Commonalities Between Woke Culture and Religion

From a recent article by psychologist Valerie Tarico titled, "The Righteous and the Woke – Why Evangelicals and Social Justice Warriors Trigger Me in the Same Way."

It occurred to me recently that my time in Evangelicalism and subsequent journey out have a lot to do with why I find myself reactive to the spread of Woke culture among colleagues, political soulmates, and friends. Christianity takes many forms, with Evangelicalism being one of the more single-minded, dogmatic, groupish and enthusiastic among them. The Woke—meaning progressives who have “awoken” to the idea that oppression is the key concept explaining the structure of society, the flow of history, and virtually all of humanity’s woes—share these qualities.To a former Evangelical, something feels too familiar—or better said, a bunch of somethings feel too familiar.

Tarico then lays out many of the similarities in detail. The similarities include:

Righteous and infidels

Insider jargon

Born that way

Original sin

Orthodoxies

Denial as proof

Black and white thinking

Shaming and shunning

Selective science denial

Evangelism

Hypocrisy

Gloating about the fate of the wicked

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Missouri Republican Politicians Attempt to Commit Fraud on Gerrymandering Ballot Measure: Slapped Down by Court

Excellent court ruling today on the upcoming Missouri proposed Amendment, as reported by "No on 3," which opposes this upcoming ballot measure (because it unravels anti-gerrymandering provisions Missouri voters overwhelmingly approved two years ago). The court scolded the Republicans who crafted the ballot language. The court then rewrote the ballot language. The judge ruled that the Republican proposed language was “misleading, unfair, and insufficient.” In making this ruling, Judge Patricia Joyce prevented a massive fraud on Missouri citizens.

"No on 3" spokesperson Sean Soendker Nicholson sums it up:

Politicians may lie to our faces about what they’re trying to do with Amendment 3, but they can’t lie in what appears on the ballot,” said Sean Soendker Nicholson, Campaign Director for the No on Amendment 3 campaign. “Everyone needs to understand that politicians are trying to trick voters by hiding a deceptive gerrymandering plan in the state constitution. The whole goal of their plan is to protect incumbent politicians in rigged maps drawn in back rooms by lobbyists and political operatives.

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Life in a Woke Upscale Progressive Private School

How are things going in one upscale private progressive school in NY for the children of a Jewish woman and her Black husband?  This is an excerpt from "My Kids and Their Elite Education in Racism: How Rye Country Day School reflects the madness of our times," by Naomi Schaefer Riley:

I fear that the message currently emanating from teachers and administrators and politicians and pundits will harm [ ] relationships. The new anti-racism, with its endless cycles of victimization and demands for reparations—as opposed to the model of teaching people to aspire to colorblindness and providing everyone with equal opportunity—requires all of us (and children in particular) to see race all the time. This new model will turn what would otherwise be ordinary, healthy relationships—friendships, even—into dramas with racially defined roles for all the characters.

The good people of my community and others around the country are told that no matter how welcoming they are, how well they treat others, there is nothing they can do to make up for systemic racism. Will they begin to fret over every interaction, fearing that they could say or do the wrong thing? . . .

I worry that the message is already trickling down. Advice columns in recent years have featured parents asking whether it’s okay for them to adopt children of another race, or whether people can ever truly understand someone of another race enough to marry that person, or whether it wouldn’t be easier for same-sex couples to use the white partner’s egg so as not to have the insurmountable task of handling a black child. Could white supremacists of 50 years ago have dared to dream of such attitudes among people who call themselves liberals?

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Government-Enforced Racial Pseudo-Education and Compelled Speech at Sandia National Laboratories

Compelled speech is increasingly being portrayed as "education." A recent illustration has come to light. Last year, Sandia National Laboratories sent its executives to reeducation camp: The training materials and the context for the training were reported by Christopher Rufo, a filmmaker, writer, and policy researcher. On his website, Rufo states (and I agree):

It’s time to expose this taxpayer-funded pseudoscience and rally the White House and legislators to stop these deeply divisive training sessions. My goal is simple: we must pass legislation to “abolish critical race theory” in the federal government. Let’s push as far as we can.
Under economic threat (the potential threat to employment that would be felt by any employee asked to attend), this camp required the employees to listen to, and in many cases publicly acknowledge, racist and sexist absurdities, including the following:

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Seattle Office of Civil Rights About to Be Sued for Unapologetic Racism

It's the year 2020 and Christopher Rufo is about to file a civil rights complaint against Seattle's Office of Civil Rights. No, you didn't misunderstand me.

Rufo is the director of the Discovery Institute’s Center on Wealth & Poverty. He’s directed four documentaries for PBS and is currently a contributing editor for City Journal, where he covers homelessness, addiction, mental illness, crime, and other afflictions.  He explains:

Seattle’s Office of Civil Rights has developed a “race and social justice” curriculum for all 10,000 city employees.

I’ve obtained new documents from the city’s segregated “whites-only” trainings, which induct white employees into the cult of critical race theory.

The trainers require white employees to examine their “relationships with white supremacy, racism, and whiteness” and explain how their “[families] benefit economically from the system of white supremacy even as it directly and violently harms Black people.”

Under the banner of “antiracism,” Seattle’s Office of Civil Rights is now explicitly endorsing principles of segregationism, group-based guilt, and race essentialism—ugly concepts that should have been left behind a century ago.

Rufo has posted the training documents used by the Office on his website.

Here's a sample from the training material:

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