Racism, the Woke Evil: Racist Woke Antiracism

Having adopted "racism" as its pervasive explanation for human suffering and then redefined "racism" to mean its opposite, Wokeism can thus embrace the blatantly racist ideology known as antiracism.

The American Spirit Essays #26

(continued from More Important than Good)

The Centrality of Race

Racism plays the role in Wokeism that evil does in traditional faiths.  The Woke preach an intense, burning hatred of racism.  What the Woke call “antiracism” is a central element of the Woke identity.  That Woke antiracism requires racial categorization, disparate treatment, group rather than individual identity, and a focus on immutable characteristics is irrelevant.  It’s impolite to notice that leading Woke theorists of antiracism preach explicit racial discrimination.  It’s hateful to highlight that Woke antiracism is a blinding, explicit, textbook example of a racist ideology—as racism was understood for many centuries prior to the Woke deconstruction.  It’s beyond the pale to explain that racism, which was once a very respectable ideology, is reviled today precisely because of the ideological properties that Woke antiracism has embraced. 

At least, such is true in Woke circles, where “racism” is jargon for the initiates and intentionally misleading to ensnare the well-intentioned uninitiated.  To the Woke, “racism” has truly Manichean properties.  All Woke beliefs, assertion, propositions, and actions are antiracist even when they are blindingly racist.  All anti-Woke beliefs, assertion, propositions, and actions are racist even when they have nothing to do with race—and explicitly racist when they challenge or subvert the racial categorizations at the heart of true racism.  Colorblindness is perhaps the clearest example of an antidote to actual racism that racist Woke antiracists view as supportive of a systemically racist status quo, and therefore racist.  (Bonus points for readers who followed that last sentence).

The centrality of “racism” to the Woke worldview, however, runs far deeper.  Like most all-encompassing core theological concepts, it can be hard for the uninitiated to grasp.  The Woke insistence that its discussions are sociological rather than spiritual make it even harder. 

At one extreme, Woke “racism” overlaps with the way that speakers of American English understand the term.  Dylann Roof, for example, was a white supremacist who shot up a Black church in Charleston, SC, in June 2015.  Everyone in America recognized that he was a racist and spoke out forcefully against him.  Roof found almost no support from anyone other than his fellows in the tiny fringe white supremacist movement.  Woke and non-Woke were in complete agreement that he and his actions were both racist and evil.