After Smollett, the wokelash
Jussie Smollett's conviction for staging a hate crime against himself is a blow not just to his reputation, but the credibility of the woke narrative he tried to exploit. By Nick Cater.
That a gay, black actor had been lynched by racist, homophobic Trump supporters was too good to be false for some.
“What happened today to @JussieSmollett must never be tolerated in this country,” Joe Biden tweeted. “We must stand up and demand that we no longer give this hate safe harbor; that homophobia and racism have no place on our streets or in our hearts. We are with you, Jussie.”
His running mate, Kamala Harris, responded in similar vein. “@JussieSmollett is one of the kindest, most gentle human beings I know. I’m praying for his quick recovery. This was an attempted modern day lynching. No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or color of their skin. We must confront this hate.’’
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People claimed: “The rise in hate crimes is directly linked to president Donald J. Trump’s racist and xenophobic rhetoric.”
On Friday, Smollett was found guilty of staging a hate crime against himself. It is a blow not just to his own credibility, but the credibility of the woke narrative he tried to exploit in search of greater recognition as an LGBTI actor of colour.
It messes with the woke assumption that history is a contest between evil people and good people. Smollett, who paid two Nigerian immigrants to stage a white supremacist attack, emerges as both victim and oppressor, the embodiment of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s claim that “the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart”.
The Smollett case may not yet stop the spread of wokeism, the pernicious, polarising, postmodern virus that leaked from our universities and is now out of control. However, there is evidence of growing resistance to its incessant demands across the political and cultural spectrum. The seething popular resentment to its ever-changing rules and transparent absurdities is giving mainstream politicians the courage to say enough is enough.
In October, the EU’s Commissioner for Equality, Helena Dalli, released a set of guidelines on the kind of language that should and should not be used in a multicultural Europe. There were the usual nutty warnings against the use of words like “chairman” or “ladies and gentlemen”.
People should neither be described as “married” or “single” since to do so makes cohabiting people “invisible”. The word “citizen” is forbidden since it excludes stateless people and immigrants. We must be sensitive to the negative connotations of words like “colonisation” or “settlement”. Rather than talking about the “colonisation of Mars”, for example, we should instead speak of “sending people to Mars”.
This foolish document might have sunk without trace had it not been for its attempt to erase Christianity. It listed “Christmas time can be stressful” under the heading of phrases to avoid. Under “do this instead”, it suggested “holiday times can be stressful”.
The use of the term “Christian name” was banned in favour of “first name”, “forename” or “given name”. We must avoid “names that are typically from one religion” in examples and anecdotes. For example, instead of saying “Maria and John are an international couple” we should refer to “Malika and Julio”.
When the Italian newspaper Il Giornale published the news that the EU was banning Christmas late last month, the backlash began. The Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, was among the first to dissent, suggesting the document was going “against reality” by downplaying Europe’s Christian roots. French President Emmanuel Macron condemned it as “woke nonsense”, saying ”a Europe that comes to explain to people what words they should or shouldn’t say is not a Europe to which I totally adhere”. Former Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi described the document as “absurd and wrong”, saying “cultural identity is a value, not a threat”.
The document has since been withdrawn by the EU with the excuse that it needs more work. The criticism has been enjoined by politicians on the left including Sophie in ’t Veld, a liberal Dutch MEP, who said the clumsy nature of the document had opened the way for a concerted misinformation campaign by the far right.
Her comments reflect the intellectual left’s fear that they are in danger of losing this particular battle in the culture war. The reaction to the Smollett case in the US shows a similar nervousness. CNN commentator Oliver Darcy lamented that Smollett’s conviction had given right-wing commentators the ammunition to attack the credibility of the mainstream news media. Last month, Democratic strategist James Carville blamed the loss of the governorship of Virginia to Republican Glenn Youngkin on “this stupid wokeness”. He told National Public Radio: “Some of these people need to go to a woke detox centre or something. They’re expressing language that people just don’t use.”
In The New York Times last month, Charles M. Blow wrote what amounted to a eulogy for “woke”, a word he said had started life as a simple yet powerful way of alerting people to the systemic racism that pervades the US. Today, he wrote, the word is “almost exclusively used by those who seek to deride it, those who chafe at the activism from which it sprang”. It was time to abandon it, he concluded. Reports of the death of wokeness, however, are almost certainly greatly exaggerated. Not everyone on the progressive left understands, as Carville does, the extent of the popular discontent toward the policing of language. Many, like Blow, prefer to blame the sinister manipulators on the far right, pointing to the power of their propaganda.
Much of the woke corporate world remains blissfully out of touch with popular sentiment. Much-loved brand names, including Coon cheese and Red Skins, have been sacrificed on the altar of inclusiveness. Mr Potato Head, a popular children’s toy of 72 years’ standing, has been stripped of his toxic masculinity and rebranded simply as Potato Head.
Polling suggests the rebranding exercises are not about pleasing customers. Earlier this year, Compass Polling asked Australians if they agreed “too much of our Australian way of life is being sacrificed to political correctness”. Three out of four Australians agree (77 per cent), including an overwhelming majority of Coalition voters (87 per cent) and Labor voters (70 per cent). The Greens were divided: 48 per cent agreeing, 52 per cent disagreeing.
The message for our parliaments, newsrooms and boardrooms is clear: never mistake the cacophony on Twitter for the voices of real people.