From the outside looking in, it is pitiable. From the inside, I suspect that most white wokes receive affirmation and validation not from "marginalized" folks but from other white wokes. Its a cult of penitents, celebrating in the glory of their self flagellation.
Correct. This bullshit got accelerated on Tumblr. I watched it happen in real life. Listing one's various "privileges" and "oppressions" on one's profile became normalized there and that leaked into real life. Tumblr was in its heyday from 2011-2015 and that cohort, that was in college starting 2016-2018 range, began teaching Tumblr shit as reality. I was taught "demisexual" and other things I learned on Tumblr, in college. Not as concepts that started on a website populated by teenagers--as scientific fact.
Mr Kafka would like to point out that his fiction was also meant as a warning not an instruction manual. What I don't understand is why people seem to voluntarily embrace this stuff, but I guess they get encouragement from their fellow cultists for trying hard and they get to look down on the rest of us for being so uncouth and stupid that we don't realize how racist everything is
I remember when I was still active back in early 2016 there was a “White Trash Bash” at my unit. It was a bunch of Marines (of all skin colors) getting together, flying Confederate flags, and drinking a lot of beer.
It makes me sad that a bunch of academics with shitty ideas have made that sort of thing impossible now.
My daughter (now 20) was indoctrinated into these ideas in high school. I challenged her once by asking her if her (expensive) club soccer black friend whose parents went to elite colleges, make lots of money and live in a wealthy suburb in Indianapolis was less privileged than her poor white relatives in rural Kentucky. Asking made her angry.
In one of my mandatory diversity classes in college, I brought up Barack Obama's daughters vs white teenagers in foster care in West Virginia. I was informed that asking that question demonstrated a "white supremacist viewpoint." LMAO.
Your point about the abusive aspect of this is especially important. That the anti-racists are indifferent to the debilitating effects on children, of teaching them to continually curry resentment, is instructive about what the anti-racists are really up to. I had some adjacent thoughts a few years ago.
My therapist and I had a really good conversation about this once. I don't know a lot about his childhood, of course--proper boundaries, etc.--but I know he regards himself as having had an extremely fortunate childhood, and he said once that as far as he could tell, the task where the vast majority of parents fail most egregiously is that they love their kids the wrong way. I asked him what he meant. He said that the highest form of love is love that's far more concerned with the other person's freedom than anything else, and too many parents fail to prepare their children to bear the responsibilities of freedom. I think about that a lot.
Jordan Peterson says that a parent who is concerned about his child's safety should work to instill competence. I think he's intuiting something similar to your point about bearing the responsibilities of freedom.
YES!! I totally agree with him on that. I was a full-time nanny for a year and I was very big on this. My charge and I would practice situational awareness (in a fun way, not a scary way) and she gained so much confidence. You could ask her, "What do you do in the store if you and Holly get separated?" and she would tell you, without missing a beat, "Look for a policelady or a policeman. Or a mommy with children. Or a grown-up lady all by herself. Or a big girl who's big enough to drive a car. Go up and say, 'Excuse me, I can't find my nanny and I need you to help me find her please'." Boom. No fear, immediate action plan for how to *keep herself* safe.
My homeschooled sister and I often wonder what our parents “end game” was…they definitely weren’t teaching us tools and skills we needed for adulthood out in the world.
I’ve always told my daughter that my job as her mom is to teach her the tools and skills she needs to be successful as an adult. She gets to decide what success is for herself but it’s my job to make sure she’s ready to be independent. I think/hope I’ve raised her to bear the responsibilities of freedom.
“Volunteering to fully locate their locus of control outside themselves is volunteering for a life of misery, frustration, and regret.” I’m still working hard to get out of this trap for myself. Body Keeps the Score is helping. Therapy is helping. Your words help too, Holly!
Thank you for reading! And I get it. I've made a lot of progress in that regard, but one of the reasons why I keep returning to it is to help myself. I am the choir to whom I am preaching, LOL.
