What is Woke?

Richard Hanania is an American writer and political science researcher. He has written for such publications as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Quillette. He is the author of ‘The Origins of Woke: Civil Rights Law, Corporate America, and the Triumph of Identity Politics’

Where Woke REALLY Comes From - Richard Hanania (youtube.com)

00:00 Introduction00:32 The Definition of Woke 04:33 Are Conspiring or Well-Meaning People at It’s Roots? 08:02 How is Wokeness Affecting Law in America? 11:20 The Impact of Social Media on the Woke Movement 17:12 How Can Legal Quotas Be Filled in Certain Sectors? 19:30 Does Disparity Equal Discrimination? 23:17 Can Reparation Ever Be Made for Historical Guilt? 27:45 Fixing the Civil Rights Laws 31:53 Why Haven't Past Republican Presidents Tackled These Issues? 35:52 Have We Reached Peak Woke? 41:49 Richard's Past Writings and Views 47:05 Is the Backlash Worse than the Woke People? 52:38 Richard's Take on the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict 1:00:12 What's the One Thing We're Not Talking About?

The whole bucket of woke

To paraphrase podcaster Jason Whitlock (who was cheering on black men* who were commenting on the mug shot in solidarity because dual justice standards is something they know): "It's not about Trump." For me, it's also not Trump; it's the whole bucket of woke the Democrats are throwing at us. It's CRT, Covid, the lockdown, the privileged students' loans, climate hysteria, loss of our borders, mutilation of children who've been brainwashed about gender, imported drugs from Mexico via China, corruption in the acronym agencies (FBI, CIA, FDA, CDC), silenced churches, ridicule of patriotism, and men in women's spaces, sports, and make-up, dual standards from media reporting on Trump with screams and protecting Biden with silence. It's all of it. As Jason says, "Trump is an Avatar." (embodiment or personification, as of a principle, attitude, or view of life)

*18% of Black men voted for Trump, record numbers in 2020, exit polls show. https://www.mystateline.com/news/your-local-election-hq/black-men-voted-for-trump-in-record-numbers-exit-polls-show/.

A new dictionary to help you understand social justice jargon

If you need a dictionary to keep up with all the language changes and inventions of the (mostly) leftist social justice warriors, try https://newdiscourses.com/translations-from-the-wokish/ James Lindsay who also has a podcast provides citations and quotes from the original sources, which is also what any good dictionary does. For instance, a "birthing person" is a mother who does not see herself as a woman, but on an ideological plane its use is to weaken the core pillar of the family and religion (I've condensed about 3 paragraphs). Not all terms are linked, I suppose because he's still working on it and knows the word being used.

Critical Theory and Woke

It's not Diversity Inclusion and Equity. It's not ESG.  It's not BLM Woke. It's not Climate Change or Sustainable Development. It's not Feminism. It's not LGBTQ or Intersectionality. But you'll need all those words. It's all of them, trussed and tied and tortured together.

Together they mean the Oppressed and the Oppressor. Marxist-inspired movement in social and political philosophy. No matter the color or race of the speaker, or the income, or the sex or gender of the agitprop, or whether they wear a pink hat or a black hoodie, it's all critical theory, so someone has to be oppressed, got to have victims. In this class/race/gender system, the poorest, disabled white child in Appalachia is the oppressor of the billionaire black NBA star.

And it's all the mischief of a bunch of old white guys, mostly European--Marx, Nietzsche, Sarte, Foucault and Freire (he was Brazilian). They've danced, partied and slept promiscuously with academics for 40 years, then moved in to seduce politicians, and now are colonizing the largest corporations, the very oppressors they've learned to love (because that's where the real money is).

The original perps failed in real life, and their claim to fame until recently was a hundred million dead in the 20th century; but now it's constant turmoil, death and destruction in the 21st.

