How Woke Won: The Elitist Movement That Threatens Democracy, Tolerance and Reason: 1 (None)

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Welcome to the world of ‘woke’ anti-racism; just one manifestation of the phenomenon of wokeness that has swept across the West, transforming school curricula, workplace relations, competitive sports, policing, politics, history, free speech, and the administration of justice. British author Joanna Williams thinks this transformation is so complete that she is provoked to declare woke has triumphed in her important new book, How Woke Won: The Elitist Movement that Threatens Democracy, Tolerance and Reason. While the ways ‘wokeness’ makes itself known today are not obscure, its evolution from an aspirational concern with racial justice to a zealous obsession with overcoming all forms of social injustice is more hazy. Jonathan explains that these kinds of shifts can happen from over-use. That once a word slips into the mainstream it can fall out of favour with the marginalised groups who originally created it, as it is co-opted and misused by other groups. Now, rather than signifying an awareness of social injustice, it is used to suggest that someone is being pretentious and insincere about how much they care about an issue. Until Russell Brand is found guilty of a criminal offence, we must assume he is innocent. This means taking the criminal allegations made against him seriously while, at the same time, not automatically believing those who claim to have been sexually assaulted by him, simply because they are women. With more women now coming forward with accusations against Brand, we need to maintain this scepticism.

Introducing… How Woke Won - spiked

If we want to discuss the rewriting of history, those words are as good a place to start as any. For this is the same Rhodes who believed that non-white areas of the world were “inhabited by the most despicable specimen of human being” needing to be “brought under Anglo-Saxon influence”. It’s the “not essentially racist” colonialism about which the Liberal politician Charles Wentworth Dilke could boast that “nature seems to intend the English for a race of officers, to direct and guide the cheap labour of Eastern peoples”. It’s the empire so modernising that during the course of British rule, India’s share of the world economy fell from 23% to less than 4%. Biggar is not against the rewriting of history. He just wants to rewrite it with his own myths. Bigotry can be both woke and unwoke. So can censorship. Framing everything as woke vs unwoke makes it harder to challenge either. Joanna’s writing has been published widely in the UK and the US including The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Telegraph, The Spectator, The Guardian, The New York Post and American Conservative.Remember when radio host Eammon Holmes ranted that Meghan was ‘awful, woke, weak, manipulative and spoilt’? Where does the word ‘woke’ come from?

How Woke Won: The Elitist Movement That Threatens Democ…

As it turns out, the politician we’re talking about here is actually London mayor Sadiq Khan. This week, he has jettisoned his boring responsibilities in Britain’s capital to embark on a five-day trip to the US. On the tour so far, he’s schmoozed with everyone from tech entrepreneurs and celebrities to New York’s mayor and Hillary Clinton. How Woke Won, a new book by Joanna Williams, is a must read for anyone wanting to understand the illiberal and divisive ideas that dominate society today. To say that Londoners deserve better than Sadiq Khan is a huge understatement. Rather than pontificating about American politics, Roe v Wade or his wishlist of free-speech restrictions, the mayor should focus on fixing the problems plaguing our capital.Woke has conquered the West. Identity politics, cancel culture and trans ideology reign. The values of “inclusivity” and “diversity” dominate politics, academia, the media, the judiciary, big business and the very language we speak. Censorship and public shaming are the price paid for dissent or even staying silent. Jonathan adds that what has happened with the meaning of ‘woke’ comes down to the original intention of the word itself. Whatever happens next in Belfast or London, the protocol will continue to dominate Northern Ireland’s politics.

How Woke Won: book review - The Centre for Independent Studies

He said it could be, in part, down to what is lost in transatlantic translation. In other words, this American word just doesn’t sit right with British mindsets. It was a remarkable rant, not least in the implication both that the “woke” are migrants who don’t truly belong, and that challenging historical narratives amounts to having “anti-British thoughts” that cannot be accommodated by “free speech” – or even in this country. Such is the reactionary end of reflexive unwokeness. Racial divisions are rehabilitated in the name of anti-racism. Women’s rights are destroyed in the name of trans rights. Ordinary people are demonised as bigots, while virtue-signalling (but exploitative) corporations pose as radical. It may be that the word ‘woke’ is irrecoverable, that it has fallen too far into the hands of people who want to use it to stoke division, rather than illuminate injustice.Far from being progressive, woke twists older ideas of racial and sexual equality beyond all recognition. It leaves us unable to defend women’s rights and pushes us to judge people according to the colour of their skin. Woke thinking benefits only a small minority at the very top of society.

How duty can set us free - spiked

The subversion of ‘woke’ is political and means the word can now be used to perpetuate the very injustices it sought to eradicate in the first place.We use Printful for our print-on-demand shop. It takes 2–7 business days to create clothing products and 2–5 business days to create all other products. The intention of this word was for it to have a positive outcome for a minority group,’ he explains. ‘But when other groups feel threatened or challenged by it, they might want to subvert it in some way. And by using the enemy’s weapons, that makes it an even more powerful tool for them.’ How does this impact people of colour? You must buy this book before it’s banned by the new inquisition’ – Tony Abbott, former PM of Australia Woke thinking has come to dominate so many of our major institutions, from the civil service and the judiciary to the police force and education.