Welcome to Post-Woke.
Humans are funny. Despite our remarkable similarities, we never run out of reasons to clash. My goal here is to share my thoughts, and solicit yours, on ways we can understand each other better and ultimately move past the misunderstandings to make society better for us all.
I care passionately about reducing the effects of racism on the human family. I spent my entire adult life looking at these issues through a single lens, certain of the increasing depth of my own understanding and frustrated by what I saw as the close-mindedness of others. It was only when I earnestly engaged with a wider range of perspectives, and subjected my own assumptions to closer scrutiny, that I realized not only was I (most likely) misunderstanding much of the problem, but my widely-shared, hyper-rigid perspective seemed to be making the things I cared about addressing dramatically worse. In this blog, I hope to explore the topics of humanism and systems thinking that can help us all see the problems of systemic racism more clearly in order to more effectively counteract them.
A snapshot of my current philosophy: empathy and reason are both good. Most people have good intentions but strong biases. To understand the failings of others, look at your own failings first. Defining your guiding moral philosophy as opposition to someone else’s failings will almost always make the problems you see worse. And I’m as susceptible to this trap as everyone else—so keep me honest.
Some Disclaimers
It might seem ridiculous to some that I should feel the urge to declare this, but let me make it abundantly clear: racism exists, racism is common, and racism is a problem. Now, part of the problem we face today is that people have different definitions of what the word “racism” even means. I plan to explore this disconnect fully in future posts, but for now, I will toss out an operating definition of individual racism as either consciously or subconsciously holding negatively biased views about specific people or groups of people on the basis of their race or skin color, and allowing those biases to influence one’s choices (including choosing not to act) in a way that harms people. (This somewhat follows the common “prejudice + power” framing.) Racism over time has resulted in large, systemic inequalities between people and groups. Systemic or institutional racism is the way our systems (laws, policies, and cultural norms) allow both the ripple effects of past racism to perpetuate and the biases of modern racism to give disproportionate opportunities and advantages to members of some racial groups over others. The purpose of Post-Woke is not to avoid or deny this very real problem. The purpose of Post-Woke is to explore new ways to examine, understand, and address the problems of racism, as well as the closely related problems of social classism, economic classism, and political polarization. I acknowledge that not everyone will agree with these definitions, but hopefully we can find enough overlap to agree on some real problems to work on. I will do my level best to explain any controversial ideas I share in the most examined way, and give space for the common concerns with these ideas. But I will rely on you all to help highlight my blindspots (which, by definition, I am blind to!).
Let me also declare with no hesitation: every single human being on this planet is worthy of dignity, respect, and attempted understanding. Often, when challenges to mainstream perspectives on racism are offered, the speaker is accused of denying someone else’s human dignity. I hope I never say anything so carelessly as to make someone else feel that way, and if I am ever perceived as doing so, I welcome a mutually understanding conversation about it.
My employer would probably also like me to say that I speak only on my own behalf, not theirs. That being said, I plan to stick to my first principles of respect, dignity, and attempted understanding for all. If I can do that, I believe I should be able to stand by anything I write here in any venue.
So, who am I?
Fair question. For now, I plan to write under a pseudonym. It’s not because I’m afraid to stand by my word—I plan to tell friends and family about this Substack and invite them to read and participate. I will, however, admit to being a little afraid of The Internet, as I am hoping to tackle some controversial ideas and The Internet is not big on understanding. Additionally, one common assumption about people who raise some of the concerns I plan to explore is that these people are “grifters” or just in it for fame and fortune. It’s kind of ridiculous to imagine right now that Post-Woke might ever gain enough attention for that accusation to carry water, but if it were to, it would be too late to switch to pseudonymity. So here we go.
Before I say more about who I am, I ask you to reflect on why you are curious. In my past, I often found I would read a piece that bothered me or that I disagreed with, and I went straight to try to find out more about the author to hypothesize about their biases or ulterior motives. I was constitutionally incapable of considering their argument on the merits alone. The easiest people to dismiss were white male conservatives, followed by white male liberals, white females, and black conservatives. Certainly anyone using Substack, by their adjacency to everyone else on Substack, was suspicious. Bucketizing was a required step before I could engage with the conversation. I encourage you to avoid my past mistakes.
