Last Wednesday, Jodi Shaw received a Hero of Intellectual Freedom Award – and got to rap on-stage in NYC, four years after Smith College told her she couldn’t because rapping while white was racist.
The freedom to rap while white is a form of free speech it has never occurred to me to pursue, but something Jodi said struck me.
“These terms are never defined … It’s just ‘social justice’.”
“And you’re afraid to ask,” she added, because “that might put a spotlight on you,” and people will think you are racist … According to Shaw, there was an “ever-present terror” at Smith “that any unverified student allegation of racism, or any other ‘-ism,’ has the power to crush our reputations, ruin our livelihood, and even endanger the physical safety of ourselves or our family members.”
It’s not the first time a movement has refused to define its central idea.
Himmler issued strict orders to issue no definition of the term ‘Jew’ “because with all these foolish commitments we will only be tying our hands.” (referenced and discussed in ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism’ by Hannah Arendt)
Identify a respected institution. Kill it. Gut it. Wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect. I’ve seen that spot-on description of how the woke operate applied so many times – to institutions. But it’s just as true of ideas. Totalitarians always gut the ideas they proclaim of all actual meaning. The woke wear the murdered carcass of words like racism (structural racism) or justice (social justice) as a skin suit, while demanding respect.