POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, CANCEL CULTURE, AND WOKENESS
(An Alice In Wonderland Rabbit Hole Trip)
As the problem of race relations heats up in a more aggressive fashion and as social groups bring different perspectives to the issue, the notions of political correctness, cancel culture, and wokeness supposedly clarify but actually confuse the conversation. Merged into fundamentalist perspectives, these three foci portent a new civic religion in America with an edge of judgmentalism and vindictiveness. Each one has its own dangers but wokeness appears notably threatening to reasoned dialogue. As I understand it, basic to Wokeness is an awareness that being born white in a dominating white culture automatically makes all white citizens racists and this is tantamount to being a purveyor of original sin. Logically, since I cannot be reborn unwhite, there can be no salvation from this sin – which is its first grounding flaw.
Serious Issues
This concept raises other serious issues for me:
- Wokeness fails to recognize that the American culture, despite being predominantly white up until this moment in history, has never been a monolithic racist society. It has, at the least, two basic opposing cultural elements. One is, indeed, a pronounced racism against all non-white people. However, the other focuses on citizenry equality of worth irrespective of race and thousands have died on behalf of this belief. If these opposing views were not reality then the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Black Lives Matter Movement would have not been social enterprises. Nor could continuous progress have been made in leveling the playing field for non-white citizens. Wokeness is based on a false historical perception.
- If Wokeness is a historical principle, then it must be also true of yellows, browns, reds, and blacks that dominate other cultures. Thus, most all cultures are birthed of and sustained by an original skin color sin. Wokeness is based on a false historical logic.
- Wokeness is anti-democratic. It begins with the necessity of white people acknowledging their original sin of racism which is the equivalent of announcing that they are born superior to all non-whites. They are condemned racist by birth. Thus, it denies the capacity of white people to be born as free choosers which is basic to both freedom and democracy. Wokeness is based on a false social premise.
These false notions will help no one who is already committed to human equality. And it offers nothing but a negative grounding for those who accept it as truth.
Moreover, racism is only one of the attitudes that diminish the possibilities of democracy in America. Sexism and classism also have been a debilitating part of the Trinity of Totalitarianism.
The Real Enemy
The historical reality is that racism, sexism, and classism all have their root in the same issue: The failure to acknowledge the inherent worth equality of all humans. The essential enemy of democracy and the dominant purveyor of racism, sexism, and classism in America’s history has been and remains that part of the citizenry committed to economic imperialism – irrespective of race.
Economic imperialism has no ethic except that of profit-making and is committed, in the west, to those empowerments that traditionally use non-white people, women, children, and the lower classes as pawns for this purpose without concern for its demeaning and destructive effect. This has always been American democracy’s real foe. Racism, sexism, and classism are only symptoms of the primacy of economic imperialism in the nation’s culture. And the only way to deal effectively with such symptoms is to address their causes – which all have to do with acknowledging the innate equality of human worth.
Non-negotiable Given
Here is the non-negotiable given of democracy: Affirming the inherent worth of every human as a birthright. Whether political, social, or personal, this is the only correct democratic posture. Only a misguided and unaware view of history and democracy begins with the notion that we are born unworthy or that we are unworthy by virtue of the culture into which we were born or that we are unworthy because we are born with a certain skin color.
The Rabbit Hole
Here is my conclusion: Wokeness, and its two allies of political correctness and cancel culture, are a trio of characters Americans are currently meeting in their historical Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole trip. Alice’s trip down the rabbit hole was a metaphorical adventure about discerning her true identity amid the multiple cultural claims and confusions of her growing up years. Arriving at this discernment was the same as getting out of the rabbit hole. Unfortunately, after well over two hundred years, America is still deep underground.
Robert
Robert T. Latham
mythinglink.com
PS: Don’t confuse these three perspectives with Critical Race Theory. CRT advocates for an awareness that racism is so deeply institutionalized in America that it is largely unrecognized for what it is by a significant segment of the citizenry. One apparent example of this institutionalization is the difference between the number of blacks and whites in the nation’s prisons. CRT is being taught mainly in universities, colleges, and private grade schools. But such teaching is perceived as a threat by racists and is under vicious attack across the nation.
Robert, Thanks for facilitating an important conversation for our time. Racism is clearly more than simple prejudice or bigotry. To be racially prejudiced means having distorted opinions about those of other races. Racism goes beyond prejudice and is the power to enforce one’s prejudices. Learning the full story about our history should provoke a degree of discomfort and challenge us. We and our youth need to be equipped to critically examine our country and our world. It is time to promote honesty and academic freedom in education, if we are to build a racially just, multiracial, and multicultural democracy.