SN Soc Sci (2024) 4:90

https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-024-00886-w
ORIGINAL PAPER

The ‘Woke’ way or the highway: American democracy in

the age of ‘Wokism’ and ‘Cancel Culture’

Nguh Nwei Asanga Fon1

Received: 12 October 2022 / Accepted: 2 April 2024 / Published online: 15 April 2024
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024

Abstract
This paper explores the emergence and proliferation of Wokism and Cancel culture
in the context of democracy. It traces the origins and evolution of the aforemen-
tioned concepts and their contemporary application through the conceptual frame-
work of concept appropriation. The key finding is that the current discussions on
racism and social justice are significantly dependent in the way concepts like
‘Whiteness’ and ‘Blackness’ are interpreted. This enquiry reveals a tendency to
conflate ‘Whiteness’ and ‘White supremacy’ and to appropriate ‘Blackness’ in
a way that creates an otherness that distinguishes African-Americans from other
members of the Black race. It also identifies the dangers of Wokism and Cancel
culture to democracy like impediment to the rule of law and free speech. The major
contribution of this paper is the utility of concept appropriation in explaining how
ambiguous and benign concepts can be employed to re-characterize racialization
and influence the understanding of race relations.

Keywords Democracy � Wokism � Cancel culture � Social justice � Whiteness �

Blackness

Introduction

Freedom of speech is one of the cardinal values and vital signs of a healthy
democracy. It is a sacrosanct principle enshrined in the constitution of any true
democratic polity. The 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution, and
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights respectively, underscore
the right of a citizen and human beings to freely express themselves in society.
However, the advent of ‘Wokism’ and ‘Cancel Culture’ seems to pose a threat to the

✉ Nguh Nwei Asanga Fon

18600085@emu.edu.tr

1
Department of Political Science and International Relations, Eastern Mediterranean University
(EMU), Famagusta, North Cyprus
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free expression of opinions, or views and sentiments that goes at odds with the
reigning orthodoxy in civic space.
Etymologically, ‘Wokism’ and ‘Cancel Culture’ are not a 21st Century invention.
Though ‘Woke’ as a concept that represents “active awareness of systemic injus-
tices and prejudices, especially those related to civil and human rights” (Dictionary.
com 2021) entered the English lexicon in 2017, it was already popular in African
American culture decades before then. Its figurative use as a reference for being
well-informed, aware, or awakened began in the 1960s (Steinmetz 2017).
Grammatically, the word ‘Woke’ simply represents the simple past tense of the
word ‘wake’. Ipso facto, one can be figuratively woke (aware, well-informed, or
awakened) to anything he values or cherishes. Chances are, everyone is woke to
something. Therefore, ‘wokeness’ in its original sense is benign, apolitical, acul-
tural, and non-religious. However, it appears evident from the contemporary sig-
nificance that woke and wokeness has gone through an etymological transformation
to become what it is today.
Just like ‘Woke’, ‘Cancel Culture’ made its English dictionary debut in 2017.
According to the Collins English Dictionary, the term ‘Cancel Culture’ refers to “a
social climate in which a person, organization, etc is likely to be ostracized in
response to a perceived wrongdoing”. Cancel culture is etymologically linked to
African-American Culture with the first reference to cancelling a person used by
renown African-American actor Wesley Snipes in the movie “New Jack City”,
which premiered in 1991. The movie carries a scene where Nino Brown (the
character played by Snipes) says (with reference to his girlfriend’s disapproval of
his violent attitude): “Cancel that [woman]. I’ll buy another one,” (Dudenhoefer
2020). The concept can also be said to be remotely connected to the practice of
boycotting which was used by the Irish in the late 19th Century and the civil rights
movement prominently Rosa Parks’ Montgomery bus boycott (Ibid).
Though ‘Wokism’ and ‘Cancel Culture’ etymologically and historically bears the
ethos of social justice, and accountability, their contemporary conception and
practice seems largely divorce from this ethos. There seems to have been nefar-
iously transformed through what I call ‘concept appropriation’ and weaponized as
a means to silence dissent and impose a certain orthodoxy of opinion and under-
standing in society. This paper probes into the controversy surrounding ‘Wokism’
and ‘Cancel Culture’, and contends for the need to strike a fair balance between the
pursuit of social justice and the preservation of free speech.