I've listened to a few white celebrities the last week, and I noticed how much they like to boast about understanding their privilege now - how much they learned from the black people in their lives. They all used different words, but that was the general impression I got. I feel like they felt like complete pieces of shit because some black person said they were being racist in the past.
I know one of the stories and he wasn't being racist at all. So it's was sad to hear the happiness in him to finally understand how "wrong" he was.
There are certain places (echo chambers) where the white people hear this and feel they can't escape and they probably don't want to escape (like Hollywood), and so they feel as if they have to change to fit in. But they're never going to fit in, just by accepting how "evil" they were.
It's a fool's errand, and I guess I feel rather sad for people living such a life. It's weird to feel pity for the people of Hollywood.
You ask about experiences... Hm... that's a lot to unpack. I'm publishing a small piece on my Substack this weekend that shares some of my experience in relation to this--one day of a whole life.
But what strikes me about everything you've written here is how this mindset inhibits intimacy.
As humans hard-wired for connection, I've experienced moments of intimacy (connection) with all kinds of people--a breakdown of barriers that keep us separate.
It's difficult for me to articulate what I am thinking about here, so please bear with me....
Perhaps what I'm trying to say is that it appears that these types of mindsets that you write about introduce artificial barriers to connection. That's what I experience. There are so many ways we humans are alike. So many deeply shared experiences no matter what our journey is. And yes, if our experiences focus only on the experiences that separate us, we will lose so many opportunities for genuine (sometimes lasting) connection and shared intimacy or experiences.
Hmmm... I'm going to keep reflecting on your question and see if I can articulate it more deeply.
I classified as an Affirmative Action student at UC Berkeley in the late 1980s—I am white but came from a poverty stricken, blue-collar, unstable, and dysfunctional environment in Southern California. I pretty much raised myself (last of 5 children to a violent alcoholic father & depressed, abused mother). I took advantage of a little-used qualification in the program’s fine print to receive more college funds to improve my life with a college education, being blessed (as I see it now) with street smarts as well as intellectual smarts. Once at college, I witnessed the large amounts of money thrown at other students simply because they were black or Hispanic, yet the majority that I encountered over those 5 years (yes, it took me longer because I had to work part-time to support myself) were from households with a surgeon for a father or parents who were business executives, etc. Only two “students of color” out of hundreds I encountered came from impoverished, blue-collar backgrounds like myself.
I realize my experience is strictly anecdotal, but I think the emergence of “anti-racist” rhetoric is dangerous to a cohesive society. Opportunity is mostly limited due to socioeconomics, but personal drive to better oneself is something I learned from good teachers in K-12. Intellectual curiosity saved me, in a sense, and good teachers encouraged my pursuits as viable rather than unattainable. Once any education system cowtows to the baying mob, we lose a generation or two of students to whatever revisionist or oppressive ideology they push, and the idea that you can take responsibility to improve your station in life gets replaced by the victimhood narrative. I fear this is where we are now.
I know exactly what you mean. I had a group project once with a black classmate. Both her parents were professionals -- a lawyer and an oncologist or some such. I can read upside down, and I saw a text from "Dad" pop up on her screen telling her how much he loved her during one of our work sessions. She was fond of lecturing me about my white privilege. After one of our sessions, she left to go out with friends and I left to go tutor someone in calculus and take the $20 and immediately buy food because I hadn't eaten in like a day. It was so surreal, and knowing that our government is basing important things on false assumptions rooted in "anti-racism" is just horrifying.
It truly is horrifying, and morally abusive. Reminds me of the eugenics movement at the turn of last century that took root for several decades.
I recall basically starving those first two years at college, until I found a better paying, stable part-time job. I completely relate to your own story!
I was raised Calvinist and that's what all this reminds me of. No, I haven't run into any of this in real life (yet) except smidgens from some very privileged white people. All the black people I talk to just act like sane, intelligent humans.
