Deconstructing the “Woke World”: Desperation, Design, and Dementia

„Here is a land full of power and glory…
Her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom,
Her glory shall rest on us all.” (American folk song c. 2002)

The United States depicted in that song and the Eurocentric West are undergoing an unprecedented assault from the Left on their histories, traditions, cultures, societies and very races. All are at risk, in varying degrees. Ironically, only Russia and some of the former communist countries in Eastern Europe are offering much resistance – the more tolerant West is not. Many do not take this seriously, seeing it only as a passing tempest that they can ride out, until the elections of 2022 and 2024 reverse things in our favor.

They are wrong, perhaps fatally so. What I have chosen to call the “Woke World” – an amalgam of radical and supposedly “progressive” left-wing political parties and factions, “cultural Marxists” concentrated in academe and the media, and “social justice warriors” (SJW)” pushing a never-ending stream of racial, gender and social demands in the name of “diversity, equity and inclusion.” This is the de facto slogan of its primary political vehicle, the Democrat Party and its minions, in the U.S. today – and is shred at the highest levels, oddly enough, in the U.S. Marine Corps. Not surprisingly, given their affinity for revolution everywhere except Israel in recent centuries, left-wing Jews are often in the forefront of these movements. Although political opportunists, black militants and multi-gender or trans-gender activists and simple grifters are also prominent.

The result is a truly cross-national revolutionary situation, an assault by cultural Huns (with apologies to the comparatively decent historical Huns) on civilizations that – while far from perfect – made the modern world largely what it is today. There are many different attempts to understand what is taking place, and why, and what it will all mean if what the “wokesters” want comes to pass. There are also variations in what different countries are experiencing. I am going to try here to cut through this particular Gordian Knot in order to understand how this all came about – at least in the U.S. – and what those of us who oppose this onslaught might be able to do to first contain and then repel the beast within.

Whence Came These Wokesters?

Hell hath no fury like a frustrated idealist, next to whom the proverbial scorned woman is milk and honey personified. No rapacious conqueror in history ever wrought such violence upon their own land and people as someone who genuinely believed they were pursuing a greater good for all, or at least justice for those in need. Idealists have proved time and time again throughout history that they – and those professing to act in their name – were not only willing to inflict unprecedented death and destruction on others abroad. They were also prepared to wade in fire and blood at home to achieve their goals, always couched in the loftiest and most unselfish terms.

The Path to Desperation

Ironically enough, the group most prominent here began with genuinely admirable ideals: these are the civil rights activists who pressed for genuine equality for blacks (Negroes in those days) in the era of segregation, and later others (notably Hispanics) as well. Most – perhaps all, absent some inevitable “con artists” in their ranks – genuinely believed at the time that if blacks throughout the country had an equal opportunity to work, get an education, vote and hold elective office, they would show themselves fully capable of participating in the best of the “American Dream” with others as equals.

This belief was at the core of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, in which he called for his children (I paraphrase) to be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skins. It led to the Civil Rights Act (1964), the Voting Rights Act (1965) and the ever-burgeoning array of welfare programs in the name of the Great Society (1966-67) and afterwards. Then the slogan was Equal Opportunity – and yes, I am aware of the partisan (Democrat) political elements in all of them.

Things did not go well for the true believers of the civil rights movement almost from the very beginning. There was a great deal of resistance to the implementation of these laws throughout the country, not just where segregation had existed, reinforced by the widespread black urban rioting in the 1960s. Where blacks moved into a neighborhood, school or city, most others –whites, Asians and Latinos, whatever – left if they could. Even worse (for them), blacks consistently scored lower on virtually every test for every purpose than all other groups – again throughout the country, including states without de facto or de jure segregation.

This was the first major fracture in the civil rights movement’s belief system: individual exceptions notwithstanding, Equal Opportunity simply did not work for blacks as a definable group anywhere. So this was explained away by the legacy of slavery (gone then over a century), segregation (still largely in place in many states in the South and some cities elsewhere) and ongoing racism (something of a catch-all explanation of last resort).

To compensate for this, a growing array of preferential programs for blacks was put in place (in varying degrees in different places) – “Affirmative Action,” forced busing of students for public school integration, minority set-asides, goals (which meant quotas) for black enrollment and hiring, and so forth, all overseen by the Federal government and its agencies. This, most civil rights activists believed, would resolve what they saw to be a transitional situation, after which these preferential programs and policies could be phased out.

That time never came, and has not yet today. By the late 1980s, it was obvious to all but some truly blind civil rights fanatics that without preferential programs, blacks in general would fail to compete (except in some sports) on anything approaching an equal basis with Asians, whites and most Latinos, in that order. Many liberals and black leaders spoke darkly of “color draining out” if preferential programs were phased out – the fact that Asians did not seem to have this problem, and did better than whites in most areas, was simply ignored.

Civil rights activists were mostly not blind to what was happening, but they refused to discard or even modify significantly their core belief that all races are inherently equal. They rejected any suggestions based on black behavior, here and abroad to the contrary, no matter what the empirical evidence. They bewailed the persistence of racism, never understanding that while (a) there was then and remains now a great deal of mostly unexpressed dislike of blacks among all other races; but (b) much of it – perhaps almost all these days – is due to high rates of black criminality and visible irresponsibility, plus the observable decline of neighborhoods,schools and cities everywhere blacks become a majority or even a significant minority. Once-thriving cities like Detroit and Baltimore, or neighborhoods like Chicago’s South Side and Watts in Los Angeles, as well as their counterparts everywhere, are stark testimony to this phenomenon, despite strenuous efforts by the “news” and entertainment media to conceal it as much as possible.

As the decades rolled on, it became glaringly apparent to almost all of the civil rights activists – most of them Democrats, whatever their race – that there was both good news and bad news on their front. The good news was that a substantial number of blacks – estimates ranged from 30 % to as high as 50% – were measurably doing better in many areas. A black middle class had emerged; blacks were appearing in the professions and in elected and appointed political office; many large and small cities had black or black-majority city governments and law enforcement; and the statutory vestiges of segregation were all but gone. Not surprisingly, given the politics of the activists and the original proponents of the civil rights and welfare legislation, upwards of 90% of blacks were registered (or voted) Democrat. Interestingly enough, the “best and brightest” – of which there are a good number – gravitated toward conservatism and thus the Republican party. Democrats by and large got whatever was left over – they had the numbers but not the quality.

Author: Alan Sabrosky

yogaesoteric
October 10, 2022