Anti-Racism as Religion: Bad Faith or Good Analogy?

John McWhorter knows a duck when he sees one. His most recent book "Woke Racism" considers the recent preoccupation with race among progressives and concludes that it is best understood as a new religion. Lest one object that the analogy is a strained one, he wants to be very clear: Woke anti-racism is not "like" a religion. It really "is" a religion in all but name, complete with its own scripture, prophets, priests, holy days, creeds, and collective rituals. Simultaneously given to both missionary and inquisitorial impulses, it embraces certain myths about the past as well as hopes and fears for the future. It features distinctive ways of speaking among members of the congregation, peculiar notions of purity, an acute sense of heresy, and, above all, a robust sense of sin, though not much in the way of absolution or redemption for unbelievers or those who remain lukewarm in their devotion.