Agreed. Once I graduated college, it's only the occasional speaker at a diversity seminar at work who I run into this shit from, aside from at a distance (like the way it's making its inroads into government at the speed of light).
My experience? I am an expert in woke. I have a Ph.D. in urban leftism. Grew up in blue collar areas in and around NYC with lots of Italian, Irish and Greek immigrants (my mother was the only one of her generation born in the US). Attended very fancy pants college and was thrust into the world of woke (before it was called woke). Sure, I saw bits of it when I visited the more upscale parts of the city. But I became fully immersed in college. Chose a profession that is at the forefront of wokeness and then switched into another profession that is even more woke, lol. Stayed in NYC for a while then moved to urban NJ and commuted to NYC. Got married and had babies. Moved to a really woke neighborhood and then an even more woke one. I was completely surrounded by them and their ideology. I lived among the craziest of the crazies. But we loved NYC, so we stayed put for a long while.
All of it disgusted me from the start but I was always very clear on my thoughts and feelings about their wokeness, so didn't feel threatened. And besides, I don't mind - and even enjoy - confrontation and fighting, so it didn't bother me to be in constant battle with the wokesters over the years.
I was able to make and keep acquaintances and friends. Sure, plenty of them hated my politics (not that I talked about mine much - I simply didn't applaud when the emperor spoke, so they understood that I was not like them). And many of them ostracized me and my family. But I didn't care because there are a lot of people in that area. The numbers were on my side, for a while at least - there were always new people to find. (All of that changed dramatically with the lockdowns of 2020 and, hence, why my screen name is what it is.)
I take two general approaches with wokesters: I either fight them to the death and give them verbal beatdowns when they get in my face or I play the long game with them, if I think there is any glimmer of hope for them to see the light. As you have observed, they really are a sad and pitiful bunch. When I am in the right space, I actually can have a lot of compassion and empathy for them. They are tethered to an ideology that keeps them rooted in misery and helplessness. I want to free them and share with them the possibilities that exist in 2024. And I have had some successes in converting some of them. All of those successes (I would say I've flipped about 6 or 7 of them in 10 years or so) came as a result of earning their trust and gently showing them that there is safety in the world of freedom. I can say a lot more about it another time, and probably will. But it is possible to stay in friendships with them, if you maintain boundaries and don't lose your sense of self.
Thank you for this! I too found that a lot changed in 2020, in ways I'm still trying to fully grasp. And I'm very happy to hear of your success in helping others break free.
I noticed you went to school for a bit in Mississippi. I've lived here my entire life, and I only know the black people like the grandma's you mention. That's one of the things that drives me crazy about these anti-racist white people. They don't seem to be truly acquainted with most black people. They have adopted caricatures of black people in their minds and then found some groups that are willing to let them be subservient to their interests. It's sickening, really.
Southern Black matriarchs are the bad asses of all bad asses. One of my favorite clients is in that category - smart, strong and independent. She doesn't put up with nonsense or laziness.
Why go along with woke religion? Go along to get along. Questioning is dangerous as you can lose your livelihood and your friends. Housing in many cities is so pricey one feels in constant danger of becoming homeless. Fight for what’s right? Why?
Holly, you've just stumbled upon THE failure mode of human cognition.
To explain:
Paradoxical belief systems taps the same circuits as orchestral music. The human mind searches for deep structures in the world, and we thrive on order that exhibits an alternating rhythm of self-similarity and contradiction.
Paradox in an ordered system arrests our attention and demands resolution. When this happens, resolving the paradox creates immense pleasure and the experience of meaning—but so does the deepening of the paradox.
Kafka traps are situations and ideas that take the same sense that lets us find deep beauty in a forest and spot well-camouflaged game and weaponize that facility against us.
This is why priests always use this trick to arrest attention (as do fiction authors, of which I am one). This is the trick that early Enlightenment thinkers (many of whom were members of occultic societies like the Freemasons) quite astutely called "Priestcraft"—a term which likens this trick, unflatteringly, to witchcraft.
