Make war on Woke; the word I mean

I love a good conspiracy theory. This is why I was somewhat addicted to The Blacklist despite its absurdities; also I liked James Spader who played the lead character Red Reddington.

Reddington was at war with a ‘thing’ he called the ‘Cabal’. It was a shadowy multi-national group holding positions of influence in government and business. The war was over ‘The Fulcrum’ which was a digital repository of information about the Cabal’s illegal activities that both parties wanted.

If you can believe ‘The Blacklist’ then you can believe there is a thing called ‘The Woke’

But I can’t say the same about the identity politics derived word ‘woke’. This is more because of its absurdities and  less about the alleged ‘woke’ itself. It prevents a decent discussion on the variable nature of identity politics and its relationship with class politics.

What’s ‘Woke’ when it’s at home

According to the source of almost all information, Wikipedia, ‘woke’ began in the 2010s as an adjective derived from African-American vernacular English.

Its meaning was to be “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination”. As its usage evolved woke came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial justice, sexism and LGBT rights.

A negative view of woke as an ‘ism’ is that it “…is weaponized personal grievances masquerading as a genuine social concern. It’s defined by its fraudulent nature, as being distinct from legitimate social grievances. Wokeism only knows outrage — it knows not empathy for victims”: Negative view of wokeism. 

This view of wokeism goes on to opine:

Just because we’re outraged by one serious problem in society doesn’t mean we have to turn our filter off and become outraged by everything we see online, no questions asked, no fact-checking done; our filter bubbles make all of this a lot worse, of course.

Enter Bomber Bradbury

Arguably the most vociferous critic of the woke and wokeism is Bomber (Martyn) Bradbury, Editor of The Daily Blog.

His opining on this subject is inexhaustibly non-stop. He has argued for some years that the woke/wokeism will ensure the election of a National-led government later this week.

Perhaps his most thematic blog was published on 20 April this year: Bomber Bradbury’s working definition of woke for the 2023 election.

Describing himself as a “class lefty”, Bradbury sees class and identity (woke) politics as ideological opposites.

It is almost, but not quite, as if one is not oppressed economically one is not oppressed at all. This is an overstatement but there is an embryo of a useful point in it. Unfortunately, the embryo is lost sight of because his absolutist style of writing reduces it to narrow economic determinism.

Bomber Bradbury not short of vivid assertions about woke, wokeism and identity politics

He isn’t short of several vivid assertions of woke and wokeism such as:

For most ultra woke activists, their starting point is all white people are racist, every man is a rapist and anyone supporting free speech is a uniform wearing Nazi.

So that’s ‘Woke’. Identity Politics activists suffering the narcism {sic] of petty difference and subjective triggering who put their identity above all else.

They engage in outrage olympics and cancel culture because it’s easier to shut down an idea because you have feelings than actually put together a cohesive intellectual argument.

We get it wokies, your self created identity is more important than our shared humanity.

I find Bradbury’s use of the words ‘woke’ and ‘identity politics’ intellectually lazy. This is disappointing because he is capable of being, and often is, an insightful intelligent writer.

Further, it is also disappointing because there is a legitimate critique to be made of identity politics whenever it is promoted as a single issue in an exclusionary or elitist manner.

As an irrelevant aside, I can’t suppress a chuckle over part of his attack on wokeism and identity politics which he calls cancel culture given that he cancelled me from his blog. Just saying!

Structure and superstructure

There are several problems with the approach pursued by Bomber Bradbury and others, beginning with its bluntness.

It counterposes economic discrimination and oppression to its other forms; it’s either class or identity politics! This approach ignores nuance, complexity and layered relationships.

Structure and superstructure: layered and interactive

In fact, these politics have overlapping layers. The use of the terms ‘structure’ and ‘superstructure’ are helpful in this respect.

In this context the structure based on the mode and relations of production. Class is defined by its relationship to this production mode.

The superstructure, on the other hand, incorporates the various belief systems and ideologies that help rationalise what people do and think (and why), including the law, education systems and religion.

This superstructure also includes other forms of discrimination and oppression such as race, sex, sexual orientation and transgender. Sometimes it also includes religion.

They exist in a largely capitalist world. But they aren’t products of capitalism. They existed in earlier forms of class societies for centuries.

