We’ve turned being woke into a religion
And now a lot of us are realising we do not want be part of this any longer. Cancel culture is just judgement by another name. How are we any different from extreme Christians if we ostracise someone for using the wrong term when they obviously didn’t know better? And why do we expect perfect behaviour from people? People will slip up, not everyone has a great memory, it may take years for someone to use the ‘right’ term. And by then, that term may be outdated too!
A lot of us have turned celebrity activists into prophets, clinging on to their every word. Thinking for yourself and asking questions to clarify is marked as gaslighting, tone policing. We speak about decolonisation, but employ the same tools as the “coloniser” – being nitpicky about words, using academia as a shield and weapon and hyperfocussing on people’s flaws as problems to be fixed, rather than viewing them holistically.
I ask that we turn away from church like thinking and try community thinking instead. I don’t have the perfect answer for this, but a community builds due to common interests and wanting to grow TOGETHER and maintain stability. They understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses. It simply cannot be healthy long term to cast out church members by amputating them like limbs. Very soon, there will be no body left. We will just be fragmented pieces. Divide and conquer, right?
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Further reading and watching
You dont gotta like it cuz a POC made it | Kat Blaque
Excellent video on the fact that some of us are out here not criticising art on its merits because a marginalised person made it. PLEASE. We are doing marginalised artists a disservice if we act like all their art is hot shit and are too afraid to criticise it for fear of backlash. If the art I make is terrible to you, you are allowed to fucking say that.
An open letter: why I'm leaving the cult of wokeness by Africa Brooke