The woke ads on TV

Has there been a break through? Last night I was watching an old movie (Sweet home Alabama, 2002, forgotten the channel) and there was a 10 commercial break. 8 of the 10 DID NOT have a minority as lead spox/actor, and the 10th was for Lincoln and had no people in it at all. Later I was watching another channel, forgotten the topic, and it was the same way. Let's hope this break out of sanity continues. I think the constant push for minorities in ads was working against the systemic racism message. Ads are unrealistic as it is and if you combine all that luxury, good life and fun and games with handsome, healthy POC, it just doesn't show well with the news media's woke messages about how evil and racist Americans are. Perhaps a stockholder or two noticed it.

Submit or get fired

"Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action." Ian Fleming, Goldfinger

Whether you're a lawyer, doctor, rap artist, biologist, athlete, journalist, farmer, teacher or librarian, someone in your profession who believes the historical, moral and ethical standards of the past has tried to speak out or report to the chain of command or get published about a current medical procedure, now in its 4th iteration.

 
They are not the majority; they may be a very small voice. But they are in ALL professions, all of which have codes and standards about truth, service and integrity. That they are everywhere should tell you something. They've been verbally abused, had promotions denied, and lost friends and colleagues; their editors have reassigned them to the back page or their location to Po-dunk; they can't get published or their research doesn't appear in peer reviewed journals; they are dishonorably discharged, or lost access to Twitter, FB, YouTube or Google; they've requested reassignment to different medical rounds and been denied. They may also be the ones who won't change pronouns, who resist the CRT workshops and roll their eyes at more global demands to believe a new green religion.

If your employer fires or muffles those in your profession who refuse, and keep only those who bend the knee and submit, then what have you got? People who won't take risks, who won't ask questions, who won't point out the Emperor has no clothes. A submissive nation. No one needs to fire a shot to conquer that nation. We're already in chains.

This is from the University of Nebraska Medical Center: "The spike protein is unique to SARS-CoV-2 – it doesn't look like other proteins your body makes. So antibodies created against the spike protein won't harm your body, they will only target coronavirus."

Let's take a careful look at this statement, which can't be proven true or false since it hasn't been around long enough to be tested. mRNA was developed in the 90s; this therapy in 2020. Whether you're a Christian like me and believe that God has created us with what we need to treat or stop diseases (mRNA isn't a vaccine which introduces a small amount of the bacteria or virus to assist your body in developing a defense you already have) or you're another religion or not religious at all and believe you've evolved over a billion years from sludge, you know "it doesn't look like other proteins your body makes" sounds like it doesn't belong there. Your civil liberties shouldn't be violated and the first amendment and all our laws dealing with health and treatments shouldn't be tossed out if you object to this treatment.

Just about everything we were told in Spring 2020 about transmission and protection of the mRNA treatment have been proven false but there are still rules and mandates and people continue to be punished. Facts we already knew in 2020--children were at almost no risk and young adults had low risk--have been tossed out the window with no apology or explanation.

Hollywood's New Rules, they are so woke

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/hollywoods-new-rules?

"Hollywood had always pushed boundaries—from the 1947 “Gentleman’s Agreement,” which confronted antisemitism, to “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” (1967), which tackled interracial marriage, to “All in the Family” (1971-1979), which grappled with race and women’s liberation. The original run of “Will and Grace” (1998-2006), did more to advance the cause of gay marriage than anything else pre-Obergefell.

And then there were the villains: The vast majority—from the Terminator to Hannibal Lecter to Gordon Gekko—were uber-white: an Austrian (robot), a Lithuanian, a WASPy, pinstriped capitalist. (For the insider’s list, see this from The Hollywood Reporter.) . . .

Then came George Floyd, and, in the summer of 2020, everything that had been happening in slow motion started to happen much faster."

The new rules (no white men allowed as actors, directors, screen writers--their agents are dropping them) definitely are being applied to TV advertising.

What exactly is "woke"

"When we “wake up” to the belief that everything is about the conflict of the oppressed versus the oppressor, and after we deconstruct our own inherited oppressive thinking and set out on a mission to dismantle everything in our inherently oppressive world view, then we are considered members of an elite class known as the “woke.” Everyone else, of course, is asleep."

https://edify.us/video/responding-to-a-world-gone-woke/

A lot of people using the word "woke," admit they have no idea what it means. Watch this and be informed.

