The March of Wokeism, Trevor Phillips in The Times

makes me uneasy because while as a white person I don't experience racism in any meaningful way, as a woman I do experience sexism and it IS hard-baked into society. That does not mean it can't be challenged and eventually defeated, but it's not a trivial thing to achieve and it does demand society changes.

You might look at some of the things that John McWhorter has said or written about this. He doesn't dismiss racism, but he is pretty clear that he thinks that even in the US, the idea that it is a society pervaded by racism is overblown. And Adolph Reed, on the left, (McWhorter is a classical liberal) says something similar.

*it's popular among white middle class kids because it is just a power grab by the middle classes threatened by the expansion of higher education. The main reason working class kids drop out of uni is social exclusion so if you set up the culture to be based around complex, ever changing beliefs which often go directly against clearly observable reality then you are going to exclude those with more varied points of view, experiences or who simply haven't been trained in politeness and telling PC white lies from childhood.

I'm afraid I agree with this completely.*

Reed is also interesting on this in terms of the black leaders of the identity politics crowd who are the supposed leaders in the community - he says that they represent the middle managerial class of black Americans who emerged after the civil rights movement and moved into the civil service, politics, policing, and notably, advocacy. Their interests, according to Reed, very quickly had more in common with the white middle classes, and they were advantaged by being able to speak on behalf of their communities on policy issues, and indeed by the creation of a whole career arc based on advocacy.

How power is being used can be useful to note, as Phillips has done here in relation to the people he is describing as being performative but not effective.

But we can't decide what is right and true based simply on listening to the most oppressed, however we define that. That's an error that can lead to some serious mistakes, and creates all kinds of unhealthy power dynamics in itself.

I think this may be part of the reason that TRAs are always trying to attach themselves to other causes - feminism, or gay rights, but especially, race issues. The civil rights movements stands as something that mainstream westerners see as having been just and positive and also very strategically successful. And while it was not really fought on the basis of identity politics, CRT advocates have been remarkably effective in claiming it was, and that opposition to CRT is racist.

I'm always intensely conscious that all our freedoms are illusionary.

Which is why Woke utterly terrifies me, being a regression to ancient patterns, ripping up the enlightenment and liberal principles we rely on for freedom.

I'd say that female freedom is a test for your society's moral framework. If the end result of your "civilisation" does not give women rights, then it's not a true civilisation.

Lots of current stuff is part of the same thing - taking our current position (of society as a whole, or women) for granted, and thinking that you can just tear it all up and somehow it stands up without the foundations... No recognition of what it took to get here, and where else we could end up :(

Yes, definitely agree that female freedom as a right, like all rights is dependent on civilisation. I guess I was thinking from the side, in that within a civilisation the males can still decide unilaterally that females don't have rights and force that upon us. In essence we rely on the goodwill of our structural oppressors not to oppress. And what I'm struggling with right now is does that mean there is always going to be an element of "egg-walking" to female freedom, and whether that can ever be more than illusionary freedom.

Sadly, plenty of real-world examples of societies where women have protection but only as property, or civilisation without rights.

This isn't a goady question. I have a depressing feeling that the answer is yes, but I've never seen it articulated so baldly.

I think the answer is yes, but it's part of a wider concept. Civilisation as a whole requires the forbearance of a critical mass of all people.

It doesn't take much for there to be looting in the streets, etc.

If civilisation breaks down sufficiently, then women will be particularly hit as part of that. All people will be vulnerable to assault, robbery, murder, and some people will be weaker and more vulnerable than others, but women as a class have some particular extra dangers.

It's hard to imagine a civilisation breakdown that somehow spares women from those extra dangers - murder and robbery but no rape. A sort of "gentlemanly" breakdown with agreement "but don't mess with the women"? At best you might get that a sort of women-as-property position...

@NecessaryScene1

Please forgive me @ ing you, but I was thinking some more about this:

But the sexual dimorphism of our species means that women, by virtue of lesser strength, greater sexual vulnerability, and their role in procreation, will always be structurally oppressed. It requires civilisation (law and order), technology (birth control, abortions) and cultural will to maintain their rights as equal people. Women's physical relationship to men can never become historical, barring some sci-fi transhumanism fantasy. It is always in danger of becoming relevant again, if civilisation or access to technology is lost.

Does this mean that females can only ever be free of male oppression by the forbearance of a critical mass of males? In other words, it's not something we can ever do or maintain for ourselves?

This isn't a goady question. I have a depressing feeling that the answer is yes, but I've never seen it articulated so baldly.

(Actually that's not true, I have seen it articulated baldly but only ever as an antiargument to Femisim)

I think "race blindness" is a realistic goal for society and law. Skin colour could be as insignificant as hair colour.

