Woke self-criticism

It's called land acknowledgment, and it's done by progressive institutions in the United States. It consists of publicly acknowledging (at the opening ceremony, on the website, etc.) that the land on which the museum or university now stands belonged to a particular Native American tribe. Great! And then? Then, nothing. No reserved places for their descendants, no financial aid, nothing.

This is explained in a book that has caused a stir: We Have Never Been Woke ( not yet translated). The "land acknowledgment" is one of many examples of his thesis, which in colloquial language could be summarized as: woke is posturing. But let's develop it a little further.

Its author, Musa al-Gharbi, a Black (we'll clarify later) American, begins by describing a class that has become increasingly powerful, the "symbolic capitalists": people with a high educational and socioeconomic status, generally white and with progressive views, who work in jobs related to data and ideas. From this group emerged the woke movement. According to its protagonists, it consists of fighting social injustices: being anti-racist, feminist, pro-LGBTQ+, and environmentalist. And what does that translate to?

In gestures and words. Speaking in favor of immigration or anti-punitivism, using inclusive language and expressions like gender identity or hate speech, defending affirmative action, voting for the Democratic Party… All of which, you'll tell me, contributes to social justice by shaping opinion. What's wrong with it? Above all, one thing, says Al-Gharbi: the prominence it gives to race, gender identity, sexual orientation… obscures class differences. Which benefits us, the symbolic capitalists, he points out (because he, as a university professor, includes himself).

The prominence that this movement gives to race or gender identity hides class differences

Given our economic status, the type of profession we practice, the places we live, etc., symbolic capitalists don't suffer the consequences of our ideas. We can demand that the police budget be cut because our neighborhoods are safe, that the doors be opened to immigration because it won't lower our salaries. As for diversity programs, they suffer from a certain hypocrisy. Measures favoring non-white people, for example, in practice benefit not Black people in the ghetto, but people of mixed race, light-skinned people (like Al-Gharbi, as he himself points out), immigrants (not descendants of slaves), and the upper-middle class.

A striking example is that of “the first woman of color” who was a professor at Harvard Law School. Her name is Elizabeth Warren (yes, the Democratic Party member), and her only “black” trait is that she self-identified as Native American. She never revealed it. When Native American organizations protested, the university argued that requiring verification of self-identifications of race or gender would be “a step backward.”

The woke movement, says Al-Gharbi, speaks for the underprivileged, but does not represent them. Who does it represent then? A new generation of the elite, who use woke ideology to overthrow their elders, but also because they have understood that woke posturing, paradoxically, will consolidate their power.

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Environmental gestures, rainbow flags, the co-optation of isolated representatives of sexual or racial minorities… they lend a veneer of progressivism to fundamentally conservative parties, to institutions that remain dominated by the privileged (even if they are junior), to companies that exploit their workers and devastate nature. Thus, says Al-Gharbi, those who make up the 20% of Americans who own 71% of the wealth can vote for those parties, join those institutions, consume the products and services of those companies… while maintaining a clear conscience.

And so we were, with one part of the progressive elite vying with the other for votes and hegemony, when a third contender arrived: a conservative elite that had the good sense to speak, also (and with the same hypocrisy), on behalf of the disadvantaged, but not of minorities, but of the forgotten poor, male, white... and they won. He who laughs last will laugh best.