Oppressed and the oppressor.  Sound familiar?  Sound like Marx? 

Deconstructing Critical Theory: Oppressed and Oppressor (holisticapologetics.com)

Woke capitalism is a sign of things to come | American Enterprise Institute - AEI

I think the TV advertising from Gillette a few years ago to Coca Cola insulting white consumers without addressing obesity and diabetes has really become ridiculous.  Now in 2021, 95% of the actors in TV commercials are black, and they appear to be wealthy, entitled, and just as addle brained as the white consumers of the 1990s. They tell a story the opposite of an oppressed minority marching for justice and reparations.  The corporations are reaching for the young, and they like to see themselves as "woke." 

"The U.S. industries most obsequious to Chinese audiences present themselves as socially, culturally, and economically progressive at home. The National Basketball Association, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and major financial institutions are exemplars of the “woke capitalism” that has transformed the business landscape in recent years. GM cannot meet the demands of 48,000 striking workers, but it wants you to know that it supports wind power and gender equity. GE suspended pension benefits, but remains a signatory to the U.N. Global Compact, is a highly rated workplace according to the Human Rights Campaign, and received a State Department award for “inclusive hiring in Saudi Arabia.” (from the AEI article above)

I'm no longer elderly, I'm an older adult

 English is flexible and has more words than any other European language. Remember, "The sun never sets on the Union Jack," and the Brits borrowed a lot of words from those they conquered. But government and academe make speech and writing very difficult between going woke and demanding political correctness, plus the old words don't really go away. We still have "handicapped parking" instead of "differently abled parking."  In the 1970s when we visited the Ohio Penitentiary (a term invented by Quakers for penance and reflection about crimes) with our church group we were told that "convict" or "ex-con" or "inmate" were not acceptable. And I'm sure no matter what was OK then, it isn't now.

The CDC doesn't just tackle diseases any more, it polices our language. The trend of adding Person with/of, and twisting words and phrases to say something unpopular less directly, is being carried to the extreme. In 21st century English we must be reminded that everyone is a person (except an unborn child) and groups of persons are people or communities. This has the effect of returning English quickly to its Germanic roots--5-10 words to say something that could be accomplished by adding a prefix or suffix or a simple adjective to a noun. So that garbled phrase must then be shortened to an acronym. Like BIPOC--Black, Indigenous and People of Color, a phrase that includes many who aren't any of those.

Today sexually undecided people don't have "reassignment surgery," but instead it's "affirmation surgery" or "confirmation surgery" or "gender congruence surgery." (And if done on children, I call it sexual abuse, but that's another essay.) Just when I was getting used to being elderly or a senior, I'm now just an "older adult," which is what I'd been calling anyone over 50!

You may no longer be a smoker (wasn't that easy?), but a "person who smokes."

CDC's 'woke' new language guide proposes replacing 'dehumanizing' words like ELDERLY  | Daily Mail Online

Democrats--the party of wealth and power

How often during the last year of wokeness have middle- and lower-class Americans listened to multimillionaires of all races and genders lecture them on their various pathologies and oppressions? . . .

 
Do we need another performance-art sermon on America’s innate unfairness from billionaire entertainers such as Beyonce, Jay-Z, or Oprah Winfrey, or from multimillionaire Delta or Coca-Cola CEOs? . . .

 
By 2018, Democratic representatives were in control of all 20 of the wealthiest congressional districts. In the recent presidential primaries and general election, 17 of the 20 wealthiest ZIP codes gave more money to Democratic candidates than to Republicans. . .

 
Class is fluid; race is immutable. So by fixating on race, the left believes that it can divide America into permanent victimizers and victims—at a time when race and class are increasingly disconnecting.

Victor Davis Hanson
https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/07/15/democratic-party-wont-admit-its-become-party-of-wealth/?

What is choice--to a Democrat?

