Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America

John McWhorter

Oct 2021 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by John McWhorter

About this audiobook

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

New York Times bestselling author and acclaimed linguist John McWhorter argues that an illiberal neoracism, disguised as antiracism, is hurting Black communities and weakening the American social fabric.

Americans of good will on both the left and the right are secretly asking themselves the same question: how has the conversation on race in America gone so crazy? We’re told to read books and listen to music by people of color but that wearing certain clothes is “appropriation.” We hear that being white automatically gives you privilege and that being Black makes you a victim. We want to speak up but fear we’ll be seen as unwoke, or worse, labeled a racist. According to John McWhorter, the problem is that a well-meaning but pernicious form of antiracism has become, not a progressive ideology, but a religion—and one that’s illogical, unreachable, and unintentionally neoracist.

In Woke Racism, McWhorter reveals the workings of this new religion, from the original sin of “white privilege” and the weaponization of cancel culture to ban heretics, to the evangelical fervor of the “woke mob.” He shows how this religion that claims to “dismantle racist structures” is actually harming his fellow Black Americans by infantilizing Black people, setting Black students up for failure, and passing policies that disproportionately damage Black communities. The new religion might be called “antiracism,” but it features a racial essentialism that’s barely distinguishable from racist arguments of the past.

Fortunately for Black America, and for all of us, it’s not too late to push back against woke racism. McWhorter shares scripts and encouragement with those trying to deprogram friends and family. And most importantly, he offers a roadmap to justice that actually will help, not hurt, Black America.

Ratings and reviews

Getting this book was rough in print form because MANY of the early references come from conservative media and either flew under the radar for myself or I simply hadn’t heard of. I found myself Googling many to get context. So I listened to the audio book instead. He spends the vast majority of the book talking as if there is a pandemic of a certain type of person I either haven’t met or haven’t met enough of to be of note. Living in Austin, TX perhaps we simply interact with very different people. As a black person, I feel that some of the ideas about the black community in the book are outdated. 90’s black sitcoms presented black nerds like Urkel and the lead in Blankman as someone to be made fun of, today in television series like Insecure and Harlem we have black people of all types involved in tech startups. Finally he has either referenced or alluded to Ibram X. Kendi multiple times throughout his book, I felt as if this book was a direct response to Ibram’s book on Anti-racism given what I have HEARD Ibram talk about on the radio and various interviews. So I owed it to myself to ALSO read/listen to Ibram’s book on Anti-racism before reviewing this one. Ibram’s book has NOTHING to do with the content of this one. Strangely reading both books, John McWhorter reads as if he’s in the same place Ibram X. Kendi says he was in his early 20’s. In fact I feel Ibram captures a black man like McWhorter better than the other way around. Even stranger is that when you get to the end of “Woke Racism” where McWhorter offers solutions after seemingly railing against the “religion” that springs out of Kendi’s “Anti-racism” book, are “anti-racist” in Kendi’s definition. If you read this book, for the sake of balance, and more importantly context, I suggest you also read Ibram X. Kendi’s book on “How to be an anti racist”.

Someone smarter and better read than I will ever be, who just happens to be black, explains that Yes, Wokeism is in fact the dangerous and counterproductive religion I have come to see it as over time, and Yes, we have no choice except to hold our ground when it attacks us in the name of false compassion, and we must, must continue pushing for solutions that actually help people instead of engaging in endless agony over false notions of Original Sin.

John, as usual, is brilliant and insightful in his assessment and offers sensible prescriptions for dealing with the problem.

About the author

John H. McWhorter teaches linguistics, American studies, and music history at Columbia University. He is a contributing editor at The Atlantic and host of the language podcast Lexicon Valley. His writing has been published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Time, Daily Beast, New Republic, The Root, and many other venues. McWhorter is the author of over twenty books, including Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter—Then, Now and Forever, The Power of Babel, Losing the Race, and Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue.