Book review: 'Woke Racism' by John McWhorter

Jon Sharp reviews ‘Woke Racism: How a New Religion has Betrayed Black America’

While this intelligent and insightful study centres on the situation in the United States, its subject matter and analysis are equally relevant to the social, political and cultural scenario in Britain and across Europe. It’s a rare publication; talking a lot of sense, while at the same time challenging ‘woke’ non-sense (‘woke’ referring to views on social justice, identity politics, or cultural changes that are overly politically correct or insincere).  

‘Elect’ cult

 The author is an Afro-American lecturer in linguistics, philosophy and music history at Columbia University. His idea of ‘woke’ is tied up with America’s Diversity-Equity-Inclusion policies that, as he sees it, “actually infantilize Black Americans, set Black students up for failure, and pass policies that disproportionately damage Black communities”. We’ve seen tragic evidence of this with Jason Arday, the black Cambridge academic who recently took his own life following criticisms of his work.
 
McWhorter is frustrated with the ‘woke’ not just because they are factually wrong, but because they are also morally wrong – he believes they do damage to the very people they claim to be championing. He deduces that the only people they intend to serve are themselves! 
 
His name for them is ‘The Elect’ and he sees their psychology (and pathology) as bearing all the marks of a religious sect. In this, he draws on his understanding of the religion he is most familiar with, Christianity, and you can appreciate what he’s saying without  agreeing with his casting of the Christian faith as superstitious, and unthinking dogma.

He deduces that the only people they intend to serve are themselves! 

People who ‘went crazy’

 The belief-system of McWhorter is firmly embedded in Enlightenment rationalism, salted with a dose of human compassion. He is no fan of President Trump, is sensitive to racism and is supportive of George Floyd (whose death sparked off the Black Lives Matter protests). In this sense we’re seeing an insider struggling to understand the madness that has taken over his leftist natural allies, black and white. It’s a bit like reading reports of a patriotic Solzhenitsyn speaking of the Communist rot within his beloved Russia. As with Solzhenitsyn, you wonder quite how the censors actually let this stuff out. As an example: 

“From a certain distance it looks like we’re dealing with people who “went crazy.” But that won’t do. How many people can we realistically tar as insane? In what human society has a critical mass of people ever became mentally deranged? Yet we want to know why this new religion arose.” 

The author dismisses Critical Race Theory, stating: “We must not be taken in by the fact that this is called ‘critical’, that it’s about race, and that it’s titled a ‘theory’. It is a fragmentary, performative ideology…  to explicitly reject linear reasoning, traditional legal theorizing, and even Enlightenment rationalism. We are to favor an idea that an oppressed race’s “story” constitutes truth, in an overarching sense, apart from mere matters of empirical or individual detail” (p.63).

New religion

McWhorter includes chapters on defining the ‘new religion’, working out what attracts people to it, the fact that it negatively affects black people, how to dismantle it, and how to really help. His writing style is engaging, employing a quirky use of grammar and words at times – perhaps a consequence of him being a creative linguist!

Spoiler alert: the author’s prescription is to ‘Teach reading properly’, to ‘Get past the idea everyone must go to college’(university), and to ‘End the war on drugs’. This last objective is strange to us, but it may not so much in his hometown of New York City where black men are in the majority of those incarcerated for neighbourhood drug-dealing, it being supposed they are not educated enough for other work. In other words, it’s seen as a failure of the first two points and a further bar to flourishing. McWhorter is unapologetic about the simplicity of this and the fact that the answer is not just to ‘get rid of racism’ as pursued by ‘The Elect’ with their “charismatic but self-directed, sociopolitically futile and quietly racist alternative” (p.139).

If nothing else, this book gives the reader the confidence to shrug off the stifling weight of needing to respond ‘nicely’ to a truly deceitful and destructive narrative.

Whitewashed tombs

 If only a politician or church leader on this side of the Atlantic would speak up with such simple clarity in regard to Britain! Instead, we have the lazy ‘allyship’ (woke jargon for unquestioning support) which I can’t but think is highly grievous to the Lord.  In the Church of England there exist ‘Racial Justice Coordinators’ who carry toolkits that quote the very people and books that John McWhorter mocks – such as Robin DiAngelo; ‘White Fragility’, and Ibram X Kendi; ‘How to Be an Antiracist’.
 
Published in 2022, ‘Woke Racism’ remains highly relevant, as does McWhorter (see his recent scathing response on social media platform ‘X’ to Ibram Kendi about Jason Arday, which highlights the deep cultural divisions and also the tragic rot that exists in much of British education).
 
If nothing else, this book gives the reader the confidence to shrug off the stifling weight of needing to respond ‘nicely’ to a truly deceitful and destructive narrative.
 
On the contrary, we must be on the offensive, because, as Jesus Himself warned, many need to be rescued from these ‘...hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness’ (Mt 23:27b).
 
Read more here.
 
‘Woke Racism’ (224pp) is published by Forum and is available from Amazon for £9.78 (inc p&p).

​Jon Sharp has worked as a software developer and latterly as a cultural apologist. He is founder of the website Knowing the Times.