Democrats still don’t understand choice. One can have a vaccine (aka the shot which isn’t actually a vaccination), and still advocate for freedom of choice. Democrats only think abortion when they say choice, when that is destroying someone else’s body. A choice to kill. The most vulnerable. The weakest. Those who can’t fight back. Democrats ridiculed Trump’s Warp Speed, called it dangerous, said he’d never meet the deadline, said it was unsafe. Now they fret that many don't trust the vaccine.  Well, duh!  Fauci, who Trump put on TV every night, and who was supposed to be advising him, was actually working behind the scenes covering up his deeds with the Wuhan Lab. The media said calling it the Wuhan Virus was racist, further trying to smear Trump. And as they all now admit sheepishly, it most likely was a leak (or a deliberate plant) from a 3rd rate lab that U.S. taxpayers were funding and with whom Fauci had been working by funding a non-profit through the NIH. So that implicates us all, if we use the systemic racism meme of the woke—we taxpayers helped the Chinese spread a pandemic.

Also, after denying inflation for months, the Biden folks are finally admitting it, but still going ahead with the 3+ trillion demands to spread it. I saw a very ordinary steak at the grocery today for close to $20/pound. Used car prices are up 85%. We can’t trust Biden and cronies on anything—not health, not inflation, not Cuba, not withdrawal and leaving our allies behind in Afghanistan, not securing the border, not stopping the drug traffic, not protecting our freedom of speech and assembly, and definitely not with our money no matter what they say it’s for—Covid, infrastructure, families, etc. And Blacks particularly should not trust the most racist president ever (based on his speeches and voting record of the past)—he thinks they are too dumb to get an ID!

Advice from an investment firm about Woke corporation

"As I have pointed out several times, the whole university left wing indoctrination has now permeated all of life, including large corporations who are being led to stick their nose in where it does not belong by Jeff Sonnenfeld of Yale. The best way corporations can help the poor and minorities, is to maximize profits, which leads to more hiring, which leads to wage increases, which leads to higher family incomes, and wealth creation for those willing to work hard and stay out of trouble. We saw it in 2019 when the economy was doing very well, and there were millions more job openings than people to fill them, and no government handouts to deter people from working. CEOs need to focus on building their companies to be the best profit and job producers they can, and leave the social crap to politicians, and those who make it their job. Well run companies that create jobs should hire the best people they can find, and build their talent base through apprenticeships where they can train the unskilled to be able to attain higher wages through effort, not skin color. The entire basis of “diversity and inclusion” is racist in that by hiring by skin color you are discriminating against the guy who had the wrong color, thereby undoing all that we all worked hard to overcome over the past 50 years."

The Bachelor Host is called a Racist for asking for grace for a contestant

It makes no difference how important you are in your government or business position, the woke police can dredge up your college or even elementary school behavior and "cancel" you. Did you “like” something on Facebook or Twitter casually moving on?   This needs to stop, but it's been so successful by leftist haters, I doubt it will. Especially if a liberal can replace you in your job to continue the narrative. No one is safe, not Democrats, not libertarians, and certainly not Republicans or the a-political.

WALSH: ‘Bachelor’ Host Called Racist For Advocating Grace And Forgiveness. Now He’s Stepping Down From The Show. | The Daily Wire

Will the real Nazis please stand up

Why did the Democrats, and some of your liberal friends on Facebook and Twitter call our President a Nazi and Fascist? Next to racist, it was their most popular word. Probably because they know most people don't know what that is, or only associate it with camps for Jews as they saw in old WWII movies. The fact that his grandchildren are Jews and his closest advisor is a Jew is just not important for those liars.

Why didn't they call him a Communist? Those governments were far more powerful than Hitler and killed 10x the number of people. They are both forms of socialism--Nazi is just short for National Socialism. They are hoping you are ignorant. Fascism is when the government controls private industry to enlarge its power and control the people. Communism is a little different--the government owns the businesses as well as controlling them after extracting all the wealth from the owners. That fits our current situation of Big Tech which has flipped that--controlling our government, with the power to shut down our President because he believes in election fraud. It's not as though Democrats have never claimed a stolen election or fraud or questioned the electoral votes. We hear it each time their candidate doesn't get the WH or a governorship (Stacy Abrams still preaches that she won Georgia; Hillary Clinton spent 4 years claiming fraud because the Electoral College didn't work for her). Were their Twitter accounts or platforms shut down?