Methodology

Methodologically speaking, this paper employs qualitative secondary analysis

(QSA) to examine the interplay between wokism, cancel culture, and democracy.
It relies extensively on secondary sources, especially journal articles and books to
analysis wokeness from the framework of concept appropriation. The choice of
QSA is based on the fact that there a growing amount of literature, especially online
publications, that talks about the various key elements in the paper: wokeness,
cancel culture, racism, and race-relations from a separate context. This paper
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basically uses a conceptual tool (concept appropriation) to fit the various elements
together in order to understand the effect wokism and cancel culture has on
democracy.
In terms of limitation, it must be acknowledged here that an exploration of
primary sources, especially questionnaire-based survey and interviews would
further corroborate the finding obtained from the qualitative source analysis.

Concept appropriation

To understand the contemporary manifestations and impact of the aforementioned

concepts, it is imperative to explain the phenomenon of ‘concept appropriation’.
‘Concept appropriation’ is a term I have used to explain the instrumentalization
or weaponization of originally benign and etymologically apolitical, acultural, and
non-religious concepts for ideological and political ends. A glaring example of
concept appropriation is the use of the slogan, ‘America First’. According to Sarah
Churchwell, the slogan ‘America First’ traces its etymology to 1884 when it was
used as form of economic nationalism by a California newspaper which ran
a headline entitled “America First and Always” in an article about fighting trade
wars with Britain. It was later adopted by the Republican party as a campaign
slogan in 1894 with the connotations of American nationalism—“America first; the
rest of the world afterward”. (Churchwell 2018).
The slogan came to national limelight in 1915 when it was employed by former
US President Woodrow Wilson as a catchphrase for his argument for America’s
neutrality in the First World War (Diamond 2018). Churchwell however points out
that the slogan was conceptually appropriated by white supremacists in the 1920s
when the Klan adopted it and gave it a racist connotation by associating it with the
nativist and white nationalist catchphrase “100% American” and “Nordic”. She
points out that:
In January 1922, the Klan staged a parade in Alexandria, Louisiana, bearing
two flaming red crosses and banners with slogans including “America First”,
“100% American” and “White Supremacy”. That summer the Klan took out
an advertisement in a Texas newspaper: “The Ku Klux Klan is the one and
only organization composed absolutely and exclusively of ONE HUNDRED
PER CENT AMERICANS who place AMERICA FIRST.” (Churchwell 2018)
Wilson was treading a very fine line, where there were genuine and legitimate
conflicting interests. He said he thought America would be first, not in the selfish
spirit, but first to be in Europe to help whichever side won. Not to take sides, but to
be there to promote justice and to help rebuild after the conflict. That was what he
was trying to say in 1915 (Diamond 2018).
While the slogan ‘America First’ fundamentally emerged as a catchphrase for
neutrality and responsibility, nationalism, and patriotism, it was at some point of its
etymological evolution appropriated by white supremacists to promote their racist
agenda. This has transformed the slogan to a subject of controversy and hair-
splitting debates every time it is evoked given the kaleidoscopic connotation and
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interpretations it generates. Be it as it may, the idea here is to illustrate the notion of

concept appropriation which is based on the fact that some concepts are ambiguous
in their basic interpretation and can be appropriated at different times for various
ends by adapting or altering their connotations or re-conceptualizing them to derive
new meanings.
The above background provides a framework to analyse how concepts like
‘Whiteness’ and ‘Blackness’ can be appropriated by Wokism to become key issues
when it comes to alertness to racism and social justice.

