recognizes that racism exists as he has experienced it firsthand. It’s not the existence of racism that is questioned in this book, it’s the woke response that’s the central theme. In fact, he details what he describes as “three waves of antiracism”. The first wave was a battle against slavery and segregation. The second wave happened in the 1970’s and 1980’s where racist attitudes were first addressed, and Americans started to become more aware of them. It’s the third wave that McWhorter challenges:

Third Wave Antiracism, becoming mainstream in the 2010s, teaches that because racism is baked into the structure of society, whites’ “complicity” in living within it constitutes racism itself, while for black people, grappling with the racism surrounding them is the totality of experience and must condition exquisite sensitivity toward them, including a suspension of standards of achievement and conduct.

McWhorter doesn’t like the term ‘woke mob” to describe the adherents to this movement. He finds it dismissive. Instead, he likes to call them “the Elect”, which is a bit mocking, but accurate. It implies that they were “elected” by some universal power to carry the message. As McWhorter put it “bearers of wisdom” by “understanding something that others do not”. He toyed with using the term “Inquisitors”, which I think is more accurate, but also more confrontational. We don’t want to resort to ad-hominin attacks, that’s Elect behavior that we don’t want to replicate.

McWhorter believes that woke is a religion, not simply a justice movement. He does not mean a religion in a metaphorical sense. He literally believes it qualifies as an actual religion. He believes that there is the “original sin” facet. The sin is that all white people are born with “white privilege”. According to Elect thinking, white people live their lives without ever acknowledging this or repenting. To repent is a form of self-flagellation that ends when the white person acknowledges their racism.

The religion also contains an apocalyptic trait to it, according to McWhorter:

Elect scripture stipulates a judgment day: the great day when America “owns up to” or “comes to terms with” racism and finally fixes it. Apparently, this will happen through the long-term effects of psychological self-mortification combined with the transformational political activism that whites will be moved to effect upon being morally shamed and verbally muzzled. Notice that this makes no real sense? And besides, how would a country as massive, heterogenous, and politically fractured as this one ever arrive at a consensus so conclusive and overarching that it would “fix” racism? The whites “out there” are such incorrigible heathens, we are told. Okay, but if so, just what were we assuming would change their minds? Reading White Fragility? Try again. Tablets from on high sounds almost more plausible.

The idea that and entire nation of 340 million people will all come to the same conclusion is just fantasy, especially by an ideology that uses force, fear and violence (yes, words can be violent). Just the idea of trying to shove an ideology down people’s throats in itself will lead to its rejection and antipathy. McWhorter points out that the Elect religion also has its priests (such as Robin DiAngelo and Ta-Nehisi Coates) and its bible (White Fragility). Let’s not forget the Elects’ quest to rid the world of heretics.

The book has many examples of people suspended from jobs, losing jobs, and being stripped of popularity on social platforms. The book opens with the example of a NY times food writer, Alison Roman, who was suspended for criticizing two non-white women, calling them “commercialized”. A twitter mob ensued. Despite her feverish attempt at an apology, she was suspended. One of the women was half white, half Thai, the other Japanese. As McWhorter said, “it was her whiteness that did her in”. There are other examples throughout the booking giving gory details of well-intentioned people who had their lives uprooted over at most, small transgressions. Some of the stories sound straight out of Mao’s cultural revolution.

A salient point McWhorter makes is that the Elect presents the case as if victimization should be the most fundamental and central part of black lives. McWhorter wrote about being chastised for writing a book about black English. Mind you, he’s a linguistics professor who has written many books on language. His critics felt his book should not just be on black English, it should have covered the full black experience. McWhorter responds:

We are to write on the basis of our fundamental “identity” as victims of whiteness, and if we don’t, we don’t know “who we are” and have done the race a disservice in being asleep at the switch.

McWhorter, in effect was criticized for not writing the correct book.

McWhorter also makes a further astute observation that the Elect focuses the black community on “not being white” as their primary driver, and not what their culture actually is. It’s not about their own positives, their own culture, intricacies or their own meaning, This, in itself, is demeaning, patronizing, and yes, racist. McWhorter describes the Elect as “infantilizing” the black community.

Turning a Blind Eye

Perhaps the most powerful part of the book was when McWhorter pointed out the shortsightedness of the Elect. They ignore facts that don’t fit into their paradigm. The keep their scope narrow and ignore what they don’t want to see.

McWhorter calls the Elect out big time here:

You are to turn a blind eye to black undergraduates cast into schools where they are in over their heads, and into law schools incapable of adjusting to their level of preparation in a way that will allow them to pass the bar exam.

You are to turn a blind eye to the willful dimness of condemning dead people for moral lapses normal in their time, as if they were still alive.

You are to turn a blind eye to the folly in the idea of black “identity” as all about what whites think rather than about what black people themselves think.

You are to turn a blind eye to lapses in black intellectuals’ work, because black people lack white privilege.

You are to turn a blind eye to the fact that social history is complex, and instead pretend that those who tell you that all racial discrepancies are a result of racism are evidencing brilliance.

You are to turn a blind eye to innocent children taught to think in these ways practically before they can hold a pencil.

What is to be done?

McWhorter is too much of thinker and intellectual to pose these problems without solutions. He has watched countless overcomplicated plans go to waste, so he has come up with a simplified (but far from oversimplified) plan. These are his three planks:

1- End the war on drugs. This has disproportionality effected the black community. Too many have wandered into the black market to sell drugs. The jails are filled with people who had possession with intent to sell, but also drug related murders such as turf battles. Many kids are left fatherless as a result of these imprisonments.

2- Teach kids how to read properly. McWhorter writes how many disadvantaged black children don’t grow up with rooms lined with books. Many inner-city schools don’t use the phonics way of teaching reading, which studies show is the best method. Teaching the phonics way has shown itself to substantially bring up reading scores of black children, but the success has not been nationalized.

3- Advocate vocational training for poor people and battle the idea that “real” people go to college. For the poor and underserved, McWhorter says, college can be a challenge, yet they are setup for failure by being pushed into it. He backs this claim up with numerous surveys that show the lack of success for unprepared students. I think this is acceptable only to a point. I think it’s more important to find better ways to prepare students from poor families.

For sure, McWhorter was criticized as a “sellout” from some from his community, and a lot from the Elect crowd. Fortunately, it hasn’t discouraged him from continuing to speak, write and frequently appear on podcasts. It’s a well written book that delivers on its promise. It’s the type of book you won’t forget whether you agree or disagree with his thesis. Some of his parting thoughts were not to try and argue with the Elect for the same reason we don’t argue with the religious. How do you argue with the Elect without being called a racist? You Can’t. Don’t respond to those accusations, if called that. It just gives more oxygen to them. Don’t be cowed and don’t be intimidated.