Big Tech is also controlling major businesses pushing them to outer Wokeland. Academe can't exist without Big Tech. With the lockdown, even your child's education and future is being controlled by Big Tech and the food you put on the table. Nazi Germany NEVER had the kind of control over their people that Big Tech with cooperation of the government has over us.

Stay awake, not woke.

Normally, I wouldn’t be reading Refinery29, a digital media source established in 2015. It’s owned by something called Vice Media which in turn is Disney, A & E, and other media investors.   It’s for young fashionistas in New York. But then, it’s the modern version of Woman’s Day or Ladies Home Journal which influenced women of the last century with heath and fashion while being obedient to the needs of the marketing department. 

One of the founders and CEOs Christine Barberich  (the other 3 are all males) resigned in June because a minority employee had said bad things about her and the toxic work atmosphere on her Twitter account. Twitter users can say anything and the accused is toast.  Twitter has so much power it has silenced the President of the U.S., and because it is a private company, freedom of speech does not apply.  Maybe you think that’s great because you don’t like the president.  Just keep in mind there is someone out there who doesn’t like YOU too, maybe an ex-, or a member of your club, or even an adult child. The laws about employee and management put in place over the years to protect you, don’t apply to gossip and whispers on social media. Your union or employer will not protect you if the charge (no hearings or trial) contain the magic word, RACIST.  You could have your life’s purpose and meaning closed out and cancelled by Twitter.

But back to Refinery29—why was I reading a digital style magazine for shallow, young New Yorkers? Because it was quoted in the Ohio State University  “OSU HealthBeat” which I received in e-mail. Elizabeth Gulino in Refinery29  was quoting in “The COVID-19 Vaccine Won’t Make You Infertile” the OSU Iahn Gonsenhauser, MD, chief quality and patient safety officer at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.  Then HealthBeat also linked to two other articles that quoted R29 which quoted an OSU doctor. This raises R29’s credibility as a serious journal, and OSU’s appeal to the younger set. A two-fer.

Here’s the kicker (I actually did some further research on this issue, and completely agree with Dr. Gonsenhauser who is quoted in many other popular websites.)  Refinery29 is so woke and so alert to every possible misstep of intersectionalism, it has begun to cancel women by referring to “pregnant people.”  You may skip right over that when you read about pregnancies (the way God designed the plan for males and females to procreate).  That change has moved into the language and fanciful unscientific beliefs because of women calling themselves men while still hanging on to all their lady parts. It’s along the same line as Pelosi destroying the “gendered family.”  It’s all about cancelling women and their uniqueness.

“There is limited data about the safety of receiving COVID vaccinations during pregnancy. Pregnant people are typically excluded from clinical trials due to concerns about harming the fetus (although many argue that keeping pregnant people out of trials leads to their health needs being underrepresented). Twenty-three of the participants in Pfizer's trial became pregnant over the course of the study, but that's too small of a sample to tell us much. Dr. Olulade says that people who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or trying to become pregnant [paraphrase] should talk to their doctor before getting the vaccine (everyone should!). "Ultimately it’s about weighing the risks of the unknown when it comes to the vaccine in pregnant women [direct quote] versus the known dangerous risks of COVID."

You and I are awake, not woke.  We know that pregnant people are women, and that people who are pregnant or breastfeeding are women. Every time you read about “pregnant people,” or see an adjective in front of the word “justice,” you are being manipulated. When the kettle heating the water to boil the frog for dinner gets hot enough, it’s too late for you to jump out and save yourself.

Update:  Facebook gave me a black mark for posting this link to my own blog (owned by Google) to my FB wall.  I'm directly quoting a source that quoted an OSU doctor speaking on Covid, yet Facebook fact checkers find my opinion about being woke objectionable.

