Wokeism and How to Counter It

Editor’s note: This is an edited version of a speech prepared for TOS-Con 2022. The written version retains the character of an oral presentation.

The problem of “wokeism” started as a small fire, but it is getting bigger.

I have spent decades fighting the ideology of Islamism. Through the foundation I established, the AHA Foundation, I am doing all I can to combat forced marriage, female genital mutilation, and so-called honor violence. When I first drew attention to these issues as an MP (member of Parliament) in the Netherlands, staunch multiculturalists—who purported to be humanitarians—were among my harshest critics. They thought my activism was stigmatizing and provocative. My quarrel with wokeism is not the first in which I have had serious disagreements with those promoting so-called social justice.

Of course, I believe in justice. And I believe justice requires a free, fair, and open society. In my view, wokeism is not compatible with either.

What exactly is wokeism?

The term “woke” was popularized by the singer Erykah Badu in a 2008 song and again in a 2012 tweet, in which she encouraged people to “stay woke” in support of the rock group Pussy Riot during their persecution by the Russian government. In the summer of 2013, after the not-guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trial, Patrice Cullors, a founder of the Black Lives Matter organization, created the hashtag #blacklivesmatter in response to a post by her friend and cofounder, Alicia Garza. Being “woke” was broadly taken to mean being mindful of social, particularly racial, inequalities. In popular culture, use of the term “woke” surged during the runup to the 2016 presidential election.¹ During President Donald Trump’s time in office, the term also became associated with opposition to him and some of his policies, including his immigration policy.

Wokeism is not really about social disparities or opposition to one U.S. president, however. Those who assume leadership of the “woke” movement latch onto all sorts of preexisting ideologies—critical race theory, critical legal studies, critical pedagogy, intersectionality, and the broader tradition of anticapitalist thought—to advance a policy agenda intended to tear down and replace every aspect of our society, including our educational, cultural, legal, economic, and political systems. Through cunning—and by retaining the original claim that to be woke is to be mindful of social inequalities—woke activists have worked toward making it impossible to rationally debate the nature of wokeism.

If you’re a decent, rational person, you probably were clear-eyed about the destructiveness of bigotry long before wokeism burst on the scene. What wokeism has effectively done is to weaponize people’s decency against them by packaging supposed opposition to racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and other prejudices with a set of indecent and unjust premises and demands. These include that:

• ideals such as “merit” and “color-blindness” are either misleading or utterly meaningless;
• educational and legal systems can never be racially neutral, and that they should be used as tools for “social justice” against alleged “systemic racism”;
• individuals exist only as members of certain tribes, defined by unchosen traits and divided by power, privilege, and victimhood;
• all people are either oppressed or oppressors, depending on group identity;
• omnipresent racism is suffocating the United States;
• students, at a very young age, must be made aware of racial differences—in particular, white students need to be alerted to their “privilege,” supposedly a collective attribute of their race;
• capitalism is a system of white supremacy and racial domination, which should be replaced with some form of socialism or communism;
• the nuclear family is toxic and must be replaced with a form of communal child rearing.

You can find arguments for all these things and more in the writings and statements of Kimberlé Crenshaw, Derrick Bell, Richard Delgado, Jean Stefancic, Margaret Zamudio, Daniel Solorzano, Ibram X. Kendi, Robin DiAngelo, and BLM leaders such as Cullors and Garza. These people seek to leverage legitimate concern over social issues to foment a political and cultural revolution away from a free and open society based on an impartial rule of law.

For instance, critical race theorists (they call themselves “crits”) pointedly attack individual rights because they protect equality before the law instead of equal outcomes. In the words of Delgado and Stefancic:

Crits are suspicious of another liberal mainstay, namely, rights. Particularly some of the older, more radical CRT scholars with roots in racial realism and an economic view of history believe that moral and legal rights are apt to do the right holder much less good than we like to think. . . . Think how that system applauds affording everyone equality of opportunity but resists equality of results, such as racial quotas at an elite college or university.²

Frighteningly, in the span of a few short years, American corporations, sports associations, universities, school boards, professional accreditation bodies, political parties, and even the U.S. military have been heavily influenced—in many cases, co-opted—by wokeism. According to the nonprofit tracker CANDID:

• the Ford Foundation has pledged and granted more than $3 billion in “racial equity funding” since 2011;
• the Kellogg Foundation, $1.2 billion;
• the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, nearly $1 billion;
• the Mellon Foundation, more than $500 million;
• the Hewlett Foundation, nearly $500 million.³

There are many others, too. Large corporations of all kinds are financially supporting those who aim to upend America, supposedly to promote “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI). At many companies, daring to speak out against wokeism is potentially a career-ending risk.

Higher education is in even worse condition. Universities are increasingly shaped by conformity to the woke agenda. For instance, at many institutions, applicants must provide evidence of their commitment to DEI before they can be seriously considered for a position.⁴ Academia doesn’t have many independent thinkers to begin with, but such tests make it all but impossible for them to make it through the selection process.

