Where 'Woke' Still Thrives
Enter indie music
Social justice politics, or woke, is on the decline. The anti-woke faction, too committed to an endless culture war, cannot acknowledge this while the woke, rather tirelessly, still fail to acknowledge there was a significant shift in how identity politics was regarded in the 2010s and 2020. Marking the decline is easy enough. MeToo has lost clear momentum, Black Lives Matter is increasingly irrelevant, fewer are shouting about defunding the police, Ibram X. Kendi’s institute is in ruins, and the DEI industry, writ large, is contracting. The New York Times is no longer bowing to their activist employees and freelancers. The writer Freddie Deboer pointed to one glaring example: the Times publishing an op-ed from a powerful man who was ousted from Amazon over sexual harassment claims and so few online commentators actually caring. Exhibit B might be Scott Stringer, back from his own MeToo scandal, running for mayor again with relatively little pushback. Elon Musk’s Twitter, or X, has sapped much of the digital energy from social justice politics, and social media itself, glitchier and uglier than it once was, is no longer conducive for political organizing. Since Joe Biden’s election, the culture has cooled; this was inevitable. The summer of 2020 was woke’s Icarus moment. You don’t fly that high indefinitely. The anti-woke will furiously reply that certain identity-obsessed administrators rule the roost in the arts and academia, and this is true. More importantly, though, more people in positions of power are reaching a healthy balance, seeking to diversify their ranks without making as many empty gestures. I expect, in the next few years, for there to be fewer land acknowledgements and Robin DiAngelo book assignments.
Social justice politics persists—just largely beyond the corridors of power. Amazon and Nike never released “Palestinian Lives Matter” statements and Columbia University crushed a Jewish Voice for Peace chapter. But within certain left-liberal and progressive spaces, pro-Palestine politics are the new BLM. The implosion of Guernica magazine—volunteer editors resigning over an essay that was perceived as too pro-Israel—is evidence that 2010s-style debate isn’t dead yet. Another is the curious case of an indie rock musician who may have been canceled in the kind of MeToo scandal that no longer has much currency in the political world or even mainstream media.
If the musician survives the scandal, MeToo might be finished. If he doesn’t, it lives on, at least in the arts. What happens next will be instructive.