Don't Just Hate On "Woke" Culture

I can’t pinpoint when it happened (or at least when it got this bad), but speech has become a marker of group allegiance.

When people say things like “The election was stolen,” or “Cancel culture doesn’t exist,” or “Pineapple tastes good on pizza”, they aren’t expressing sincerely held positions, they’re signalling which “team” they’re on. These slogans are loyalty oaths. The question of whether they actually believe the words is irrelevant.

In my article, Anti-Racism Is Becoming Troublingly Racist, I created a conundrum for some of my readers. I’m a black man, so I should be on the side of anti-racism, but I was saying things that anti-racists aren’t supposed to admit. Is that even allowed?! Which team was I on? Why wasn’t I speaking the oaths?

Joining me between the two worlds was Izzy:

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Izzy:

I don't think everything is wrong with "the woke left" or "cancel culture," but this is a powerful piece and a must-read. It raises a lot of issues I've tried to raise before myself and I completely agree that many anti-racists have gotten very, very, very racist.

I have felt very tokenized by the left and people have offered to hire me for my minority status, as if that isn't incredibly offensive. Segregation is never okay. And just because something has a racist past doesn't mean that it can't be enjoyed, especially by people of color--stop telling us what to do with our own culture, you guys! Same with “cultural appropriation”...I don't have a problem with white, Black, Hispanic, etc. people wearing Indian clothes and I never will.

But don't just hate on "woke" culture. It's done a lot of good. It's managed to raise and amplify those issues on criminal justice reform and more that we all care about. Sure, we might be overdoing some parts of it. But it's better than the opposite.

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“I completely agree that many anti-racists have gotten very, very, very racist.”

I think that pretty much everybody is thinking this. So why don’t more people admit it?

Again, the problem is that pointing out the obvious racist elements in modern “anti-racism” risks signalling that you’re on the wrong side. This is the key problem with (and the main purpose of) presenting the options as a binary.

You’re either an anti-racist or you’re a racist. There’s nothing in-between. Anybody striving for nuance is immediately identified as the latter. And, of course, if you are an anti-racist, then you have to agree with everything that any self-described “anti-racists” do and say.

It doesn’t matter that this logic is incredibly shaky. All that matters is that enough people are afraid to publicly argue with it.

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Steve QJ:

But don't just hate on "woke" culture. It's done a lot of good

I agree with a lot of what you write here. I guess it's just a question of how we're defining "woke" (which has of course been completely warped from it's original meaning).

To my mind, the "woke" part of social justice movements is the part that isn't doing any good. It's the part that makes the genuinely valuable work look racist or hateful or that gives ammunition to bigots when they want to ridicule people who are different to them.

As for cancel culture, yeah, I do think everything is wrong with that. It's an evil, puritanical movement which is going to backfire horribly on everybody if it isn't stopped.

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Izzy:

This is a very powerful take and one I think I support. Personally, I agree that cancel culture has gone very off the rails. I also have noticed it’s mostly driven by what white people think, not the people of color it’s supposedly helping.

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“Personally, I agree that cancel culture has gone very off the rails.”

After expressing numerous “unpopular” opinions, I’m amazed a) by how popular they are, and b) by how often people defend ideas they’re actually against, or say what they think they’re supposed to say instead of what they really mean.

When I read Izzy’s first comment, I was surprised to see somebody who seemed so reasonable defending cancel culture. But as soon as I criticise it, she’s willing to do so too.

On pretty much every hot button issue of the day, most people are more reasonable than they first appear. They’re just waiting for somebody else to say “the wrong thing” first.

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Steve QJ:

I also have noticed it’s mostly driven by what white people think, not the people of color it’s supposedly helping.

Absolutely. I've noticed this too!

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Speech has become a marker of group affiliation. But the secret is, the largest group of all is reasonable, compassionate people who are too afraid to say what they think.

As I’ve mentioned before, my articles and Twitter DMs are filled with people privately expressing support that they’re afraid to express publicly, for fear of a backlash. And each time I get a new one, I’m both encouraged that there are so many sane people out there, and saddened that so few of them are willing to stand behind their perfectly reasonable views.

The extremists aren’t getting bolder because they’re right, or because people agree with them, they’re getting bolder because not enough people are speaking up against them. They’ve managed to convince us that we;;re the minority when we’re not.

It’s time we show them which group we belong to.