What a great analysis on the anti-racist activist. Your description parallels the behaviour of a textbook diagnosed narcissist. I've said in the past that racism is narcissism and this form of anti-racist activism is no different.
I was a participant in a cultural safety workshop led by an Aboriginal ex-teacher who spoke in depth about anti-racism a few days ago. I occasionally work with practitioners who are Indigenous and who work with Indigenous families and children in healthcare contexts, so this type of training is a requirement. I have to say that I loved it because of the educator's stance. His version of antiracism doesn't push the Kendi agenda or the bureacratized DEI agenda, doesn't promote discrimination against non-Indigenous people, promotes reciprocity and hiring qualified people for jobs. He was honest, unbridled, stated many uncomfortable truths with realistic, solution-oriented practices that did not involve self-flagellation. I came out of the 7 hr workshop feeling positive and optimistic - not drained and self-hating. To my understanding, this is rare.
I associate the fetish for punishment and shaming performed by the anti-racist activists you've described with extreme forms of religious observance. Appointing themselves the priests and judges of morality absolves them of having to reflect on their own conduct. It also makes me think there's a large daddy/god authority-sized hole in society that this group has stepped in to fill, which is ironic given they also think they're smashing the patriarchy. The traditional father role is to provide the limits and boundaries, and discipline when they've been violated. Some children yearn for their father's attention and cause trouble to get disciplined. This flavour of anti-racist activist are the daddy disciplinarians who invented rules and limits to discipline their badly behaved "racist" children, enslaved by a new Master who knows nothing about justice. Patriarchy wins again.
Your experience is really interesting. I wonder if a non-American context has something to do with the possibility that these things can turn out valuable? (Without the history of race-based chattel slavery and a civil war, I mean.) I work for a Fortune 500 company that has employees all over the world, so teams are often mixed with regard to nationality and the DEI stuff gets widely varying reception. I have to get one DEI credit a month and there's some kind of DEI activity available almost every day. I tend to choose the esoteric American bullshit (like the one concerned with how to keep our company from having a glass ceiling for genderfluid people) because the race stuff just makes me angry. I grew up in a majority black neighborhood among black people who saw themselves as fully functioning moral agents who were capable of succeeding on their own merits.
The really savage irony is that by working with people from all over the world, I have come to understand so many ways that a DEI program could be helpful. I had to learn through trial and error that when a male colleague from a more traditional culture who wouldn't answer my questions directly, it was the exact opposite of disrespect--in his culture, to say "yes" or "no" to a woman is disrespectful, so he avoided answering my questions that way to be respectful. Likewise, there are women on my team from Southeast Asia who desperately need to understand that if you say something is a brilliant idea, you're implying your support of it as an initiative to go forward with -- you're commenting on the IDEA, not the person who generated the idea. I've had to learn through trial and error there too. A woman from that part of the world saying "This idea is wonderful" *only* means, "I like and respect the person who suggested the idea." Some kind of program in cross-cultural communication problems would be GLORIOUS and really helpful.
But we can't have that because we have to have Pansexual Pride Day.
Your idea re: wokeless DEI program is a good one. I remember doing some training to work with what is called CALD (culturally and linguistically diverse) families and cross-cultural communication. This was back in 2012 when things were a little different.
Putting aside the power of your critique of the corrupt racket that is “anti-racism”, what I most appreciate are the nuggets of wisdom in your writing. They often give me pause, in the best way. “It is an especially brutal form of child abuse to teach kids that they cannot meet their own needs.” Boom. As a still relatively new parent you’re teaching me key lessons. Since you’re not a parent yourself (I believe) this also shows once more that one doesn’t need to have experienced the thing to have deep insight and valuable advice about it. Like I said: wisdom.
I agree with you 100%. Who is the real oppressor? Unreal. Well said. It's a cult complete with rituals. Very sad indeed.
From the outside looking in, it is pitiable. From the inside, I suspect that most white wokes receive affirmation and validation not from "marginalized" folks but from other white wokes. Its a cult of penitents, celebrating in the glory of their self flagellation.