Professionally, I am a mechanical engineer. I’ve always been fascinated by physics, science, and math—more than anything, by the idea that by studying the current state of things and their trends over time, you could not just make decent predictions about the future, but you could even change it. I’m a huge advocate for systems thinking—a school of thought that emphasizes systemic structures and interactive effects to understand and solve complex problems. Before I decided to enter engineering, I’d considered becoming a psychologist. Human psychology has always fascinated me and I’ve studied it in passing throughout my life but never formally. Similarly, the topics of racism and anti-racism have also been a passion of mine in adulthood, but all of my education in these areas has also been informal, through friends, books, and other writings and media. I’m not afraid to throw around complex terms that I feel I understand well, but I will surely make some mistakes along the way and I welcome corrections and alternative understandings.
I named this Substack “Post-Woke” because that is where I am in my ideology. I was turned on to racial justice issues 20 years ago, when I was in college, and unironically considered myself to be relatively “woke” for my entire adult life. It was only after I earnestly engaged with some new perspectives that I began to realize my worldview was built on top of several rigid, under-examined, and counter-productive assumptions about others. While I am no longer exactly “woke,” I am not “anti-woke” either. Some of my best friends are woke!! ;-) The vast majority of people who are passionate about social justice are genuinely motivated by compassion for others, and too many anti-woke figures assume the very worst about them instead. If I am going to assume something about someone else’s motivations, I’ll try my damndest to assume the best I can imagine.
One final piece of information about me that I’m sure many will want to know is that I am a white woman. A straight, cis-gender, millennial, liberal white woman. I’m well aware of the ways these characteristics can and do influence my life experiences and perspectives. I plan to explore this in depth in an early post.
Who is Post-Woke for?
There are several groups I am hoping to engage with on these topics. I know for myself, the period of time when I was questioning everything I thought I knew about racism and social justice was extremely confusing and distressing. Who was I, if not what I’d believed my whole life? I struggled to find any voices out there who I could relate to. I couldn’t discuss my concerns with most of my friends without pissing them off royally. So for folks who can relate to that feeling, I hope to create a space where we can engage, exchange war stories, and confirm for each other that we’re not crazy (or racist).
I hope to engage those who consider themselves “woke,” “anti-racist,” or just acutely aware of social injustices in society, particularly racial injustice. I hope you can share your perspectives, keep me honest about focusing on ending racism and not getting pulled too far into culture wars. I’d also like to engage with people who think of themselves as “anti-woke” or skeptical of modern anti-racism. For both groups, I am hoping they can develop some deeper understanding of the opposite perspective, and that they can shift from a battle mentality to a collaborative mentality. I’d like to hear from liberals and conservatives, U.S. citizens and people from around the world, Gen Z to Greatest Generation-ers, and everyone else. My only ask is that you also adopt the core principles of respect, dignity, and attempted understanding for all.
What to expect
I work full-time as an engineer and I am married with a toddler. As much as I wish I could spend whole days putting my thoughts down in words, I also cherish my time with my family. I hope to get one medium-to-long long post up each week, either reflecting on something in the news or discussing concepts related to humanism, psychology, anti-racism or systems thinking. I don’t plan to ever charge for this, so I don’t think there’s any difference between the “free emails” and “subscribing,” but I’m not entirely sure. If the comment threads have some life to them, I might experiment with the Open Thread feature. I am all ears for what any subscriber would like to discuss here! Again, thank you so much for jumping in with me. Here we go.
Addendum: I have decided not to capitalize “black” or “white” on this site. It is not out of disrespect to anyone. While many ethnic group names are references to geographic regions that are capitalized (“African American,” “Hispanic,” “Irish”), “black” and “white” are both color-based labels that were developed to crudely distinguish between groups of people for the purposes of othering and creating a racial hierarchy, not for recognizing ethnic origins or honoring cultural communities. I acknowledge that even though race is a social construct, it’s likely here to stay. But I worry that by capitalizing black and white, we will continue to calcify and reify racial groupings instead of challenging their validity. Until Spring of 2020, few people took issue with lower case b and w. Initial changes to writing standards which capitalized “black” but not “brown” or “white” felt awkward and inflammatory. Capitalizing “white” feels uncomfortable and inappropriate, as it has so long been associated with white supremacists and white nationalists. I recognize and understand that being black is a substantial part of many people’s identity. I’m not opposed to others capitalizing one or both, but I am sticking with lowercase for now. I reserve the right to change my opinion later and I am open to convincing arguments!