Whiteness

The advent of critical race theory and its recent proliferation in the American school
system, the gruesome death of George Floyd after a vicious police arrest and the
global social justice protest it engendered (“Back Lives Matters”) in the summer of
2020 revived activism against racism. At the core of most anti-racism activism
spearheaded by social justice movements and advocacy groups like ‘Black Live
Matters’ is a revolt against ‘whiteness’. But what is ‘whiteness’ and why is it so
pernicious and repugnant?
Ordinarily, ‘whiteness’ refers to “the fact or state of belonging to a population
group that has light pigmentation of the skin: the fact or state of being white”
(Merriam-Webster n.d.a, n.d.b). Therefore, one will expect ‘whiteness’ as
a concept to relate to racial identity based on colour pigmentation. However,
most prevailing conceptualization of ‘whiteness’ shows a conflation of ‘white-
ness’ and ‘white supremacy’. According to the National Museum of African
American History and Culture (NMAAHC), “Whiteness and white racialized
identity refer to the way that white people, their customs, culture, and beliefs
operate as the standard by which all other groups are compared.” (NMAAHC
2021); the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Center (ACLRC) defines ‘whiteness’
as “a dominant cultural space with enormous political significance, with the
purpose to keep others on the margin” (ACLRC 2021); Gopal (2020) sees ‘white-
ness’ as “a set of ideas and practices about race that has emerged from a bedrock
of white supremacy, itself the legacy of empire and slavery”; Carter et al. (2007,
p. 152) define ‘whiteness’ in the following terms: “a hegemonic system that
perpetuates certain dominant ideologies about who receives power and privilege.
Whiteness maintains itself in cultures through power dynamics within language,
religion, class, race relations, sexual orientation, etc.”.
The aforementioned conceptualization of ‘whiteness’ appears slanted and preg-
nant with incongruities. Conceptualizing ‘whiteness’ with the tropes of ‘white
supremacy’ tacitly affirms the notion that being ‘white’ as a racial identity inher-
ently means being a ‘white supremacist’ and thereby should come with an inherent
guilt on the part of those who so identify themselves as such irrespective of their
individual character and actions. In other words, being ‘white’ comes with being
a member of a racist group that has structured social and political institutions to
perpetuate the hegemony of their racial identity (white) over others. For such
conceptualization to be empirically verified, there are two important considerations
that have to be validated:
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First, though racism may still exist, it would be an exaggeration to affirm that
systematic racism still pervades and controls core political institutions at state and
federal levels in America as it did prior to the civil rights movement of the 1950s
and 60s and the battery of reforms it engendered: The 1954 ‘Brown v. Board of
Education’ landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court abolishing racial segre-
gation in public schools; The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ending all discrimination
based on colour, race, national origin, and religion; The Voting Rights Bill that
ended the disenfranchisement of Southern Blacks and general impediments for
African Americans to exercise their voting rights; and Affirmative Action (Morris
1999; Britannica 2022; PBS 2022). The climax and most glaring symbol of this
radical transformation in the racial landscape of America is undoubtedly the elec-
tion of Barack Obama as the first black President and his two successive tenures at
the oval office. In his inaugural address before a 125,000-person crowd that
thronged Grant Park in Chicago, Obama acknowledged the civil rights milestone
when he underscored: “We have never been a collection of individuals, a collection
of red states and blue states. We are and will always be the United States of
America. Because of what we did on this day, change has come to America.”
(Glendinning 2008).
So, while pockets of resistance may still exist when it comes to racial segrega-
tion, it would be difficult to come across nationwide or state-wide systems in which
the racial identity of a ‘superior race’ trump over meritocracy, excellence, transpar-
ency, and accountability in governance. Such a phenomenon (the institutionalization
of systemic racism) will also need to be historically traced beyond anecdotes and
assumptions. Such a pursuit will also entail debunking what James Truslow Adams
termed the ‘American Dream’— “that dream of a land in which life should be better
and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or
achievement.” (Barone and Barnier 2021). Over the years, the pursuit of the
‘American Dream’ has and continues to enchant and attract people from different
countries across the globe (Burke 2016).
Statistically, the US stands out by far as the largest favourite destination for
immigrants across the globe with a total migrant population of 46.6 million people
(about one out of every five or 19% of international migrants) in 2015 (Connor and
López 2016), and 44.8 million in 2018 (Budiman 2020). In 2019, the total number
of migrants in the US quadrupled to nearly 51 million compared to a migrant
population below 12 million in 1970 (International Organization for Migration
2020) making it once more a distance leader amongst immigration recipient states
in the world. And why America? According to San Diego Immigration Law
Centre’s principal attorney and immigration law expert, Ali Golchin Esq, the
most common motivations for the influx of immigrants to the US include better
living conditions, better opportunities to find a job, a safe haven from their trouble
countries, and the opportunity to get the best education (Golchin 2015).
While there are several prominent cases of racism and racial profiling against
Blacks in recent years (The Charleston church shooting of 2015; blacks killed by
police like: Michael Brown and Eric Garner in 2014; Freddie Gray in 2015;
Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Daniel Prude, and Rayshard Brooks in 2020), it is
difficult to come across any literature that has documented (with unimpeachable
90 Page 6 of 15 SN Soc Sci (2024) 4:90

