Progressive hypocrisy laid bare in We Have Never Been Woke

Musa Al-Gharbi delivers a sharp, accessible critique of the contradictions within progressive politics

Title: We Have Never Been Woke
Author: Musa Al-Gharbi
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication Year: 2024
Available from Amazon, Indigo, AbeBooks (used)

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Musa Al-Gharbi is an African-American sociologist and a convert to Islam. His written work has appeared in an array of academic outlets as well as prestigious mainstream publications such as The Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Atlantic. His first book, We Have Never Been Woke (2024), has a simple bottom line. To quote: “… you don’t observe what is important to someone by what they say but rather by what they do, and by how they structure their lives.”

When he cast his first presidential vote in 2004, Al-Gharbi’s worldview was uncomplicated. Social evils were the fault of “those damn Republicans!” Life would be beautiful if everyone could be “more like the enlightened denizens of New York.” While events over the next dozen years moderated that perspective, moving from Arizona in 2016 to embark on a sociology PhD at Columbia caused him to shed whatever vestiges remained.

What he found on New York’s Upper West Side was a progressive bastion with “disposable servants,” an environment given to “casually exploiting and discarding the vulnerable, desperate and disadvantaged. And it’s largely Democratic-voting professionals who take advantage of them—even as they conspicuously lament inequality.”

Two particular events are worth noting.

As an elite Ivy League university, Columbia’s student body mostly comes from an affluent, if not downright wealthy, background. Those who don’t are likely to leave with excellent economic prospects.

But that privilege notwithstanding, Donald Trump’s surprise 2016 election victory traumatized many students to the extent that they couldn’t do tests or homework and needed time off. For its part, the university was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, little consideration was given to the support workers—disproportionately immigrants and minorities—who were purportedly most at risk from Trump’s victory.

Al-Gharbi has this to say: “Although the classrooms were full of tears in the days that followed, one never saw, say, the janitors making a scene, sobbing uncontrollably about politics as they scrubbed rich kids’ messes out of the toilets. They just showed up to work the next day and did their jobs. The juxtaposition was sobering.”

Another revealing situation transpired during the pandemic when many vacant hotels were being converted into temporary housing in order to relieve the pressure in homeless shelters. In an area that had voted 9 to 1 in favour of Hillary Clinton, Upper West Side liberals successfully lobbied the city to spare their neighbourhoods.

Al-Gharbi is again trenchant: “That is, in order to alleviate risks and inconveniences for themselves, they forced less advantaged people, who were already bearing the brunt of most other pandemic-related risks and disruptions, to also deal with any challenges related to hosting large numbers of unsheltered individuals in their communities. And they did all this while evoking social justice discourse, often pretending their primary concern was for homeless people themselves.”

Like many commentators, Al-Gharbi notes the increasing attitudinal cleavage between those who work with symbols—words, numbers, ideas and other abstractions—and those whose work is tied to physical goods and services. In his assessment, the symbolic professions “tend to be especially ideological, conformist, and extreme relative to most other Americans.” For instance, climate activists “are mostly female (61 per cent) and almost entirely white (93 per cent). More than nine out of 10 climate activists have at least a BA, and more than a third possess a terminal degree.”

Generally speaking, the symbolic class is the primary beneficiary of the increasing economic inequality they purport to deplore. Stir in the fact that they have largely captured the Democratic Party and you go some distance towards explaining the gradual migration of working-class voters—and not just white ones—towards the Republicans. The concerns that matter most in daily life are simply different. Accordingly, expectations, or hopes of amelioration, from the political system focus on different things. What’s top of mind for symbolic professionals doesn’t similarly resonate with everyone else.

To be clear, Al-Gharbi doesn’t question progressive sincerity. But he does draw a distinction between sincerity and importance. Believing in principle isn’t the same thing as acting on that principle when your own immediate interests are in play.

To give him the last word: “If something is valuable to a person, truly central to their being, they make room for it. They make sacrifices for it.”

Our Verdict: ★★★★☆
A sharp, accessible and often sobering critique of the gap between progressive ideals and actions. Al-Gharbi’s mix of personal insight and data makes the book engaging for general readers and thought-provoking for anyone interested in contemporary politics and culture.