Read on Twitter
1/ For reasons that are probably obvious, I got curious about this term “neoracism” and how it worked its way into the vernacular of certain Ivy League professors trying to sell their substack books. After a little digging, here’s what I found out! (it’s a long one, sorry!)
2/ Before 2018, neoracism referred to things like anti-muslim policies, modern day antiblackness, and other things that could be described as 21st century racism. Some continue to use it this way, but the overwhelming majority don’t.
3/ Today, neoracism appears to be either synonymous with reverse racism or the idea that anti-racism is condescending - i.e., a term used by anti-anti-racists to do the ol’ switcheroo and say, “I’m rubber and you’re glue” to people trying to accomplish racial justice.
4/The redefinition & aggressive spamming of the word neoracism is a way to take the momentum of antiracism and try to turn it around, to halt social progress. It is a rhetorically destructive act, a coopting of the language of social justice movements in order to puncture them. https://twitter.com/caitlinmoriah/status/1354560021468647427
5/ So where did it come from? A lot of people on Twitter credit James Lindsay, but he only started using it this month. More people credit a woman named Jodi Shaw. She’s not the first to use it this way, but she’s the first high profile person.
6/ (the first context where I can see this new reverse meaning is actually in reference to South Africa, but it’s in 2016, years away from Jodi Shaw running with it, so it seems like they probably didn’t influence her)
7/ So who is Jodi Shaw? She’s a “whistleblower” who needs us all to understand that she’s being oppressed because her workplace is forcing her to *checks notes* think about racism sometimes. I read a transcript of her first video because I didn’t feel like listening to this:
8/ truly she plays all the hits: nobody is talking about [thing nobody will shut up about], it’s unfair to ask white people to do work to address [problem white people created], how dare you accuse white women of upholding [system white women are all over], it’s magnificent
9/ she really has been on a media tour of the worst corners of the IDW and anti-woke web to peddle her grievance
funny all this insistence that she’s going to be demonized for speaking out, I haven’t heard word one from anyone but fawning right wing profiles of her courage
funny all this insistence that she’s going to be demonized for speaking out, I haven’t heard word one from anyone but fawning right wing profiles of her courage
10/ So this brave whistleblower has been tweeting about neoracism since November 2020, so not that long! But she’s never interacted with McWhorter, so how did it get to him?
11/ Well, something else was happening with the term, a grassroots movement, if you will. People who follow all the usual suspects (including jimmy concepts fans) were commenting and retweeting stuff with this word, every chance they got, as early as June!
12/Jim caught on and did what he always does with a new buzzword - he put it in his patented Concept Blender
and ran it into the ground
note again the confusion between whether it means racism against white ppl or anti-racism as condescending to POC. Whatever it is, it’s evil
and ran it into the groundnote again the confusion between whether it means racism against white ppl or anti-racism as condescending to POC. Whatever it is, it’s evil
13/ in fact he’s taken to just yelling the word at stuff he doesn’t like
14/ and all the usual suspects have noticed and started using it too, granting us this delightful opportunity to follow the word up through the human centipede of ideas
15/So maybe prestigious profs happen to have come up with this term at the exact time that Shaw and the conceptual crew blew it up, but the simpler explanation is that this is an example of the way more academically established folks are taking their cues from...
...and appealing to the fanbase of the same people they’re trying (and often failing) to distance themselves from, the too-obvious anti-woke crowd, the conceptual conspiracy types. Watching a term travel through circles can help reveal who’s getting ideas where. Fun with words!