Even private schools are affected. The accreditation body for private schools, the National Association of Independent Schools, has embraced the woke agenda, meaning, as one commentator put it, “Non-woke schools risk losing accreditation and their competitive edge if they don’t comply.”⁵ One volunteer in New York City said, “Private schools have embedded a social justice curriculum that encompasses [DEI] and gender spectrum policies, transforming mission statements of independent schools into a word salad that is unclear and comes with no metric for tracking its performance.”⁶ Programs for gifted students have also been targeted by woke activists as unfairly discriminatory.

Even medicine is not immune. One kidney specialist, Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, observed, “Hospitals, state health authorities and the federal government have all authorized race-based formulas for rationing Covid treatments. Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston (Harvard’s teaching hospital) is moving toward ‘preferential care based on race’ across the board.”⁷ Medical schools, he warns, “increasingly are preparing physicians for social activism at the expense of medical science. Such student groups as White Coats for Black Lives demand that administrators reframe curriculum around reparations for slavery, decarceration of prisoners, and other topics with no bearing on training doctors to care for individual patients.”

What about the military? One commissioned officer observes of the “Special Operations Command Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan 2021,” “The idea is to create a new permanent bureaucracy to enforce ‘equity’ regardless of merit.”⁸ He warns that DEI “goals and targets will be met regardless of the effect on the fighting force, and the new DEI bureaucracy will be there to ensure . . . compliance.” He goes on:

These new DEI policies and offices are not designed to unite us. Indeed, they go well beyond a simple distraction from mission priorities. They are being pushed as the priority. Bring back war-fighting and mission-first mindset as our priorities. After all, it is only the defense of the free world at stake.⁹

Woke activists seek to conquer all aspects of society, and they are winning. What has made their takeover so successful? Primarily, the widespread acceptance of unearned guilt on the basis of unfounded charges of racism. Take, for instance, the April 20, 2021, open letter in the Financial Times, written by activists to America’s largest asset managers: Blackrock, Vanguard, and State Street. The letter accused America’s corporations of “systemic racism and white supremacy in corporate behavior and governance” and demanded, among other things, that the companies perform “racial equity audits” and oppose supposed “voter suppression efforts.” The signatories warned asset managers that anything less than full acceptance of their demands “would effectively communicate your continued complicity in—and the turning of a blind eye towards—systemic racism.”¹⁰

How have America’s corporations responded to the virtually evidence-free accusations against them? As we’ve already seen, by turning massive portions of their wealth and influence over to their attackers, providing the woke movement with an incredibly well-funded infrastructure.

Rational people prize impartiality, fairness, and reasoned debate. The “woke” do not. What they demand is submission and obedience. In this respect, wokeism is no different than Islamism.

A free and open society, where individual rights are respected and protected, cannot long survive if people cower in fear of losing their livelihoods for engaging in rational debate. So, what can we do?

First, protect yourself. Retain your moral and intellectual independence at all cost. Do not accept unwarranted guilt. Do not succumb to groupthink or peer pressure.

Next, remember what’s at stake. When times get tough, recall the ideals you are fighting for, including:

• individual rights;
• freedom of expression;
• due process and rule of law; and
• a free, fair, and color-blind society.

Further, reclaim the English language and beware of those who manipulate it. Do not accept the ever-shifting list of approved “woke” terms, and do not let manipulated language seep into your mind and redefine the bounds of your thinking. Perhaps most important, keep clearly in mind the distinction between words and force; criticizing ideas is not a form of coercion, though woke activists will howl that it is.

Next, keep your eyes on the real victims of wokeism, the children stuck in dysfunctional public education systems with no alternatives; the defunded police departments and unsafe neighborhoods; those fired for the temerity of questioning woke orthodoxy—or never hired, on the grounds that they refused to declare allegiance; and medical doctors, teachers, and other professionals who increasingly have to navigate a highly politicized environment in which a refusal to submit to the political orthodoxy of the day may be grounds for professional disqualification.

Last, organize effectively and contribute to this battle any talents, expertise, or resources you can. Several groups are working hard to counter the woke orthodoxy. For those interested in promoting individual rights and color-blindness, the Woodson Center helps residents of low-income neighborhoods address genuine problems in their communities. For those in medicine, Do No Harm opposes race-based medical policies. For parents and those involved with primary education, there is Parents Defending Education. Higher ed has the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, as well as the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a strong defender of free speech on college campuses and beyond.

And the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), a group I am involved in, is committed to color-blindness, free expression, and the dignity of the individual.

Whatever your field of work, monitor the professional organizations and accreditation bodies for ideological conformity to wokeism or associated pressure tactics. Don’t be silent.

Likewise, keep an eye on local civic institutions, including local government and school districts. Be mindful of organizations you donate to. The current trend is for most to succumb to the unearned guilt that woke activists push. Make your position known to these organizations and end support for any that embrace the woke agenda.

Regaining institutional control to defend genuine freedom—freedom to speak, freedom to dissent, freedom to argue—is a formidable task, not something any one person can do alone. But, if I may take the vigor and dynamism of those gathered here at this conference as an indication, there is hope.

About Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and founder of the AHA Foundation. Prior to joining Hoover, she was a fellow at the Belfer Center’s Future of Diplomacy Project at Harvard University, and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Ayaan is the author of several books, including Infidel (2007), Nomad: From Islam to America, a Personal Journey through the Clash of Civilizations (2010), Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now (2015), and Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights (2021).

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