It is legitimate to locate them in a superstructure but with an important qualification. To differing degrees, they interact with the underlying structure. Sometimes it is to the extent that it becomes difficult to differentiate.

It is these ‘superstructural’ forms of discrimination and oppression that get labelled as identity politics.

The point is not so much the label but whether they are counterposed to class discrimination and oppression or run alongside it, sometimes reinforcing and interactively.

Getting to the heart of identity politics

If one looks up Wikipedia the following description of identity politics can be found:

In academic usage, the term “identity politics” refers to a wide range of political activities and theoretical analyses rooted in experiences of injustice shared by different, often excluded social groups.

Professor Umut Özkırımlı provides a fuller analysis

Fair enough but more analysis is required. This is provided by Barcelona based senior research fellow and associate, Professor Umut Özkırımlı.

He has published an interesting article in History News Network (4 June 2023) on whether the left can reclaim identity politics: Taking back identity politics.

Özkırımlı centres his argument on the experience of the Combahee River Collective which was a Black feminist lesbian socialist organisation active in Boston from 1974 to 1980.

The Collective got its name from a daring military expedition in 1863 at the Combahee River in South Carolina led by the remarkable abolitionist Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman the inspiration for Combahee River Collective

It focussed on embodying in identity politics their own oppression as black women. The Collective did not rank or prioritise their oppression as greater than other oppressions but sought to be recognised as equally human. This recognition “…as human, levelly human, is enough.”

Working towards common goals of justice and liberation and freedom, the Collective advocated cooperation and coalition-building with others. It was community-based activism.

Single-issue politics was rejected because of the “interlocking” nature of major systems of oppression. Its vision was “unabashedly internationalist and anti-capitalist.”

There was a clear class basis for its identity politics. Further, oppressions of different peoples “…were multilayered and experienced simultaneously, and that required multi-issue strategies that reject a rights-only agenda.”

Fast-forward to three decades later and a new narrower type of identity politics had been forged, not for the better, argues Özkırımlı.

Rather than working in coalitions or being concerned about overarching systems of institutionalised oppression, it isolated themselves to their identity only.

He sums it up this way:

For the Combahee women, identity politics was about politics, and identity was one way of doing politics and challenging hierarchies. [Now] identity politics is about identity, and identity is beyond politics. It’s a sacred value that needs to be preserved intact, at all costs….Terms are not discussed but dictated; truth, in an ironic twist, is no longer relative but absolute.

 Let’s have a constructive debate on the relationship between class and identity politics

There is a legitimate and potentially healthy debate to have over identity politics. In a momentary lapse of concentration earlier this year I joined the ‘Workers Voice’ Facebook page.

Once I realised its transphobic nature I quickly exited. But not before I read a post arguing that transgender people were not oppressed because they had no relationship to the means of production!

Take the lead from the Combahee River Collective

Discrimination or oppression does not have to be linked to the means of production in order to be discrimination or oppression.

Trans rights are immaterial to the continuation of class structures but that is no reason for not supporting them. They are human rights.

To its credit the Labour-led government outlawed conversion therapy which was a form of non-physical torture towards gays and transgenders.

This action did not threaten capitalism one iota and it may not have benefited large numbers of people in the bigger shape of things. But torture is torture, regardless of the number tortured.

Sadly, while outlawing conversion therapy was the right thing to do from the standpoint of human rights, Bomber Bradbury regularly pours scorn on it because, in his narrow view, it is about identity politics rather than economic justice.

This narrow determinist lens enables him to go further and describe the Woke as if it is an actual thing, like the Fulcrum and Cable in The Blacklist. This leads to The Daily Blog’s position on identity politics and wokeism going from a narrow lens to a behavioural obsession.

Aotearoa New Zealand would benefit from a healthy debate on where identity politics fits in today, including its relationship with class politics and other forms of discrimination and oppression.

Let’s enhance the quality of the debate by focussing on the dynamic rather that creating an imaginary structure. Leave that to conspiracy theorists.

Let’s facilitate this by ceasing the distracting use of the words ‘woke’ and wokeism; even for 12 months would help!

Let’s take the lead from the women of the Combahee River Collective and Professor Umut Özkırımlı; not The Daily Blog.