Correct. This bullshit got accelerated on Tumblr. I watched it happen in real life. Listing one's various "privileges" and "oppressions" on one's profile became normalized there and that leaked into real life. Tumblr was in its heyday from 2011-2015 and that cohort, that was in college starting 2016-2018 range, began teaching Tumblr shit as reality. I was taught "demisexual" and other things I learned on Tumblr, in college. Not as concepts that started on a website populated by teenagers--as scientific fact.
Mr Kafka would like to point out that his fiction was also meant as a warning not an instruction manual. What I don't understand is why people seem to voluntarily embrace this stuff, but I guess they get encouragement from their fellow cultists for trying hard and they get to look down on the rest of us for being so uncouth and stupid that we don't realize how racist everything is
I remember when I was still active back in early 2016 there was a “White Trash Bash” at my unit. It was a bunch of Marines (of all skin colors) getting together, flying Confederate flags, and drinking a lot of beer.
It makes me sad that a bunch of academics with shitty ideas have made that sort of thing impossible now.
My daughter (now 20) was indoctrinated into these ideas in high school. I challenged her once by asking her if her (expensive) club soccer black friend whose parents went to elite colleges, make lots of money and live in a wealthy suburb in Indianapolis was less privileged than her poor white relatives in rural Kentucky. Asking made her angry.
In one of my mandatory diversity classes in college, I brought up Barack Obama's daughters vs white teenagers in foster care in West Virginia. I was informed that asking that question demonstrated a "white supremacist viewpoint." LMAO.
Your point about the abusive aspect of this is especially important. That the anti-racists are indifferent to the debilitating effects on children, of teaching them to continually curry resentment, is instructive about what the anti-racists are really up to. I had some adjacent thoughts a few years ago.
https://keithlowery.substack.com/p/self-absorption-as-a-virtue
My therapist and I had a really good conversation about this once. I don't know a lot about his childhood, of course--proper boundaries, etc.--but I know he regards himself as having had an extremely fortunate childhood, and he said once that as far as he could tell, the task where the vast majority of parents fail most egregiously is that they love their kids the wrong way. I asked him what he meant. He said that the highest form of love is love that's far more concerned with the other person's freedom than anything else, and too many parents fail to prepare their children to bear the responsibilities of freedom. I think about that a lot.
Jordan Peterson says that a parent who is concerned about his child's safety should work to instill competence. I think he's intuiting something similar to your point about bearing the responsibilities of freedom.
YES!! I totally agree with him on that. I was a full-time nanny for a year and I was very big on this. My charge and I would practice situational awareness (in a fun way, not a scary way) and she gained so much confidence. You could ask her, "What do you do in the store if you and Holly get separated?" and she would tell you, without missing a beat, "Look for a policelady or a policeman. Or a mommy with children. Or a grown-up lady all by herself. Or a big girl who's big enough to drive a car. Go up and say, 'Excuse me, I can't find my nanny and I need you to help me find her please'." Boom. No fear, immediate action plan for how to *keep herself* safe.
My homeschooled sister and I often wonder what our parents “end game” was…they definitely weren’t teaching us tools and skills we needed for adulthood out in the world.
I’ve always told my daughter that my job as her mom is to teach her the tools and skills she needs to be successful as an adult. She gets to decide what success is for herself but it’s my job to make sure she’s ready to be independent. I think/hope I’ve raised her to bear the responsibilities of freedom.
“Volunteering to fully locate their locus of control outside themselves is volunteering for a life of misery, frustration, and regret.” I’m still working hard to get out of this trap for myself. Body Keeps the Score is helping. Therapy is helping. Your words help too, Holly!
Thank you for reading! And I get it. I've made a lot of progress in that regard, but one of the reasons why I keep returning to it is to help myself. I am the choir to whom I am preaching, LOL.