There's a skills gap, but the myth is racism

"Black students never catch up to their white and Asian peers [8th grade proficiency tests]. There aren’t many white-collar professions where possessing partial mastery of basic reading and math will qualify one for employment. The SAT measures a more selective group of students than the NAEP, but even within that smaller pool of college-intending high school students, the gaps remain wide. On the math SAT, the average score of blacks in 2015 was 428 (on an 800-point scale); for whites, it was 534, and for Asians it was 598—a difference of nearly a standard deviation between blacks and whites, and well over a standard deviation between blacks and Asians. The tails of the distribution were even more imbalanced, according to the Brookings Institution. Blacks made up 2 percent of all test takers with a math SAT between 750 and 800. Sixty percent of those high scorers were Asian, and 33 percent were white. Blacks were 35 percent of all test takers with scores between 300 and 350. Whites were 21 percent of such low scorers, and Asians 6 percent." The Bias Fallacy | City Journal (city-journal.org)

I looked at the charts, and by the way, the white students never catch up to their Asian peers either.

If all these liberal and leftist organizations from non-profits to universities to big tech are looking for black people to fill positions of responsibility and high skills, there will not be enough people to go around based on testing, except by continually adding "people of color" who are immigrants or visiting foreign scholars. 

What has happened to our prayers?

Since Memorial Day week-end and the death of George Floyd, which by the way has never been proven to be about racial  animus, which led to 3 months of protests, looting and burning. Billions were raised for BLM, the centers of many cities were destroyed, and we were being gas lit by the media who were telling us that these were peaceful protests and a result of the unhappiness over the pandemic.  This is Critical Race Theory (CRT) at it’s most obvious.  Something right before my eyes is said to be something else, and it’s the result of racial injustice, and because I’m white, I’m the cause of the unrest and inequality. That there is no objective evidence and I point that out is also racist according to CRT.

Now I see it in the community prayers sent by our church—which is still not open in October. And this isn’t the first one, just the most recent.

• We pray against the evil one, who comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. We come against the powers and principalities of this present darkness, that seek to divide us against one another by race, gender, economic status, or political affiliation, and pray for the curse of injustice to be broken in Your world.
• Father, cause those whom You have set in authority over us to lean not to their own understanding, but to acknowledge You in all their ways. Direct their paths, Lord, that they may speak in ways that will heal our divisions, and to act in ways that will overturn inequalities and lead to peace.

I’ve been a member for over 40 years had we’ve rarely had prayers about our socio-economic differences, which this prayer actually heightens and creates more divisions! It reads like the vanity signs I see in my neighbors’ yards.  Someone or a group on our large staff has managed to blend Bible and identity politics. Here we are in the midst of a pandemic,  people are living in fear and panic.  Some of it is being ramped up by government bureaucrats. Grandparents can’t hold their grandchildren, and special events are called off. We can’t worship together and church members, families and friends are divided by politics (not their race, income or sex).  The people in the pew (if we could get into the church building) are not happy, are not “loving their neighbors” and it has nothing to do with race. Some staff and members  have decided to be morally superior and woke. Wokeness is a system of infiltration.  It’s inviting the Devil in and throwing him a party. And wokeness only needs a permissive leader to open the door and we’ll never get it out of the church. The Woke movement can destroy us. Maybe it already has.

Our church staff needs to understand that the goal of Critical Race Theory is not better race relations or equality. No goals of CRT align with the gospel.  CRT goal is to dismantle not just the status quo, but also the church, the family and the Constitution that protects us from an overbearing government. It is the opposite of what God wants for us.

There are never enough statues. . . now Hamilton the musical

"Hamilton," created by Lin Manuel Miranda, tells the story of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, with an almost all non-White cast. The musical, which was first performed in 2015, won 11 Tony Awards and has had several tours."

The musical was the darling of liberals and leftists--mainly, I think, because by making its cast culturally assume the roles of whites, they thought they were poking conservatives in the eye. Vice President Pence was booed when he attended. Not so. They just were not "woke" enough for the change global forces had put in place.