empirical evidence) systemic racism at national, federal, state or international

institutions which institutionalizes ‘white supremacy’. Racism sure exist and rears
its ugly head intermittently in various societies, but its mere existence doesn’t imply
an overall indictment of the states in which they exist and their institutions. Such
generalizations without concrete and unimpeachable empirical evidence are not
only intellectually and academically disingenuous but potentially dangerous to
race relations.
In addition, more than a century and a half after the abolition of slavery, it would
be unfair and unjust by any standard or measure of justice and good faith to judge
contemporary generations of ‘whites’ by the sins of their ancestors (assuming those
indicted come from a slave owner ancestry). Such unfounded generalization and
stigmatization of an entire race for the iniquities of some can itself be perceived as
racist and uncharacteristic of the social justice model put forward by Martin Luther
King Jr where people are judged not by the colour of their skin but the content of
their character. Racism is the outcome of an action or demonstration of character
not an indictment of a certain skin colour.
Second, there is some ambiguity when it comes to the definition of ‘whiteness’
as a racial identity. Going by the pigmentation of the skin one may be tempted to
think that every light skin person is a ‘white’ but this conception doesn’t correspond
to the existing official racial categorizations. Race classification emerged in the 19th
Century with German physician and anthropologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
who subdivided human beings into five racial categories: Ethiopian (black);
Mongolian (yellow); Caucasian (white); Malayan (brown), and American (red)
(Blumenbach and Bendyshe 1865). In the 19th Century, American anthropologist
Carleton S. Coon reclassified humanity into five categories: Australoid (Australian
Aborigine and Papuan); Negroid (Black); Caucasoid (White), Mongoloid (Oriental/
Amerindian), and Capoid (Bushmen/Hottentots) (Coon 1968). In the US, racial
categorization follows the standard on race and ethnicity set by the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) in 1997 which identifies the following races:
White – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the
Middle East, or North Africa.
Black or African American – A person having origins in any of the Black
racial groups of Africa.
American Indian or Alaska Native – A person having origins in any of the
original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and
who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment.
Asian – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East,
Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia,
China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands,
Thailand, and Vietnam.
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander – A person having origins in any of
the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands.
(United States Census Bureau 2021).
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It is therefore obvious from the aforementioned that though an Asian, American

Indian, or Native Hawaiian may possess light skin pigmentation, they are not
classified as ‘white’ in terms of racial identity in places like the US. But in
Africa and other areas of the world without formal racial categorization, a ‘white’
generally encompasses everyone with light skin pigmentation.
In a nutshell therefore while ‘whiteness’ as a skin colour or racial identification
is benign and doesn’t evoke or connote any racist implication or tendency. Through
concept appropriation, it can be racialized to stigmatized a particular group of
people who identify themselves or are categorized thus. A racialization of ‘white-
ness’ conflates it with ‘white supremacy’ as previously noted and confers on those
who so identifies (Whites) a sense of guilt of racist stigma. Shelby Steele puts it
more succinctly:
So white guilt is not a guilt of conscience; it’s not something that you get up
in the morning and say, my God, I feel guilty about what happened to black
Americans. Rather it is the fact that in relation to black Americans you lack
moral authority. You are, in fact, stigmatized as a racist, because, after all, you
have know (sic) acknowledged that your nation practiced racism explicitly for
four centuries. And, now, since the ‘60s, white Americans have been grap-
pling with the stigma, trying prove that they are not racist, to prove the
negative. (NPR 2006)
Steele goes further to explain how such stigmatization can provoke ‘virtue signal-
ling’ on the part of a ‘white’ person:
A good example is when people say one of my best friends is black. Well,
why do you say that? You say that because you’re really trying to say I’m not
a racist. I’m not what I’m stigmatized as. And the point of the book is that this
pressure that comes to whites from this stigmatization has had a tremendous
impact on our culture, our politics, our public policy in many, many ways.
(Ibid)
Another element of the racialization of ‘whiteness’ through concept appropriation,
which is closely linked to ‘white guilt’, is ‘white shame’. Shame has been described as
an “unpleasant and painful emotion, targeting the entire self” (Grzanka et al. 2020,
p. 50). Some scholars believe the appropriate response to what they perceive as ‘white
privilege’ is white shame. One of such is Samantha Vice who argues that white people
are fundamentally flawed and should feel shame for their ‘whiteness’ (Milazzo 2017).
She is among many other scholars who not only embrace shame as beneficial emotion
but prescribe it to people who are white (Ibid.). However, there are other scholars who
view this approach as counter-productive. Shannon Sullivan for instance contends,
“prescribing ‘white shame’ and ‘white guilt’ is useless, since promoting these ideas
leads to self-hate and inaction on the part of white people.” (Newton 2020, p. 46). She
further emphasises, “encouraging white people to feel ashamed of their whiteness as
a response to racial injustice implicitly caters to the hegemonic and narcissistic
interests of middle-class white people” (Ibid, 138). Negy (2020) goes even further
to categorize white shaming as a form of bullying based on prejudice and virtue
signalling. If race is a social construct as some have vigorously contended (Coates
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2013; Gannon 2016; Onwuachi-Willig 2016), then so too is the current racialization of
‘whiteness’ supposedly as an antidote to racism in the white race.