I've listened to a few white celebrities the last week, and I noticed how much they like to boast about understanding their privilege now - how much they learned from the black people in their lives. They all used different words, but that was the general impression I got. I feel like they felt like complete pieces of shit because some black person said they were being racist in the past.
I know one of the stories and he wasn't being racist at all. So it's was sad to hear the happiness in him to finally understand how "wrong" he was.
There are certain places (echo chambers) where the white people hear this and feel they can't escape and they probably don't want to escape (like Hollywood), and so they feel as if they have to change to fit in. But they're never going to fit in, just by accepting how "evil" they were.
It's a fool's errand, and I guess I feel rather sad for people living such a life. It's weird to feel pity for the people of Hollywood.
Hey Holly,
What a thorough exposition you made here!
You ask about experiences... Hm... that's a lot to unpack. I'm publishing a small piece on my Substack this weekend that shares some of my experience in relation to this--one day of a whole life.
But what strikes me about everything you've written here is how this mindset inhibits intimacy.
As humans hard-wired for connection, I've experienced moments of intimacy (connection) with all kinds of people--a breakdown of barriers that keep us separate.
It's difficult for me to articulate what I am thinking about here, so please bear with me....
Perhaps what I'm trying to say is that it appears that these types of mindsets that you write about introduce artificial barriers to connection. That's what I experience. There are so many ways we humans are alike. So many deeply shared experiences no matter what our journey is. And yes, if our experiences focus only on the experiences that separate us, we will lose so many opportunities for genuine (sometimes lasting) connection and shared intimacy or experiences.
Hmmm... I'm going to keep reflecting on your question and see if I can articulate it more deeply.
Awesome, I look forward to reading it! Thanks.
"Introduce artificial barriers to connection" - yes, that's it! You and Holly are verbal ninjas 🥷
I classified as an Affirmative Action student at UC Berkeley in the late 1980s—I am white but came from a poverty stricken, blue-collar, unstable, and dysfunctional environment in Southern California. I pretty much raised myself (last of 5 children to a violent alcoholic father & depressed, abused mother). I took advantage of a little-used qualification in the program’s fine print to receive more college funds to improve my life with a college education, being blessed (as I see it now) with street smarts as well as intellectual smarts. Once at college, I witnessed the large amounts of money thrown at other students simply because they were black or Hispanic, yet the majority that I encountered over those 5 years (yes, it took me longer because I had to work part-time to support myself) were from households with a surgeon for a father or parents who were business executives, etc. Only two “students of color” out of hundreds I encountered came from impoverished, blue-collar backgrounds like myself.
I realize my experience is strictly anecdotal, but I think the emergence of “anti-racist” rhetoric is dangerous to a cohesive society. Opportunity is mostly limited due to socioeconomics, but personal drive to better oneself is something I learned from good teachers in K-12. Intellectual curiosity saved me, in a sense, and good teachers encouraged my pursuits as viable rather than unattainable. Once any education system cowtows to the baying mob, we lose a generation or two of students to whatever revisionist or oppressive ideology they push, and the idea that you can take responsibility to improve your station in life gets replaced by the victimhood narrative. I fear this is where we are now.
I know exactly what you mean. I had a group project once with a black classmate. Both her parents were professionals -- a lawyer and an oncologist or some such. I can read upside down, and I saw a text from "Dad" pop up on her screen telling her how much he loved her during one of our work sessions. She was fond of lecturing me about my white privilege. After one of our sessions, she left to go out with friends and I left to go tutor someone in calculus and take the $20 and immediately buy food because I hadn't eaten in like a day. It was so surreal, and knowing that our government is basing important things on false assumptions rooted in "anti-racism" is just horrifying.
It truly is horrifying, and morally abusive. Reminds me of the eugenics movement at the turn of last century that took root for several decades.
I recall basically starving those first two years at college, until I found a better paying, stable part-time job. I completely relate to your own story!
I was raised Calvinist and that's what all this reminds me of. No, I haven't run into any of this in real life (yet) except smidgens from some very privileged white people. All the black people I talk to just act like sane, intelligent humans.
