Woke Racism
"Acclaimed linguist and award-winning writer 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 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.
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10mentions
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2021–2026years
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What Hacker News says
- An irreducible problem requiring effort is gaining critical thinking skills, knowledge, perspective, and intellectual and moral honesty and courage. Here are some controversial books that may enlighten the reader to some of the myriad nuances of intersecting problems:
- The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War by Sharlet. 2023.
- Woke Racism by McWhorter. 2021.
- The Case Against BDS: Why Singling Out Israel for Boycott is Anti-Semitic. by Dershowitz. 2018.
- Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle by Hedges. 2010.
- The Fateful Triangle by Chomsky. 1983.
- Anti-Semite and Jew by Sarte. 1946.
- Mein Kampf by Hitler. 1925.
- The problem with wokeism is that it’s more like a religion than an effective movement for change. Being seen to believe/say the right things is vastly more important than actively helping.
Woke Racism is a really good book about that. Don’t worry it’s written by a black guy who’s been fighting for social justice for decades. The fact I have to say that is one of his points/arguments.
- > “Woke”, for the most part, is a boogeyman that the conservative right uses as a summary label for various political movements on the left. Basically nobody on the left talks about “woke” except for perhaps a period of six months back in 2017.
There are left-wing critics of "Woke", see for example the African-American Marxist Adolph L Reed Jr – https://newrepublic.com/article/160305/beyond-great-awokenin...
If an unapologetic Marxist is attacking "Woke", that really disproves the contention that it is purely some right-wing bogeyman
Or, consider that the Trotskyist International Committee of the Fourth International published a review of the sitcom Abbott Elementary, which includes the line "In fact, in its treatment of Jacob’s wokeness, Abbott Elementary refreshingly mocks the suffocating trend of racialism in American culture" – https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/03/01/abbo-m01.html
Similarly, read their review of John McWhorter's Woke Racism – https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/06/14/ihjm-j14.html – in which they largely express agreement with his criticisms of the progressive "woke" ideology, but simultaneously condemn him for making those criticisms from a pro-capitalist instead of anti-capitalist perspective
And see the socialist publication Jacobin's approving review of the philosopher Susan Neiman's book Left Is Not Woke, which attacks "wokeness" from an explicitly left-wing perspective: https://jacobin.com/2024/07/wokeness-left-ideology-neiman-re...
- >I don't understand why you are calling it a religion.
There's a book on the topic: "Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America" by John McWhorter
- The author thinks 'the hard left' think Universities are racist, and they are wrong to think that.
Then he wrote a book called "Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America".
So, they were right after all?
- I think I gave some pretty specific example areas, but to get even more granular: I wonder if they will stock McWhorter’s “Woke Racism” or Abigail Shrier’s “Irreversable Damage.”
As to the question “what about books I think are really bad?” I don’t see how that’s much different than what these parents are asking.
And personally, I would expect high school libraries to have Lenin’s “What is to be done?” and Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.” I wonder how many do?
