Two cheers for this philippic against the contemporary phenomenon of woke (a word I despise, if that matters). The author posits that the practitioners of the ideology constitute a religion in a long, perhaps somewhat labored, section, and he believes that their irrationality and attendant vendetta against all who do not join with them whole-throatedly constitute an assault upon reason and civility. All true, and I agree with the main thrust of his book, but I do have reservations to my enthusiasm. He begins by citing examples of three ruined careers of individuals who ran afoul of what he refers to as The Elect; none of them should have lost their jobs, but one of them was soapboxing the cryptoracist formulation of All Lives Matter, which was quickly adopted as a slogan by the alt-right to express their contempt for Black Lives Matter. Now, I hold no brief for Black Lives Matter, and perhaps some early adopters were innocents, but that slogan quickly became just another dog whistle. The Elect, he posits, have three foundational documents for their faith and I have read only one, but the excerpts he quotes seem to me to be pretty astute analyses of the rise of the Trumpista phenomenon, and if the author really thinks that wokiness constitutes one-tenth of the threat to America that Trump does, he needs to pay attention to his news feed; he does, toward the end of the book, issue a four-paragraph refutation of me here, which I found annoyingly facile, and soured me more than a trifle on the rest of the book. As for his three-part panacea for the problem, they range from the trivial (teaching reading by phonics) to the mostly already done (legalizing narcotics). McWhorter is an able and interesting writer, and I agree with most of his argument, but the book does have a faint odor of too much Q.E.D. for mine, and I found myself wondering if he would be any happier with ninety per cent agreement with his arguments than his rhetorical adversaries seem to be with partial acceptance of their own. ( )

This controversial topic might be too much for a writer and thinker less able than McWhorter, but he takes on the challenge and does a good job. His prose is lucid and interesting, and he lays out the problems with "wokeness" from the standpoint of a person of color being told by whites how he should feel about things. He would be entitled to get angry, but there is no sign of anger or vengeance; it is a logically constructed, well written book without being a screed or a manifesto. I was surprised to discover how skeptical he is of CRT; he feels it is part of the problem, not part of the solution. He traces the history of racism with a historical eye, not a polemical one, and details the progress that has been made. He also discusses what progress would be enough to satisfy the woke. In his final chapters, he discusses what he sees as the way to approaching the racism problem, and also lines out things that should not be done. Recommended for anyone who is confused by this issue. ( )

Don't be triggered by the title—it's meant to be provocative—because this book, the latest by the brilliant John McWhorter, is one of the most elegantly worded arguments I've ever read. If McWhorter were to argue that I should eat more vegetables, even write a whole book on it, I might just be convinced.

The real issue at the core of Woke Racism is more serious, that there's a dangerous level of group think and 1984-like attempt to control information surrounding the issue of racial identify, specifically black vs white identity, in many of today's institutions. However, I would stress that it appears to be mostly confined to the institutions where Sayre's law is in effect. Sayre's law says, "The politics of the university are so intense because the stakes are so low." This could be academia, publishing, or even online discourse (Twitter). To someone like McWhorter this would effectively be his whole world so of course it would be all-encompassing and necessitate a response. ( )

'religion of anti-racism' Hard to read ( )

McWhorter focus is the extreme and illiberal view of what's racist that seems to have taken over in many American academic institutions. Powered by social media. this has done many people much harm, and -- more important -- truly seems to be effectively limiting freedom of thought. This is a worthy target, and McWhorter makes a reasonably compelling case.

But in my view this is not the major intellectual threat that America faces at present. The far right is just dismissive of reason as is the illiberal left, and is far more powerful. McWhorter asks which institutions have been taken over by those who participated in the events of January 6, 2021 and answers "none", but that's not the right question. The right question is which institutions have been taken over by the illiberal right, and I would cite the Senate, the Supreme Court, and vast swathes of state and local government. The threat from the illiberal left is serious, particularly long run, but in my view it pales next to the threat from the illiberal right. ( )