generalspeaking: Avoiding the Lethal Babble of Woke Intersectionality

Sunday, July 04, 2021

Avoiding the Lethal Babble of Woke Intersectionality

"I see that our society is becoming progressively racialized. The logic of intersectionality fractures everything."
"I stand for universalism. I don't agree with a fight that reduces everyone to their identity or their particularity. Social difficulties are not only explained by gender and the colour of your skin, but also by social inequalities."
French President Emmanuel Macron

The French are absolutely right to say ‘no thanks’ to US woke-ism

French President Emmanuel Macron and his ministers think woke-ism "attacks France's intellectual and cultural heritage," according to The New York Times. EPA

"The 'woke' culture is something very dangerous, and we shouldn't bring it to France."
Everyone should fight discrimination. You can't ask someone not to speak about a topic because the person doesn't feel legitimate. It makes no sense."
"French universalism means that we want to recognize people per se, not because they are women or LGBT+ or because they have a different ethnicity or whatever."
Elizabeth Moreno, black diversity minister, France

The creeping advance of 'woke' enlightenment which has become sacred to the progressive left anxious to prove themselves so open-minded that they confess to being representative of imperialism, capitalism, colonialism, slavery, homophobic, racist disgraces to humanity while bending a knee to Black Lives Matter, the LGBTQ-2 community and faithful upholders of the right of transgender supportiveness to young children whom grade school exposure to a range of gender-selections has confused, has become a frightful blight upon the social weal.

The social contamination of 'wokeness' with its self-abnegation, and worship of the self-professed underdog, the victimized and the socially shunned, has upended language and social messaging to a degree hardly recognizable in apportioning 'rights' under newly-passed social/cultural/political laws punishing Caucasians as unentitled to equal consideration with the once-neglected human rights of ethnic minorities even in a climate where without 'wokeness' society as a whole overturned the situation on its own initiative.

We truly inhabit a world now where increasingly minorities dictate to majorities and the majorities expect themselves to be graciously accepting of censure aimed their way relentlessly by minorities sitting high in the saddle of righteousness and justice. An intellectual/social/cultural miasma that has infiltrated academia, politics, the legal system and society at large. Where no sacrifice is seen as too high to ensure that those considering themselves to have been victims of discrimination are sufficiently mollified, and the guilty accordingly whipped into obedience.

The French political hierarchy, viewing the drama from afar, and alarmed at its incursion into its own sovereign precincts, will have none of it. With President Macron stiffly giving warning of the dangers of U.S.-style woke culture, indicative of the debate in his own country becoming increasingly 'racialized', a country which politely turns its gaze away from 'race', focusing on the quality of human rights equally applied to all; in principle perhaps more than reality, but the ideal is treasured.

'Intersectionality" as a concept popular in U.S. academic circles examining poverty and discrimination through identities belonging to race and gender. Mr. Macron could bring forward from his own experience, he said, situations where young white men in Amiens, his hometown, or nearby Saint-Quentin in northern France "who also have immense difficulties, for different reasons, in finding a job". Quite so, since many employers feel compelled to diversity their hiring so visible minorities can be represented in their workforce team, proof positive of their forward-looking humanitarianism.

Protesters are carrying signs during a demonstration against racism and police brutality at Republique Square in Paris. Academics have criticized the protests in France

We face a situation where appropriateness for employment, in experience, education, skill, proficiency are no longer requisites for consideration if one comes from a middle class background, is white, attended a good school, and is capable of demonstrating their fitness for a particular workplace. Skin colour, cultural background of diversity, will go further, despite lack of experience, explicit education and work skills. Qualifying merits are no longer of account in favour of 'unequal rights'.

France has experienced a number of protests in the year just passed, reflecting the popularity of the revolution that Black Lives Matter has enabled leading adherents to denounce racism linking it to instance of police brutality against minority groups, with perceived links to France's wide-ranging colonialist past. Others warn against the importation of the "Anglo-Saxon" world's obsession with "woke culture" and its associated "cancel culture", leading to excessive political correctness.

Perhaps France can begin a new chapter in the social consciousness that has completely surrendered to 'progressive' thought; turning it around to reflect a more reasonably enlightened recognition that equality is achievable without discriminating against those whom victims claimed discriminated against them. There need not always be a victim when seeking justice in the wide field of social entitlements of human rights.