I do not think "sex blindness" is a realistic goal for society and law. Sex cannot be as insignificant as hair colour.

I completely agree with this. One of the problems with CRT is its insistence on 'racialising' every situation. As a pp here said, they want to 'do the work' of uncovering their racism. I have to wonder what is good or useful about that? Yes, definitely it's good to realise if you are being racist in your words or behaviour. But I don't think this forensic microscope on every possible thought or interaction to detect its inherent racism is healthy at all. Most people don't want to be made conscious of their skin colour in every interaction in life, or to feel the people around them are highly conscious of their skin colour. When it's relevant and significant then it should be addressed - but most of the time it isn't, and shouldn't be. Trying to make people feel MORE conscious of the superficial differences between us seems to be to be very divisive.

I agree it's very interesting how the woke have got race and sex the wrong way around!

I agree with all that. But while it may be possible to eradicate racism entirely while sexism is only ever held at bay, within a culture, at a point in time, effective tactics to challenge and eradicate racism and effective tactics to challenge and hold at bay sexism have enough in common to make the comparison valid.

I think so, there's a lot of overlap but only at a current point for current tactics, and some general aspects of discrimination law. Where it breaks down, I think, is what the end goal should be.

I think "race blindness" is a realistic goal for society and law. Skin colour could be as insignificant as hair colour.

I do not think "sex blindness" is a realistic goal for society and law. Sex cannot be as insignificant as hair colour.

It's interesting that the Woke take the contrary position on both. Does the totalitarianism come as a consequence of taking a position against nature, or is the position against nature part of just being totalitarian? (You assert 2+2=5 to demonstrate your power over those who agree).

@BolloxtoGender hmmm.. you sure about that? (Critical Sex Theorists)

No, so I went back and inserted the word "significant" to try to give myself some leeway before posting.

I bloody love Trevor Phillips.

I wonder if the cognitive dissonance the humanists suffer from is finally being addressed?

(And in real life obviously, but it seems to start on SM. And crap diversity training.)

Wow thank you so much for this.

A glance at the thread has some excellent analysis that I need to catch up on.

This particularly stood out. I find these tests on social media among left types.

It is two centuries since this country abolished the Test Acts under which people were required to make a pledge of religious observance to qualify for public office or the civil service. But once again employees are being required to sign up to statements of belief or face denunciation, demotion and dismissal.

Thanks @BolloxtoGender, you said it in less words than I did lol
I ramble too much.

'(Mind you, I'm thankful there's no significant movement of Critical Sex Theorists going around saying things like "we reject logic and reason as Male colonialist concepts").'

@NecessaryScene1...hmmm.. you sure about that?

@NonnyMouse1337 Couldn't agree more.

'I think the authors say some useful things but they come down too much on the side of underplaying racism.'

I'm cognisant that it is written as an antidote to the toxic and divisive narratives which are epitomised by the high priestess of Robin DiAngelo. There does need to be a reasonable balance between recognising and acting against racism and making everything about race, and I find the talk of White privilege, black people, white supremacy, victims vs oppressors etc etc pretty intellectually corrupt. The irony is there are many people who are projecting their own racism onto others, and making a lot of money off the back of this (and the liberal elite's guilt/superiority complexes), selling books, talks, whole departments in academia while the rest of society pays.

OK I have to ask: Who are the "advocates of critical race theory" saying things like this, and how do they demonstrate their "hatred" of black and brown people being successful? Cos I move in pretty woke circles, and I haven't seen it.

CRT developed out of academia. There are plenty of academics who have made a life long career out of pushing these ideas, not just within universities, but also outside of it. I view them as the clergy class within the CRT ideology.
There are also people who have published books on this, get lots of airtime on news networks and column spaces in papers and are rarely challenged on their statements because people are fearful of being labelled a racist.
"Diversity" training programmes pop up all over the place to peddle these myths and ideas.

That's what I generally mean by advocates of Critical Race Theory. There is a lot of denouncing of 'cis white heteronormative patriarchal' capitalism, and yet there is plenty of time and effort invested in making money from those white people who relish being made to feel irredeemably guilty.

Various US universities require lower test scores for admission of black students compared to say, white or asian students. This is awful and truly racist under the guise of appearing progressive. The underlying message is that black people are somehow inherently inferior and incapable of being on the same level of intelligence and unable to pass exams like everyone else.

CRT pushes the notion that white people are always the oppressor and people who are not white are always the oppressed. CRT must also never be questioned. It's part of the dogma - you are a racist and if you disagree or question this, it is also a sign of racism. How convenient.