Blackness

While ‘whiteness’ has featured prominently in public conversation and academic

discussions as highlighted above, the concept of ‘Blackness’ is also a significant
part of wokism. Just like ‘whiteness’, there is a certain level of ambiguity surround-
ing ‘Blackness’ which also makes it vulnerable to concept appropriation. What is
‘Blackness’ and who is a Black’ person? Merriam Webster (n.d) dictionary defines
‘Blackness’ as “the fact or state of belonging to a population group that has dark
pigmentation of the skin”. So ordinarily one would expect the concept of
‘Blackness’ to connote an identification according to dark skin pigmentation. In
other words, a ‘Black’ person is generically someone with dark skin pigmentation.
However, blackness has also been conceptually appropriated at different moments
in history principally for racialization and otherness.
One of the most prominent examples of conceptual appropriation in terms of
racialization of blackness what was called the “one-drop rule” (known in sociology
as hypodescent). The rule holds that a single drop of ‘Black blood’ makes someone
a Black person or in sociological terms “anyone with a known Black ancestor is
considered Black” (Hickman 1997, p. 1163). This rule, which can be traced to
a 1662 Virginia Law on the treatment of individuals of mixed-race, is considered by
some as a prominent relic of the slavery and segregation era (Davis 2014;
Churchwell 2018).
Though the landmark 1967 US Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia
provided the legal right for interracial marriage between blacks, and the fact that
whites and millions of mixed-race Americans have been able to identify themselves
multiracial in recent US censuses, conceptual appropriation of ‘Blackness’ has
birthed another controversy which appears to be a flipside of one-blood rule.
There is a tendency in contemporary black community to question the blackness
of mixed-race people who want to identify themselves as blacks. Hall (2017) puts it
more unequivocally:
And unlike in the past – when many mixed-race people would try to do what
they could to pass as white – many multiracial Americans today unabashedly
embrace and celebrate their blackness.
However, these expressions of black pride have been met with grumbles by
some in the black community. These mixed-race people, some argue, are not
“black enough” – their skin isn’t dark enough, their hair not kinky enough.
And thus they do not “count” as black. African-American presidential candi-
date Ben Carson even claimed President Obama couldn’t understand “the
experience of black Americans” because he was “raised white.”
This phenomenon was corroborated by the experience of former Ebony Magazine’s
Senior Editor Jamilah Lemieux who after a “23 and Me” DNA test that revealed her
roots to be 53% White and 47% Black took to Twitter to joke about her new found
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White woman racial identity adopting the nickname “Miss Ann”. This was met with
an abusive social media backlash focused on minimizing her Blackness making her
to emerge as “a poster child for less than legitimate Blackness” (Abrams 2017).
Professor Celeste Watkins-Hayes of Northwestern University adds another layer
to this blackness conundrum by highlighting the distinction between ‘Black’ and
‘African American’. Though there is a tendency for both terms to be used inter-
changeably, Watkins-Hayes underscores “There are black people in every continent
who are all over the world,” but that “African American is nation-specific. We are
typically talking about black people who are born in the United States.” (Adams
2020). This implies not everyone in the black community may be comfortable with
the conflation of the aforementioned concepts (Black and African American).
Watkins-Hayes points to this by emphasising the raison d’etre of the adoption of
the term ‘African American’ which he saw as “very deliberate move on the part of
black communities to signify our American-ness, but also signify this African
heritage.” (Ibid.) In other words, there is a level of otherness that comes into play
here when this distinction is evoked. This means in a multicultural black commu-
nity, it is possible for some to distinguish themselves beyond the common denomi-
nator (skin colour) to a historical heritage which is exclusive from others.
The quandary of the concept appropriation of Blackness was eloquently
expressed by Johnson in his critical piece on the subject entitled Appropriating
Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity in which the author
underscores:
The title of this book suggests that “blackness” does not belong to any one
individual or group. Rather, individuals or groups appropriate this complex
and nuanced racial signifier in order to circumscribe its boundaries or to
exclude other individuals or groups. When blackness is appropriated to the
exclusion of others, identity becomes political. (Johnson 2003, p. 2–3)
A good example of the politicization of identity through the appropriation of
Blackness is the infamous comment of made by then US Presidential candidate
Joe Biden to Charlamagne tha God. During an 18-minute interview with Biden
hosted by the popular Black radio host, Biden told him “I tell you what, if you
have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t
black” (Sotomayor and Memoli 2020). This comment, which drew a lot of
criticism and an apology from the candidate, appears to project a stereotype
about Black voters in America as being confounded to a monolithic political
reasoning. Black political monotheism has been the subject of some scholarly
enquiry and empirical verification which points to the validity of identity politics
link to Blackness. White and Laird (2020) for instance argue that Black American
voters are singularly swayed by the social expectation of their kin to prioritize
Black America’s quest for equality and freedom as a group. Analysing data
collected from the 2012 American National Election Study (ANES), and
a separate study they conducted, the authors point out:
This partisan loyalty is maintained through a strategic social process that we
call racialized social constraint, where by support for the Democratic Party
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has come to be defined as a norm of group behavior. In other words,

