Wokeness for Whites: Understanding the Movement and Its Impact

The Unprotected Class has been embraced by many opinion leaders on the right, and its not hard to see why. The problem he addresses, “anti-white racism”, is real and important. But the book and its favorable reception represent a troubling turn in American civil-rights politics. Anyone who takes on race politics must be judged by the highest standard of prudence. By advocating a combative program of white racial grievance, and striving to rouse white indignation, Carl falls far short. Eleven chapters of Carl book provide a detailed survey of pernicious anti-white prejudice — in corporations, education, medicine, religion, entertainment, the criminal-justice system, the military, etc. He paints an ugly picture with plenty of provocative evidence. (In a recent book, I myself explore and condemn anti-white academic theories.) The civil-rights revolution ought to have ruled all forms of racism out of bounds, as the plain text of the key 1960s statutes commands. In practice ; as the civil-rights regime expanded through the courts and the bureaucracy from the 1970s through the 1990s, and then metastasized in our corporate and academic cultures — it has permitted and even sometimes encouraged a lot of anti-white nonsense. Carl deserves our gratitude for honestly confronting this troubling dimension of contemporary life and for documenting its existence beyond any reasonable doubt. But trouble lurks in the three chapters that precede and the two that follow Carls survey of the long racist march through the institutions. In these more substantial opening and concluding chapters, Carl reveals that his thinking has much in common with the left-wing tendencies he decries. He wants wokeness for whites: Or, more precisely, he wants whites to embrace the indignation and extremism of radical civil-rights politics. He calls on whites to see themselves as victims and politically organize themselves; and to engage in boycotts, recruit allies, speak up unapologetically for their own rights, engage in civil disobedience, etc.This schooling in anti-discrimination rabble-rousing would result, and is intended to result, in an unfiltered politics of racial outrage. There are sensible ways to stand up to anti-white racism. Calling on whites as a group to man the barricades is not one of them

The ugly irrationality of unmediated race politics is visible both in Carls account of the problem and in his radical suggestions for cures. He repeatedly adopts the racial rhetoric of the Left on behalf of whites. Thus he writes about a systemically anti-white environment; whites suffering is intersectional; they suffer slow-motion cultural genocide. Studies have shown that anti-white racism is a more severe problem than other forms of anti-minority racism. Aspects of anti-whiteness — the destruction of cultural symbols and forced relocations (white flight) — are said to explain the surge in drug addiction and suicides among whites. (Don’t conservatives blame cultural dysfunction anymore?)At times, the book flirts with racial paranoia. Carl’s central contention about the purpose of anti-white efforts is that they justify the expropriation of land, property, and other wealth from whites. Carl invokes something akin to the unconscious bias argument of critical race theory. Anti-whiteness is not a conscious strategy for most people. One must distinguish the inner party that is pursuing a deliberate project from the outer party that goes along unwittingly. Anti-whiteness has an exoteric and esoteric meaning. What to do? First, whites need to politically organize themselves. Like the civil-rights Left, Carl subverts traditional liberal-democratic principle to make it fit the logic of anti-discrimination. To vindicate individual natural rights of people must organize as groups to claim them (emphasis in original). Issues of anti-white discrimination and racism must be discussed as issues involving whites as a whole, not just as issues of individual discrimination

Carl is astonishingly confident that the politics of race can be managed in a fairly direct, hands-on way. Not for him the strategies of the American founders, who sought to weaken and tame factions. The first step is to form an alliance between whites and Asian Americans (while holding accountable anti-white Asians). Blacks, in turn, must be told by whites whats what. It is time to respect the African American community enough to hold individual African Americans responsible for their own behavior, rather than inaccurately attributing all difficulties [to] white supremacy. Claims of Native Americans and Hispanics are to be answered by white counterclaims — and little else. Last but not least, white progressives, the most powerful and most uniquely toxic group in American society, must be confronted, exposed, and shamed

The  of the new group politics accords with its substance. No justice, no peace, applies to white people as well. If anti-whiteness continues, the Left must learn that the blowback will be fierce, immediate, and extremely painful for them. We will receive just and equal treatment or there will be a price to be paid by those who refuse to give it. Carl abjures force or violence but also says that progress for whites will involve putting bodies in the streets — indeed, bodies upon the gears

One should not have to point out that a politics of open racial accusation and counter-accusation — a scheme of racial alliances, purges, and confrontations — is a very bad idea. But here we are. Do we really have to say that racial and ethnic division can become very dangerous? That racial pride and indignation and conflict are powder kegs that ought to be kept from open flames? That racial contestation is not easily contained once provoked or unleashed? One need not concede white privilege to point out that the relatively stable and well-educated and wealthy white majority has a duty, like every other group in America, to advance racial peace and friendship and to exercise self-restraint

Carl occasionally indicates that he is aware of the more elevated plane of politics he is encouraging us to abandon, the plane of moral principle, of our liberal-democratic constitutional order, of the law and its august generalities. He hears those who warn that a politics of whiteness is both tactically and morally inferior to a focus on unalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence. But political reality is more important still: Gauzy appeals to those unalienable universal rights have been almost completely ineffective in stopping the Lefts long racist march. And that is the end of that

It should be noted that Carl actually understates the problem he and we are wrestling with. By focusing on race alone, his book obscures many disruptive features of civil-rights politics — the range of different groups it stirs up, its intrusive and punitive enforcement mechanisms, its ever-expanding heedless moral ambition. Carl surveys some of the critical reflection on civil-rights law advanced by conservatives recently; he even calls for wholesale reform of civil rights laws. But he does not see how much his own thinking is shaped by the anti-discrimination mind-set and its radical political outlook

Anti-discrimination politics magnifies and enshrines group blame and guilt; past racism becomes a kind of sin or stain. For this reason, the civil-rights revolution itself is today the main source of anti-white prejudice. The spectacle of an anti-racism crusade that serves to castigate one race (which also happens to be the majority) probably made it inevitable that someone someday would demand a halt to the disrespecting of whites. But that is a symptom of the problem and not a solution to it.

The better course would start with thinking more carefully about what the civil-rights revolution is doing to democratic life. Anti-discrimination politics causes group resentment and mistrust; instead of uniting, it divides. Our response to anti-white nonsense should proceed from this understanding

Civil-rights law may not be perfect, but it can be used in a careful way to penalize anti-white bigotry. Lawsuits challenging forms of diversity training as anti-white racial harassment, for example, are sometimes successful. It is also possible to imagine fighting anti-white harassment in higher education more aggressively by building on the recent strategy of using Title VI to combat antisemitism on campus

But an even better path would be to prune back these laws post-1960s growth, which is the institutional force behind diversity training, corporate censorship regimes, and the like. And the reason to do these things is not to help white people as a group but to advance a just and civil order that benefits our entire society

Carl’s book reveals a level of frustration, indignation, and political energy that we should not ignore. But it also crosses important lines that we ought not cross, and it is very worrisome that some leading conservatives seem tempted to follow him. The serious task of conservatives on the subject of wokeness today is to become alive to the limitations and defects of the civil-rights revolution and to begin to think about reforming it. That is a very big and difficult task. This book shows that the alternative is to follow blindly the dictates of the revolution  logic, even as that logic ravages much of what is worthwhile about America

The task of conservatives on wokeness today is to become alive to the limitations and defects of the civil-rights revolution and to begin to think about reforming it.