People who believe in CRT (even though they may not term it like that) do seem confused by minorities like Chinese, Indians, Jews etc who, on average, seem to do very well under this evil, white systemic racism. They outperform whites in school and university, and can go on to outearn them as well. Not only that, recent immigrants from Africa also seem to do well. CRT cannot explain this with its simplistic dogma because it insists that all disparities between groups is because of systemic racism. People from these groups who disagree with CRT are labelled all sorts of disparaging labels - being racist themselves, boot licker, white adjacent and worse.

I can't recall the exact video / podcast, but I remember hearing John McWhorter tell of how he was quietly not invited to certain professional events even though his work was relevant because he openly disagreed with CRT.
Here is one such article of his... I can see why they dislike him as he is scathing.
www.thedailybeast.com/antiracism-our-flawed-new-religion

Now that I think of it, when left/liberal media publish lists of black people as a way of celebrating their achievements, do they ever include black conservatives they might strongly disagree with who might be highly respected and noteworthy? I haven't put much thought into it before, but I don't think I've seen respectful acknowledgement of black people who don't tow the ideological line.

Sorry I'm waffling. Note that many of those who disagree with CRT don't deny that racism exists and that it can impact on people's lives.
This is a good article
areomagazine.com/2020/06/26/is-white-fragility-training-ethical/

There's a lot of info online in this area and it's usually worth listening to podcasts.

Yes, I feel very similar about feeling both sides have valid points but both also have flaws. I don’t have an answer.

For me personally, every time I think I have a new angle I realise it comes back to first recognising the need for compassion, in the sense of understanding someone’s story of their own experience is true to them even if you believe they are misguided/missing a bigger picture, and that the objective truth can be different over different timescales/context selections. I don’t see a contradiction with simultaneously believing that some races, or women, are systematically disadvantaged and believing that individuals within that group have agency to achieve things judged as great successes within society because one is the macro view and one is the individual human.

Borrowing an idea from Terry Pratchet , I think it comes to down there’s no point in having ideal solutions in theory if they don’t work in reality for people as they actually are.

But the sexual dimorphism of our species means that women, by virtue of lesser strength, greater sexual vulnerability, and their role in procreation, will always be structurally oppressed. It requires civilisation (law and order), technology (birth control, abortions) and cultural will to maintain their rights as equal people. Women's physical relationship to men can never become historical, barring some sci-fi transhumanism fantasy. It is always in danger of becoming relevant again, if civilisation or access to technology is lost

I agree with all that. But while it may be possible to eradicate racism entirely while sexism is only ever held at bay, within a culture, at a point in time, effective tactics to challenge and eradicate racism and effective tactics to challenge and hold at bay sexism have enough in common to make the comparison valid.

Sex and race are fundamentally different.

Discrimination by race is basically arbitrary - it's a in-group/out-group tribal thing that can equally arise for anything else like religion, nationality, caste, class. Humans have a basic instinct to be tribal, but there's no fundamental need to attach special importance to any particular sort of tribalism - if tribal conflicts are kept in check there's no reason they can't become historical. But the CRT bunch are basically trying to stop race becoming historical. They want to make race a present issue. They're actively racist, and encouraging race-based in-group/out-group conflict. This is not a good idea, as history has repeatedly shown.

But the sexual dimorphism of our species means that women, by virtue of lesser strength, greater sexual vulnerability, and their role in procreation, will always be structurally oppressed. It requires civilisation (law and order), technology (birth control, abortions) and cultural will to maintain their rights as equal people. Women's physical relationship to men can never become historical, barring some sci-fi transhumanism fantasy. It is always in danger of becoming relevant again, if civilisation or access to technology is lost.

(Mind you, I'm thankful there's no significant movement of Critical Sex Theorists going around saying things like "we reject logic and reason as Male colonialist concepts").

‘I appreciate this is based on a very superficial reading and perhaps these concerns are well addressed elsewhere.’

I have read part of it and watched various podcasts by the authors and I am not sure they are.
I think the authors say some useful things but they come down too much on the side of underplaying racism.
I feel I am still trying to find a middle ground. As a white person I believe I am privileged and I should be ‘doing the work’ of looking for my unconscious racism and trying to understand the experience of being black in a white-dominated culture, and I don’t think the authors of Cynical Theories would agree with me about that, but equally I think there is a lot wrong with CRT, the way it skips over social class and tells people who lack power and privilege in most areas of their lives they should be feeling shame...

But that’s my interpretation of hard-baked into society, not necessarily the one the author intended. I haven’t read beyond that page yet.

while as a white person I don't experience racism in any meaningful way, as a woman I do experience sexism and it IS hard-baked into society.

Is there potentially a difference in the 'hard-baking' because the concept of 'race' is largely a cultural concept - the 'races' are not actually different types of human, whereas we are dimorphic?