Agreed. Once I graduated college, it's only the occasional speaker at a diversity seminar at work who I run into this shit from, aside from at a distance (like the way it's making its inroads into government at the speed of light).
My experience? I am an expert in woke. I have a Ph.D. in urban leftism. Grew up in blue collar areas in and around NYC with lots of Italian, Irish and Greek immigrants (my mother was the only one of her generation born in the US). Attended very fancy pants college and was thrust into the world of woke (before it was called woke). Sure, I saw bits of it when I visited the more upscale parts of the city. But I became fully immersed in college. Chose a profession that is at the forefront of wokeness and then switched into another profession that is even more woke, lol. Stayed in NYC for a while then moved to urban NJ and commuted to NYC. Got married and had babies. Moved to a really woke neighborhood and then an even more woke one. I was completely surrounded by them and their ideology. I lived among the craziest of the crazies. But we loved NYC, so we stayed put for a long while.
All of it disgusted me from the start but I was always very clear on my thoughts and feelings about their wokeness, so didn't feel threatened. And besides, I don't mind - and even enjoy - confrontation and fighting, so it didn't bother me to be in constant battle with the wokesters over the years.
I was able to make and keep acquaintances and friends. Sure, plenty of them hated my politics (not that I talked about mine much - I simply didn't applaud when the emperor spoke, so they understood that I was not like them). And many of them ostracized me and my family. But I didn't care because there are a lot of people in that area. The numbers were on my side, for a while at least - there were always new people to find. (All of that changed dramatically with the lockdowns of 2020 and, hence, why my screen name is what it is.)
I take two general approaches with wokesters: I either fight them to the death and give them verbal beatdowns when they get in my face or I play the long game with them, if I think there is any glimmer of hope for them to see the light. As you have observed, they really are a sad and pitiful bunch. When I am in the right space, I actually can have a lot of compassion and empathy for them. They are tethered to an ideology that keeps them rooted in misery and helplessness. I want to free them and share with them the possibilities that exist in 2024. And I have had some successes in converting some of them. All of those successes (I would say I've flipped about 6 or 7 of them in 10 years or so) came as a result of earning their trust and gently showing them that there is safety in the world of freedom. I can say a lot more about it another time, and probably will. But it is possible to stay in friendships with them, if you maintain boundaries and don't lose your sense of self.
Thank you for this! I too found that a lot changed in 2020, in ways I'm still trying to fully grasp. And I'm very happy to hear of your success in helping others break free.
My success rate is not very high, lol. But it's also not zero! I try to do what I can.
I noticed you went to school for a bit in Mississippi. I've lived here my entire life, and I only know the black people like the grandma's you mention. That's one of the things that drives me crazy about these anti-racist white people. They don't seem to be truly acquainted with most black people. They have adopted caricatures of black people in their minds and then found some groups that are willing to let them be subservient to their interests. It's sickening, really.
Southern Black matriarchs are the bad asses of all bad asses. One of my favorite clients is in that category - smart, strong and independent. She doesn't put up with nonsense or laziness.
They really are the best of the best. And, if they say it, you better count on it.
Why go along with woke religion? Go along to get along. Questioning is dangerous as you can lose your livelihood and your friends. Housing in many cities is so pricey one feels in constant danger of becoming homeless. Fight for what’s right? Why?
Holly, you've just stumbled upon THE failure mode of human cognition.
To explain:
Paradoxical belief systems taps the same circuits as orchestral music. The human mind searches for deep structures in the world, and we thrive on order that exhibits an alternating rhythm of self-similarity and contradiction.
Paradox in an ordered system arrests our attention and demands resolution. When this happens, resolving the paradox creates immense pleasure and the experience of meaning—but so does the deepening of the paradox.
Kafka traps are situations and ideas that take the same sense that lets us find deep beauty in a forest and spot well-camouflaged game and weaponize that facility against us.