supporting the Democratic Party has come to be understood as just something
you do as a black person, an expectation of behavior meant to empower the
racial group. (Ibid)
It is therefore obvious that Biden’s remarks to Charlamagne tha God is more of
a Freudian slip than a random gaffe given the bearing it has on the realities of Black
American votes as illustrated above. Bearing in mind the notion of concept appro-
priation, it would be important to look at a few examples of Wokism and cancel
culture in recent times.

The manifestation of ‘Wokism’

Wokism has occupied centre stage in recent times with a number of activities
mostly geared towards upholding causes that are centred on or related to the fight
against racism and social justice. Here are a few examples:

Black Lives Matters

One of the most prominent and enduring manifestation of Wokism in recent times
is beyond doubt the ‘Black Lives Matters’ protests after the horrendous murder in
police custody of George Floyd in May 2020. Video of the chilling incident in
which Floyd screamed “I can’t breathe” sent shocked waves across the spines of
onlookers and triggered a wave of protest against police brutality and racial
profiling in the US and across the globe under the slogan ‘Black Lives Matter’
(Gottbrath 2020). However, there is a tendency to conflate ‘Black Lives Matters’
as a spontaneous social movement (triggered by Floyd’s murder) towards social
justice and the fight against racial discrimination with the registered international
non-for-profit organization which also goes by the name ‘Black Lives Matters’
(BLM). While most people will be quick to take an unequivocal stand to ‘Black
Lives Matter’ as a concept of social justice and anti-racism, they may not
necessarily want to be associated or involved with BLM which has been tainted
with controversies of Marxism, the destruction of the nuclear family (Freeman
2020; Miller 2020), and the defence of looting as ‘reparations’ (Rahman 2020).

Defund the Police

Another wokish initiative that sprang up from the George Floyd incident is ‘Defund
the Police’, pushed by ‘Black Lives Matters’ activists. The whole concept was
immediately mired in controversy from birth as its proponents offered contrasting
interpretations of what it meant. While some argue it meant the reallocation of
funds directed to police department to other local government funded public
agencies (Ray 2020), others maintained it literally meant to abolish the police
(Kaba 2020). Thus, the appropriation of the concept varied depending on whether
one was in the moderate or radical end of the wokeness to police brutality spectrum.
SN Soc Sci (2024) 4:90 Page 11 of 15 90

Manifestation of cancel culture

Cancel culture can be a two-edged sword. When it is properly employed, it

can be a useful way to mobilize and leverage social pressure to safeguard
social justice, but it can also be appropriated and exploited by ideological
activists to silence dissent and maintain a certain orthodoxy in society. There
are legions of examples of persons and entities that have gone through the
guillotine of cancel culture. Prominent recent examples include: the author of
the famous Harry Potter book series J.K. Rowling for expressing apprehen-
sions that women’s right would ultimately be endangered by transgender
rights; former US Presidents Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and
Thomas Jefferson within the framework of a purge of 44 schools with “ties
to racism” and dishonorable legacies” carried out by the San Francisco public
schools board; Vox co-founder Matthew Yglesias whose articles were per-
ceived as very much right of centre because he argued against defunding the
police and that the “Latinx” (a liberal term) alienated a lot of people from the
Democratic party and progressive politics; and Goya Foods because of the
Company’s CEO complementing former President Trump at a White House
event (Sadler 2021).

