Q&A: Is It Woke to Be Pro-Hamas?

with John McWhorter

From the summer of 2020 on, John McWhorter and I have said that the left’s ideological commitment to Kendiesque antiracism, Black Live Matters’ vapid race politics, the 1619 Project’s misleading perspective on American history, and any of the other forms that racial “wokeness” took could not be sustained. It was only a matter of time before, one way or another, faulty premises such as those would collapse under their own weight. The Democratic Party’s stranglehold on minority voters is loosening, as many long-secure blocs have come to recognize that Democrats’ commitment to hollow racial justice platitudes will not help them find better work, educate their children, or keep their neighborhoods safe. And more and more centrist liberals are tired of being told that their mildest faux pas is tantamount to white supremacy.

But neither John nor I could have foreseen that a war in Israel would exacerbate these tensions as quickly as it has. As John notes in this clip from our latest Q&A session, there probably would have been anti-Israel demonstrations on college campuses even if the “racial reckoning” of 2020 had never happened. And yet, we’ve now seen that the left’s ostensible commitment to minority protections extends only so far, and it does not include Jews who have the wrong opinion about Palestinians. That “wrong opinion” happens to be held by some very powerful people who don’t like the idea of their donations to elite universities being used to fund what they see as an existential threat to their spiritual homeland. When those donor dollars start drying up, college presidents are going to have to make some hard choices, at least those who still have their jobs.

It’s a messy situation, to say the least. When wokeness collapses, when it’s truly no longer tenable in our national politics or institutional organization, something is going to take its place. Maybe that something will be a more moderate position on race or even an identifiably conservative one. Perhaps it will simply be wokeness by another name. I have a feeling that, in 2024, we’re going to find out.

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GLENN LOURY: I don't know if you want to respond to this or not, John. Phil Getson asks,

Over the last few months, both of you, but primarily John, have said we are, at last, past peak woke. I wonder if the massive demonstrations supporting Hamas and the widespread support in academia has you revising your estimate?

JOHN MCWHORTER: I would say that we would have seen this at any time. It would have been this way in 2017. I don't connect this with the massive uptick in wokeness of 2020. So I would say it's not diagnostic. I do feel that in the grander scheme of things, especially if you step outside of academia, which is only one part of life, an era has passed, thank God. Glenn, what do you think?

Oh, yeah. I think we're past peak woke. I think the pendulum is swinging in the other direction, and I think there are a lot of indications of that. But, I think the problem that the Democrats are having in mounting a credible presidential … I mean, it's very early. It's very early, and we do have a president, John. I acknowledge that we have a president. His name is Joseph R. Biden, and he won the 2020 election. That's how he got to be president.

He did win.

You know, they're losing the minority voters. The Latinos in the Rio Valley are not necessarily all lined up for Democrats, because they are more conservative on the social issues and they're not all that happy about unrestricted immigration. And black men are peeling off. That could be like 30 or 35 percent of them voting for Donald Trump before it's over, which would be huge. A lot of people are worried about the future of the Democratic Party. And I think that the ambivalence about some of their woke enthusiasms is waning. And I think that's another indication of that.

You've heard of Brandon Johnson, the relatively new mayor in Chicago, African American. But have you heard of Eric Johnson? He's the mayor of Dallas. He's a black man. I think he's a former police officer, has connections to police. He is very pro-law-and-order, and he just switched parties from being Democratic to being Republican not long ago on the crime issue, saying defund the cops is ridiculous. Defund the cops is madness. It's madness.

He's actually being his own person.

This is the mayor of a big American city. I think, actually, quite the opposite. The implication of the question is, “You see, we're not past peak woke. Look at how they're responding to the Hamas attack. They're pro Hamas, many of these leftists. That proves how woke they are.” I think, on the contrary, you may find that the long-run consequence of the far-left support for mortal enemies of the State of Israel is to weaken the wokeness movement.

Because a lot of people who are behind the wokeness movement and the culture barons who make movies and who run publishing houses are pro-Israel. They are. And God love them. I don't mean that as a criticism. I simply mean that the donor to the University of Pennsylvania who questions whether or not a Palestinian literary festival that celebrated “from the river to the sea” or whatever should have taken place, and if the university president didn't stand against it, then whether or not he should [or] she should continue to be such enthusiastic supporters of the university may yet get the attention of some university people somewhere.

I think the free speech people ... you have a point. You can't shut down the pro-Palestinian demonstrators because you don't like their political opinions. But I think a lot of the shouting down, the demonstrators taking over buildings and demanding that the university take a pro-Palestinian position is going to alienate supporters that might otherwise have been able to be counted upon.

It delineates wokeness as something fringe and extreme—which it is—as opposed to being liberal or progressive. It highlights that.

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