This is why priests always use this trick to arrest attention (as do fiction authors, of which I am one). This is the trick that early Enlightenment thinkers (many of whom were members of occultic societies like the Freemasons) quite astutely called "Priestcraft"—a term which likens this trick, unflatteringly, to witchcraft.
What a great analysis on the anti-racist activist. Your description parallels the behaviour of a textbook diagnosed narcissist. I've said in the past that racism is narcissism and this form of anti-racist activism is no different.
I was a participant in a cultural safety workshop led by an Aboriginal ex-teacher who spoke in depth about anti-racism a few days ago. I occasionally work with practitioners who are Indigenous and who work with Indigenous families and children in healthcare contexts, so this type of training is a requirement. I have to say that I loved it because of the educator's stance. His version of antiracism doesn't push the Kendi agenda or the bureacratized DEI agenda, doesn't promote discrimination against non-Indigenous people, promotes reciprocity and hiring qualified people for jobs. He was honest, unbridled, stated many uncomfortable truths with realistic, solution-oriented practices that did not involve self-flagellation. I came out of the 7 hr workshop feeling positive and optimistic - not drained and self-hating. To my understanding, this is rare.
I associate the fetish for punishment and shaming performed by the anti-racist activists you've described with extreme forms of religious observance. Appointing themselves the priests and judges of morality absolves them of having to reflect on their own conduct. It also makes me think there's a large daddy/god authority-sized hole in society that this group has stepped in to fill, which is ironic given they also think they're smashing the patriarchy. The traditional father role is to provide the limits and boundaries, and discipline when they've been violated. Some children yearn for their father's attention and cause trouble to get disciplined. This flavour of anti-racist activist are the daddy disciplinarians who invented rules and limits to discipline their badly behaved "racist" children, enslaved by a new Master who knows nothing about justice. Patriarchy wins again.
Your experience is really interesting. I wonder if a non-American context has something to do with the possibility that these things can turn out valuable? (Without the history of race-based chattel slavery and a civil war, I mean.) I work for a Fortune 500 company that has employees all over the world, so teams are often mixed with regard to nationality and the DEI stuff gets widely varying reception. I have to get one DEI credit a month and there's some kind of DEI activity available almost every day. I tend to choose the esoteric American bullshit (like the one concerned with how to keep our company from having a glass ceiling for genderfluid people) because the race stuff just makes me angry. I grew up in a majority black neighborhood among black people who saw themselves as fully functioning moral agents who were capable of succeeding on their own merits.
The really savage irony is that by working with people from all over the world, I have come to understand so many ways that a DEI program could be helpful. I had to learn through trial and error that when a male colleague from a more traditional culture who wouldn't answer my questions directly, it was the exact opposite of disrespect--in his culture, to say "yes" or "no" to a woman is disrespectful, so he avoided answering my questions that way to be respectful. Likewise, there are women on my team from Southeast Asia who desperately need to understand that if you say something is a brilliant idea, you're implying your support of it as an initiative to go forward with -- you're commenting on the IDEA, not the person who generated the idea. I've had to learn through trial and error there too. A woman from that part of the world saying "This idea is wonderful" *only* means, "I like and respect the person who suggested the idea." Some kind of program in cross-cultural communication problems would be GLORIOUS and really helpful.
But we can't have that because we have to have Pansexual Pride Day.
Your idea re: wokeless DEI program is a good one. I remember doing some training to work with what is called CALD (culturally and linguistically diverse) families and cross-cultural communication. This was back in 2012 when things were a little different.
Putting aside the power of your critique of the corrupt racket that is “anti-racism”, what I most appreciate are the nuggets of wisdom in your writing. They often give me pause, in the best way. “It is an especially brutal form of child abuse to teach kids that they cannot meet their own needs.” Boom. As a still relatively new parent you’re teaching me key lessons. Since you’re not a parent yourself (I believe) this also shows once more that one doesn’t need to have experienced the thing to have deep insight and valuable advice about it. Like I said: wisdom.