The True Believers*
Columbia University linguistics professor and New York
Times columnist John McWhorter has written an important book about the plague
of woke racism that is now haunting America. He claims woke racism is a
religion, not like a religion. Here I believe he goes too far. To me woke
racism is a substitute for religion. He quotes Sigmund Freud, “If you wish to
expel religion from our European civilization you can only do that with another
system of doctrines….” This is precisely what is happening now.
Just as Marxists are obsessed class, woke racists are
obsessed with race. To them being born white is the original sin and represents
a moral stain that cannot be erased. Similarly, while whites are the
oppressors, blacks are the oppressed and wherever black achievement fails to
measure up to that of whites, racism is the only cause, making this a truly
narrow obsession.
To McWhorter the leaders of woke racism are the
“Elect,” so privileged as to know the ultimate truth. This is very similar to
Lenin’s vanguard of the revolution. The
Elect have superstitions, have clergy (e.g., Kendi, DeAngelo and Coates), are
evangelical, are apocalyptic and searches out heresies and heretics, hence the
cancel culture.
What is wrong with this. To McWhorter it hurts blacks.
His examples include looking the other way school discipline problems caused by
black teenagers, that black identity is based on not being white and unequal
outcomes mean unequal opportunity. This last factor is most damaging because it
makes to easy to excuse less than satisfactory individual outcomes. In other
words, blacks are permanent victims. To me this devastates the whole notion of
a coalition of “people of color.” Why would upwardly mobile Hispanics and
Asians want to be in a coalition with African Americans caught up in a victim
centered ideology.
McWhorter believes that instead of woke racism, the
way to better blacks in Americans would be to end the war on drugs, teach
reading properly through phonics (remember he is a linguistics professor) and
to get past the idea that everybody has to go to college. In case of the last
instead of costly four-year colleges that are unappealing to poor people,
McWhorter favors two-year programs in vocational education that can quickly lead
to high paying jobs.
I know that “The Elect” will not be happy with this
review and are beyond convincing, but I believe that fair-minded people will
read McWhorter’s book so we can go beyond looking at the world through the very
narrow lens of race. People are and always have been multi-dimensional.
*With apologies to Eric Hoffer
For the full Amazon URL see: The True Believers* (amazon.com)
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