“They’re sort of trapped. It’s like Stockholm Syndrome if you’re a liberal and you’re caught in this woke revolution. You can’t believe that you’re on the wrong side of history,” [Miranda] Devine said.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/miranda-devine-hamilton-backlash-disney

Why Is It So Hard to Talk about Race?

Ohio State University is announcing yet another useless discussion, or  “conversation.” When race and conversation appear together you know you’re about to get a lecture and a dose of “reeducation” about how terrible the U.S., and you're a part of it because you're white. It's microaggression and unconscious bias.  It’s not about racial equality. It's indoctrination. It's about power. And now the same people who apparently failed with billions of dollars in grants over the last 50 years, are going to fix it. Like Nancy Pelosi--after 40 years in government she'll get it right this time by knocking down statues.  You should see the bold black letters on the website of the Kirwin Institute. SOLIDARITY WITH BLACK LIVES MATTER.  The Kirwin is almost 20 years old.  It's a relic of the failed liberal/left model of academe and they are racing to catch up, to pretend to be "woke." The educators who have led the way for so many years with failed programs have completely lost control of the narrative and handed it over to the anarchists.  And by the way, William "Brit" Kirwin is a white man.

Announcement:

Amid unprecedented levels of attention on racial equality, it can still be difficult to name and discuss the problems we face. Hosted by the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, this webinar addresses the challenges people of color and white people have when discussing race, including realities and the fear of consequences. The webinar is Thursday, June 25 from 1-2 p.m.” 

I  looked through some of its annual reports and research articles.  No solutions, just harangues.  Nothing about schools that succeed, small businesses that promote wealth, community organizations that actually improve conditions. Nope.  Mortgage discrimination; health disparities; payday loan rip offs.  So, if all that money spent and staff salaries paid out, perhaps they can join the anarchists.

Michael Bloomberg—Capitalist or Leftist—Woke Capitalism by Michael Rechtenwald

“Notice that the Democrats haven't cancelled Michael Bloomberg. If he were other than a Democrat, he'd be finished. But the Democrats have no problem with their own oligarchs, misogynists, sex offenders, tyrants, or fascists. Only those of the *other* side are a problem. And ironically, they overlook the fact that the majority of offenders are on their own team. There are exceptions of course to this overlooking (e.g. for sex offenders there's Harvey Weinstein), but they tend to keep them as well hidden as possible. Being a leftist covers a multitude of sins.

Bloomberg is a leftist all right--a leftist with money. He's the authoritarian leftist personified, the leftist with power that all leftists aspire to be even while disclaiming power and pretending to be underdogs because leftism tells its adherents that they must be underdogs no matter what, no matter whether their ideology is ascendant or not (and it is). That is because leftism demands constant querulousness and a perpetual sense of disadvantage in order to function--except in the case of the corporate leftist, like Mike Bloomberg, or King Camp Gillette before him, who have the power to redress their immediate complaints--for the time being, that is, until they find new ones. But all leftism must tell the leftists that they and their ideas and objectives are marginalized, outcast, disadvantaged, even as the likes of Mike Bloomberg dictates whether and how much sugary soft drinks people are allowed to buy at once, whether they can own a gun (they can't), or how much free speech is too much. Bloomberg is Lenin-Stalin-Mao on estrogen. Bloomberg is the core of leftism. Bloomberg is leftism's authoritarian core authorized, paid for, empowered, revealed.

Once in power, leftists are tyrants, and the worst kind of tyrants. Tyrants with a firm belief in their moral superiority.”

Michael Rechtenwald’s speech at Baylor University, February 21, 2020 on Corporate socialism and Woke capitalism. https://youtu.be/Vog7Wn1WGRM

Remember the Gillette “woke” ad about dad teaching daughter to shave? King Camp Gillette, says Rechtenwald, was one of the first corporate socialists and the ad is a return to the founder’s roots. He didn’t believe in competition—thought at its root was selfishness. Destruction of the biological distinction between men and women is part of the woke movement—destruction of the family which is in competition with the government. Gillette published books on world socialism. World corporation and The Human Drift are 2 of his titles.

https://www.uh.edu/engines/epi738.htm