And that makes three.
France, Britain, and now Canada have come out publicly questioning — and opposing — American critical race theory and wokeness.
This would seem to be an important development. For more than a century, through two world wars and the Cold War, Britain and Canada have been among America’s staunchest allies. France has been a bit less staunch, but we did liberate them from the Nazis, working with the French Resistance to sabotage and undermine the evil regime from within while our troops pummeled them from without. The United States and France have been on the same side on most issues over the years, even if we haven’t always seen entirely eye to eye.
France went first in taking on American wokeness. No less than President Emmanuel Macron, a man of the left, criticized wokeness as a threat to the fabric of French society.
In a speech in October on the ‘Fight against Separatism’, Macron warned against leaving ‘the intellectual debate to others’ as he cautioned of the ‘certain social science theories entirely imported from the United States’.
His education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer also warned in October that there is a ‘battle to wage against an intellectual matrix from American universities’.
Britain weighed in right around the same time. Member of Parliament Kemi Badenoch, a Conservative who is black, hammered CRT and said teaching it is illegal in public schools.
“Any school which teaches these elements of political race theory as fact, or which promotes partisan political views such as defunding the police without offering a balanced treatment of opposing views, is breaking the law,” she said.
She added that schools have a statutory duty to remain politically impartial and should not openly support “the anti-capitalist Black Lives Matter group”.
Badenoch was speaking in response to Labour MP Dawn Butler, who had told the Commons that black children are made to feel inferior by what they are taught in school and history “needs to be decolonised”.
If you haven’t seen Badenoch’s speech, it’s a must-watch. She destroys CRT and its proponents, and for good measure, also rips Black Lives Matter and the movement to defund the police.
That was back in October. Wokeness has arguably gotten worse in the United States since then, with the likes of Dr. Seuss canceled by a cabal that originates in the far-left Loudon County, Va., public schools. Those same activists, teachers, and public officials have been exposed plotting to destroy parents who even question CRT. Even some on the left including Bill Maher and Sarah Silverman are questioning it.
Tellingly, no Democrats in power are. The Biden administration is pushing wokeness at a breakneck pace even into the military.
It shouldn’t pass without noting that all of these allies and many more rely on America’s military for their own national security. Our weakness will become theirs, and they will not stand still.
Now Canada is questioning wokeness according to Campus Reform.
Joining top officials from across the globe, the Premier of Quebec wrote about the dangers of academic ideologies from the United States and promised to protect free expression.
In a Feb. 13 statement, Premier Francois Legault wrote that “a handful of radical activists can be seen trying to censor some words and works” in academia.
“We see a movement coming from the United States and frankly, I don’t think it’s like us,” he explained. “What’s really disturbing is that more and more people are feeling intimidated. They feel forced to self-censure, lest they get insulted and expose in the public square.”
American society has become an exercise in walking on eggshells. Deplatformings and cancelings seem to happen every single day, even to people who’ve done nothing more than speak about facts in a work meeting. Canceling has spread to engulf the “cancel adjacent,” such as former Bachelor host Chris Harrison. Disney fired actress Gina Carano and it’s still vindictively canceling her. Carano was set to appear on an adventure show with Bear Grylls, and the episode has already been filmed. But We Got This Covered reports that Disney has removed that episode from the show’s schedule.
The Biden administration and Democrats elsewhere seem to be capitalizing on wokeness to try to force all conservatives out of polite society. They want total power. But revolutions have a way of eating those who believe they can use them.
Our allies are seeing this and apparently want to stop it before it divides their countries too. Who can blame them? Wokeness is toxic to everything from freedom of expression to family relationships.
Legault added that canceling authors and professors “is going too far” and that the “situation is slip[p]ing.”
“While it can be healthy to question certain conceptions or behaviours and to avoid shock or injury, we must not sacrifice our freedom of expression,” he said. “Freedom of expression is one of the pillars of our democracy. If we start compromising on this, we risk seeing the same censorship overflow in our media, in our political debates. We won’t mean anything anymore. No one will dare to talk about immigration, for example, if every time we talk about this, we get screamed nonsense. Nobody wants that. Not me, anyway.”
Evidently he’s been directly confronted with a woke. That’s how they act. If you confront them with facts and logic, they respond with nonsense, plus screaming if they can get away with it. It’s not discourse, it’s just bullying.
Joe Biden pitched himself as a moderate alternative to socialist Bernie Sanders, and a more even-tempered pol who would behave better than Donald Trump. The presidential product he is delivering is the least transparent administration the country has had in decades and the most woke administration in U.S. history. Even this far-left Guardian columnist is loving what Biden is selling now.
Stateside, it’s not just conservatives. Independents such as Glenn Greenwald and figures like Bill Maher and Sarah Silverman are speaking out. Asian-Americans are blasting wokeness for being racist — against them.
The Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York (CACAGNY) put out an open letter Tuesday on critical race theory slamming organizations and thought leaders that have embraced the concept, such as Ibram X. Kendi and The New York Times’ “1619 Project.” CACAGNY ended its letter with a call to action, urging parents to fight critical race theory in school and voters to elect politicians who oppose it.
“CRT appears in our workplaces under the cover of implicit bias/sensitivity training. It infiltrates our schools pretending to be culturally/ethnically responsive pedagogy, with curricula such as the New York Times’ 1619 Project and Seattle’s ethnomathematics. Hate groups, with allies in politics, the press and education, pass CRT off as anti-racism and diversity, equity and inclusion, but CRT is exactly the opposite. From its very roots, CRT is racist, repressive, discriminatory, and divisive,” the letter says.
…
The letter goes on to assert that “education is the main area where CRT attacked” Chinese-Americans. “CRT, naturally, demands automatic preferences for Blacks in admissions to selective institutions and programs. That is unacceptable to us: such racial preferences come at the expense of our children, at the expense of academic standards, and at the expense of basic fairness.”
The governments questioning American wokeness aren’t international versions of some old-school Mississipi governor when the Jim Crow Democrats reigned. Macron is on the left, Canada’s conservatives are consistently to the left of American conservatives, and Britain’s conservatives would be moderate Democrats in U.S. politics. But they’re all united in questioning where wokeness will ultimately lead, and issuing strong warnings about it.
To be fair, these countries have their own domestic free speech issues. The British routinely prosecute what they deem “hate speech” with actual police investigations and trials. The Canadians infamously put Ezra Levant through a show trial several years ago. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a leftist clown most of the time.
But still…these countries, our allies for more than a century through some of history’s greatest conflicts, are warning themselves about a toxin originating on our shores, on our campuses, and in our corporate boardrooms. They sound more and more like they’re describing some Soviet infiltration and they’re not wrong, though Beijing, not Moscow, is more likely connected if any hostile foreign government is. Wokeness is obviously a threat to free speech and free thought. Left unchecked, it may begin damaging our relationships with our allies.
Wasn’t Joe Biden supposed to restore America’s standing in the world? Is he or anyone around him paying heed to what our key allies are saying, about anything?