Wokism and cancel culture as impediments to democracy

Wokism and Cancel Culture is becoming a serious impediment to democracy in the

contemporary world. It has, in some cases, already negatively impacted freedom of
speech in a number of ways:

Censorship of opinion

Globalization and the advent of new information and communication technol-

ogy has revolutionized the civic space in epic dimensions. Social media now
plays a fundamental role in shaping opinions and can greatly impact indivi-
dual civic responsibilities like voting in an election. Freedom of speech has
come under great threat with online activities in recent times. A report by
Freedom House published in 2019 carries a warning of social media “tilting
dangerously toward illiberalism” with governments in more countries becom-
ing “unscrupulous partisan operatives” (Lawson 2019). The report indicates 33
out of the 65 countries (including the US) witnessed a declined in internet
freedom. This is corroborated by a 2019 report from Oxford Internet Institute
that reveals “Evidence of organized social media manipulation campaigns
which have taken place in 70 countries, up from 48 countries in 2018 and
28 countries in 2017” (Bradshaw and Howard 2019). It is therefore possible
for political operatives to use woke online mobs to cancel or suppress dis-
senting opinions in the name of violation of social justice.
90 Page 12 of 15 SN Soc Sci (2024) 4:90

Social media mob justice

Secondly, Wokism and cancel culture has no room for due process (presumption
of innocence and the opportunity for accused persons to defend or justify
themselves). It depends solely on perceptions, and interpretation at the discre-
tion of individuals who take upon themselves the role of arbiters and judges of
social norms and values. What results is often times digital mob justices which
violate the sacrosanct principle of due process and the rule of law which is vital
for democracy. Most democracies across the globe are composed of pluralistic
societies with political, cultural, religious, and ethnic heterogeneity held
together by mutual respect of individual freedom especially free speech.
Wokism and cancel culture provides an opportunity for dominant groups to
impose their orthodoxy on vulnerable or weaker ones. It can be very harmful
to free speech as highlighted in the “Harper’s Letter” endorsed by 153 scholars
and writers including prominent academics like Noam Chomsky, Francis
Fukuyama, Andrew Moravcsik, Anne-Marie Slaughter and Fareed Zakaria
(Harper’s Magazine 2020).

Conclusion

This paper explored the emergence and proliferation of Wokism and cancel
culture in the context of democracy. It traced the origins and evolution of the
aforementioned concepts and their contemporary application through the con-
ceptual framework of concept appropriation. An empirical analysis was done on
how Wokism can appropriate certain ordinarily benign concepts like ‘Whiteness’
and ‘Blackness’ to construct racial connotations that affects how these concepts
are perceived and utilized in society. It was revealed that Whiteness is usually
conflated with White supremacy which engenders racial tropes like white guilt
and white shame which a crucial in shaping the perception of racism and social
justice. This paper also found that like Blackness like Whiteness is also ambig-
uous at it base and can be racially appropriated to give it connotations that also
shapes one’s perception of race and racism. The current manifestations of
Wokism and cancel culture highlighted in this paper poses a threat to democracy
given its impediment to freedom of speech. While it is important to acknowledge
the importance for societies to be constantly alert to issues of racism and social
justice which do exist and confronts several democracies, it is nonetheless
essential to ensure that the remedy to such social plagues doesn’t impinge on
sacrosanct principles of democracy itself like freedom of speech. Plurality of
opinions, and an agreement to disagree without being disagreeable is one of the
uniqueness of democracy. For this uniqueness to thrive in an age of increased
political polarization, citizens living in a democracy need to abide by Voltaire’s
timeless maxim: “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death
your right to say it”.
SN Soc Sci (2024) 4:90 Page 13 of 15 90

Acknowledgements Not applicable.

Author contributions I am the sole author of this article.

Funding This article did not benefit from any research funding.

Data availability This is not applicable to this article because it did not generate any dataset and did not
make use of any data.

Declarations
Ethical approval This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of
the authors.

Informed consent This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of
the authors.

Conflict of interest I hereby declare that I have no potential conflict of interest pertaining to this
submission to SN Social Sciences.

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