Whither Woke Culture in an Era of Pandemic?

What effect might this plague have on the Left’s pampered soy boys and pussy-hat feminists?

Last week, in the New York Post, Kyle Smith made a thoughtful argument that, in the COVID-19 era, “the woke virus,” too, “is spreading faster than ever.” He quoted a statement on Twitter by actress Fran Drescher that the Chinese virus is a product of capitalism; he noted the “vomitatious ‘Imagine’ video praising open borders, socialism and atheism” that was posted online by Gal Gadot and other C-list celebrities in response to the pandemic; and he cited inane claims by various activists that the coronavirus disproportionately disadvantages women or people of color. “Next year,” Smith concluded, “there will probably be a vaccine for coronavirus. But there will never be an inoculation for woke stupidity.”

He may be right. But during these strange weeks when all the world has been united in being apart, I’ve kept nourishing the hope that woke culture may turn out to be one of the casualties of this plague. In fact I’ve pretty much talked myself into believing that it will be. After all, what could more effectively expose the absurdity of the concept of microaggressions than a macroaggression on the scale of the coronavirus? When an increasing number of Americans are infected by a very real and malignant corporeal contagion, how many people are going to keep buying the leftist fiction that no country on earth is more riddled with the contagion of prejudice than the United States? In a time when we’re all “social distancing” to save our skins, who will dare to carry on about the need for “safe spaces” as protection from mere words?

If the religion of intersectionality survives the pandemic, how can its adherents not come to discern that if there are indeed legitimate victim groups in twenty-first-century America, they’re not women or gays or Muslims or racial minorities but the old and infirm? (Unless, of course, you’re talking about the Christians, Jews, Hindus, women, gays, and others who are the victims of systematic Islamic oppression.) And what about the whole “trans” business – the insistence that men can become women, that women can become men, that there are more than two sexes, and that sexual identity is determined not by chromosomes but by how a given individual feels on a given day? Not only do some of these contentions contradict others – they all defy biology. And when everyone on the planet is preoccupied with a virus, biology is one thing that’s very hard to deny. If a lethal contagion came along that took down only men but not women, who would be more worried for his or her own life – a biological man who identified as a woman or a biological woman who identified as a man?

New York Times: Chinese Virus, Boeing, Australia 
Weather: Your Tuesday Briefing

To be sure, as Kyle Smith points out, the mainstream media are still playing the same old tune. For example, they charge that calling the Chinese virus the Chinese virus is racist. On March 18, the New York Times ran a ridiculous piece that was presented as a news article and credited to no fewer than three reporters – Katie Rogers, Lara Jakes, and Ana Swanson. Its lede read as follows: “President Trump on Wednesday defended his increasingly frequent practice of calling the coronavirus the ‘Chinese Virus,’ ignoring a growing chorus of criticism that it is racist and anti-Chinese.” Trump’s continued use of this term, we were informed, “has angered Chinese officials and a wide range of critics, and China experts say labeling the virus that way will only ratchet up tensions between the two countries, while resulting in the kind of xenophobia that American leaders should discourage.” Naturally, the article (which failed to acknowledge that the Times itself had used the term “Chinese virus” in a January 20 headline) went on to claim that Trump’s word choice had made Asian-Americans the targets of “racial slurs and physical abuse.”

Read the rest from Bruce Bawer HERE.

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