“Wokery” is racist.
The victims are generally white. Wokeness’s goal is the short-term advancement of minority voters at the expense of all others. It is advanced by campaigns of disinformation that chill countermanding arguments, publish propaganda, manipulate search outcomes, and control educational curricula. Its execution relies on allies in the media and academia.
Much of academia now uses selective history and exaggerated tales, untestable theories, and biased materials to ensure that America’s future leaders are indoctrinated. Indoctrinated, that is, to see all whites as inherent oppressors and all minorities as inherent victims. Some children are now shamed into pursuing redemption for the crime of being born white.
Disinformation to support racist woke laws and policies is promulgated by mainstream and social media. They hammer disproportionate racial/ethnic outcomes in income, incarceration, police shootings, education, and health outcomes as products of systemic racism overseen by white supremacists. Verified data refuting these assertions by showing the outcomes are often products of personal decisions, like what and when to study, raising children with one parent, observing rule of law, and a healthy lifestyle are censored or overridden.
The purpose of this disinformation is to validate politically motivated decisions misleadingly, such as passing laws and policies that favor some races and ethnicities over others. To fool people, racist initiatives are framed with the language of “equity.”
It isn’t working. These actions exemplify the dangers of decisions based on politics rather than data and common sense. The hardest hit are the people “wokery” is pretending to help.
Consider the goal of two equity initiatives. One seeks to match arrests and incarcerations to racial/ethnic populations instead of the commission of crime. One limits police presence in black and Latino communities. Murders are rising, and 85% of the hardest hit are black and Latino communities.
A second initiative creates a two-tiered justice system that delivers social justice to blacks and Latinos and legal justice to whites and Asians. Portland and Seattle lead the nation in equity in policing and the courts. They were known as cities that were safe and egalitarian. Today, both rank in the top 5% of the least safe cities in the country. Minority neighborhoods experiencing the downsides of social justice.
Outcomes from lowering school performance requirements to permit equitable grades and graduation rates are another problem. America has been lowering standards for a while, and our students perform abysmally on international tests. This is a concerning sign for our future national competitiveness. Individual student performance, however, still affects personal opportunities. Because performance increasingly relies on household structures enforced on after-school studying, blacks and Latinos, on average, are suffering more. I would argue that at least in significant part, this is a consequence of the higher preponderance of single-parent households in these families.
This is wrong.
America was central to ending white supremacy after the Second World War. It did so by facilitating independence for colonies of white supremacist empires. In 1964, systemic racism was dealt a heavy blow by process of the Civil Rights Act. This blow has been further actualized in the 20th century, making America the leading anti-racist nation. In pursuit of power, liberals have squandered this great achievement by their repugnant insinuation that America today resembles the Jim Crow era. It is wrong, and it is hurting all of us. But it is hurting minorities the most.
Kathleen Brush, Ph.D. MBA is a management and international relations consultant. Her books include: America’s Discrimination Circus; Racism and anti-Racism in the World: Before and after 1945; and A Brief History of International Relations: The World Made Easy. Currently in process and planned for publication in 2021 is Reparations For All: Ethnic Studies in America.
