Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews

by David L. Bernstein

Cancellation became a regular feature of social discourse. It occurs in tiny increments, in “micro-cancellations”—subtle, everyday tactics that shut people down. Micro-cancellations short-circuit authentic self-expression and result in fear-invoked self-censorship. More so than the high profile acts we hear about on the Bill Maher show, micro-cancellations—the subtle rebukes, the sneering rhetoric, the pervasive snark, the critiques not of argument but of character—generate the fetid “culture” in “cancel culture.” How did all of this censoriousness come about? In the highly emotional moment following the Floyd murder, those already advocating for a racial reckoning aggressively intervened in societal institutions. Longstanding demands for “action” were finally met. Commitments were made to do things differently. The Equity Review was set into motion. The DEI program that the CEO never wanted was placed on the calendar. The anti-racist audit was conducted. New people were hired to make sure that the organization lived up to its myriad commitments, and people in power deferred to these voices on matters of diversity. Shrill voices on social media were now unencumbered. Demands that people were fired led to people actually getting fired without so much as a hearing. This all provided a permission structure for a kind of incessant bullying by progressive activists.