This is a fabulous discussion that focuses squarely on the issue we most need to understand − What the hell is really going on with this radical-woke-BLM-Kendi movement that started in the ‘60s?

deBoer nails the most fundamental insight in his first sentence: “these things never end—they just mutate.” Later, he adds, “You end up being left with, … the creation of all these organizational structures within various elite American institutions.” That’s the main result of the evolution, but these structures undermine the institutions.

Let me add some history. Peak woke occurred in 1971, when the president of Columbia University stated, "The trial of Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins is … a political trial that should not be taking place in America." Yale’s president added that he was “skeptical of the ability of black revolutionaries to achieve a fair trial anywhere in the US.” Hillary Rodham (later Clinton) monitored the trial for civil rights violations on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Bobby, in charge of panther security, had stopped by Ericka’s NJ Panther chapter just after Ericka had presided over torturing a (false) confession out of 19-year-old Panther Alex Rackley, but before they took him out and shot him. The pro-Panther mood of the left was only slightly dampened when the tape-recording of Ericka during the torture was played in court. Of course, she and Bobby were acquitted.

In June 1972, Angela Davis was acquitted. She’d bought the shotgun two days before it was taped to the judge's neck (during the kidnapping) and blew his brains out.

That ideology, as I’ll now show, mutated into what’s now woke (the CRT ideology), and has wormed its way into various “organizational structures [in] American institutions.” Black Power has become systemic wokeism.

The crucial connection that’s forgotten can be found in the Jun 19, 1966, CBS podcast called Face the Nation, in which Stokely Carmichael, who had launched Black Power three days earlier in the Mississippi Delta, revealed the two core ideas that Derrick Bell latter used to launch Critical Race Theory. Carmichael explained "Bell’s idea" that schools were being integrated too soon. That became the very first CRT paper in 1975. Then he announced Bell’s “Interest Convergence Principle” (without naming it) and continued to repeat it during his intense speaking tour, at least through his Oct 30 speech at UC Berkeley. That’s the idea Bell is famous for and CRT is built on.

When Ibram Kendi finally settles on his definition of antiracism in Chapter 16, he bases it squarely on Malcolm X (by any means necessary) and the Carmichael/Bell Interest Convergence Principle.

Underneath all this is one crucial point that’s being missed. The BP/CRT movement that’s been evolving and growing for 60+ years is a thirst for revolution − NOT progress. Progress is kryptonite for revolutionaries; it undermines the desire for revolution. Extreme pessimism about “the system’s” ability to make progress is essential.

So when deBoer says, “the fundamental weakness of identity politics is that in politics you want to have a set of goals and to form a coalition around those goals,” I think he has not grasped their goal − revolution. Identity politics is working perfectly for its intended purpose — cultural destruction. You can’t build a utopia until you destroy the capitalist culture. Period. There is plenty of evidence dating back to 1937 (Traditional and Critical Theory) for this, if you want to dig into it.