Thank you for this. It's both a good story and a helpful background for understanding this blog. I admit, when I originally read, "waking up from woke" that it felt like you were avoiding some of the harder issues (that isn't a perfect description, but captures some of my response), and this gives me much more of a sense that you were trying to course-correct.
FWIW, it sounds like you've gone a lot further in trying to act on your theories than I have, or than most people have. There's a tone of ruefulness in this post, which makes sense, but also pride in what woke @ work meant to people, and I think that pride is well deserved.
If I can recommend a book, that might be too much of a tangent, but might interest you.
I often think about _Girls To The Front_ by Sarah Marcus ("The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution"), as an interesting case study in the challenges of creating change. In that case there's the incredible explosion of creative and political energy, driven mostly by people in their teens and twenties, and that is liberating but it also means that nobody has much perspective on how to build something that will sustain itself and, not surprisingly, the the "revolution" fractures and runs out of energy in various ways.
The book doesn't try to analyze that, or offer a perspective on how it could have happened differently; and I don't know that it could have. But I read it and found myself thinking about, "what does it look like build a group who is more resistant to fractures and more capable of understanding institutions as well as being outsiders?"
That book might resonate with me just because I know a number of musicians in my broader social circle (not the most organized people, in general, but also very attuned to the importance of building community). But reading your story I find myself thinking about those same questions -- you were trying to build something that could include a large number of people and a large number of different experiences and concerns and the obvious resources you had to draw from -- indicated by the various links throughout the piece -- aren't necessarily guides to how to do that.
That isn't a criticism of the people writing about anti-racism. The skills of being a good writer or a good critic are different skills than being a good community organizer (and I say this knowing that I am not a good community organizer; but I have some sense of what it looks like done well). But I think it's worth thinking about those as two separate skills to cultivate.
Thank you for sharing your personal experiences, they are valuable for all of us, no matter where we are on these contentious issues.
On wokeism as a religion, I recommend this long-term historical analysis:
https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/are-we-in-a-500-year-religious-revolution
That was a fascinating read about the longer history of Christian reforms, and the “suburban white lady” he describes is (was?) definitely me. 😬
Thank you for this. It's both a good story and a helpful background for understanding this blog. I admit, when I originally read, "waking up from woke" that it felt like you were avoiding some of the harder issues (that isn't a perfect description, but captures some of my response), and this gives me much more of a sense that you were trying to course-correct.
FWIW, it sounds like you've gone a lot further in trying to act on your theories than I have, or than most people have. There's a tone of ruefulness in this post, which makes sense, but also pride in what woke @ work meant to people, and I think that pride is well deserved.
If I can recommend a book, that might be too much of a tangent, but might interest you.
I often think about _Girls To The Front_ by Sarah Marcus ("The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution"), as an interesting case study in the challenges of creating change. In that case there's the incredible explosion of creative and political energy, driven mostly by people in their teens and twenties, and that is liberating but it also means that nobody has much perspective on how to build something that will sustain itself and, not surprisingly, the the "revolution" fractures and runs out of energy in various ways.
The book doesn't try to analyze that, or offer a perspective on how it could have happened differently; and I don't know that it could have. But I read it and found myself thinking about, "what does it look like build a group who is more resistant to fractures and more capable of understanding institutions as well as being outsiders?"
That book might resonate with me just because I know a number of musicians in my broader social circle (not the most organized people, in general, but also very attuned to the importance of building community). But reading your story I find myself thinking about those same questions -- you were trying to build something that could include a large number of people and a large number of different experiences and concerns and the obvious resources you had to draw from -- indicated by the various links throughout the piece -- aren't necessarily guides to how to do that.
That isn't a criticism of the people writing about anti-racism. The skills of being a good writer or a good critic are different skills than being a good community organizer (and I say this knowing that I am not a good community organizer; but I have some sense of what it looks like done well). But I think it's worth thinking about those as two separate skills to cultivate.