The Illusion of a Cultural Shift
Some things are looking up, but America has changed less than you think
Good luck finding a politician who wants to defund the police these days.
And we probably won’t be treated to more Black Lives Matter murals so huge that they can be seen from space. Today corporations and universities are cutting back on racial preferences and DEI. Even Cancel Culture, which used to deliver a rat-tat-tat of high-profile attacks, is now a less obvious feature of everyday life.
Our culture sure has changed a lot in recent years.
Or maybe not.
Today I’m not referring to my contention that those who say the mass madness is behind us are mistaken. I can be pessimistic in general, but still acknowledge progress. I’ll get back to being a dark cloud later, but today I’m focused on something else.
You know that big cultural shift so many people point to these days? It’s mostly an illusion.
Take Cancel Culture.
Americans have always been against it.
Back in 2018, the indispensable Hidden Tribes report by the British organization More in Common noted that majorities of political tribes representing 92% of Americans agreed that political correctness is a problem. That means liberals, moderates, and conservatives largely agreed.
Only one tribe disagreed—a very online, very political, very educated, very white tribe known as Progressive Activists (I call them Eight Percenters). Subsequent surveys generally showed widespread antipathy to Cancel Culture even from Gen Zers and Democrats.
Activists may insist that Cancel Culture merely represents racial minorities asserting power that had long been denied to them. But most actual minorities seem to disagree, and it’s easy to see why. Far from elevating underrepresented voices, Cancel Culture often pummels racial minorities who challenge progressive dogmas.
Take racial preferences.
Media outlets often imply that racial minorities favor preferences in school admissions and hiring. Journalists and activists try to make racial preferences a whites-vs-everyone-else issue, but surveys reveal far more unity. In fact, Americans of every hue oppose racial preferences.
By my count, a majority of Asians oppose racial preferences in three out of three polls. The same can be said of black respondents in six out of eight polls, and whites in seven out of seven polls. Majorities of Hispanics opposed preferences in five polls, and the numbers were split equally in two polls.
There is one political tribe that supports racial preferences. You’ll never guess which one!
Take DEI.
When it comes to those infamous letters, our problematic nation stands opposed to at least the D and the E. Americans are all for diversity if it means, say, improving outreach to minority communities. But as noted above, Americans oppose diversity if it means treating people differently on the basis of race.
The “E” would be an easy sell if it stood for “equality.” Americans favor a Martin Luther King, Jr. approach in which people of every race are treated the same. But somewhere along the line, DEI grandees switched “equality” (equal opportunity) to “equity” (equal outcome).
Racial minorities disagree with another foundational DEI issue — microaggression training.
Maybe someday we’ll learn how certain phrases end up as official “microaggressions.” Whatever hidden committee calls the shots doesn’t seem to be consulting many actual minorities. Turns out minorities aren’t offended by many of the most common so-called microaggressions.
For instance, university Administrators may refer to the statement “America is the land of opportunity” as a microaggression, but 93% of African Americans don’t regard it as offensive.
RELATED
Minorities Don’t Like Racial Preferences: 5 Ways the Media Hides the Truth
From The New York Times to Colin Kaepernick’s Netflix Series: The Mainstreaming of Microaggressions
36 Reasons to Be Pessimistic About a Return to Sanity in 2025
Take defunding the police.
During the George Floyd aftermath, journalists put microphones in front of plenty of black people who supported defunding the police. News reports featured protestors with fists thrust in the air demanding to defund the police. Like many white activists and politicians, then-Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender suggested that her support for “dismantling policing as we know it” reflected the desires of black people. Bender called on Americans “to listen, especially to our black leaders, to our communities of color, for whom policing is not working and to really let the solutions lie in our community.”
It sure seemed like black people wanted to defund the police, but it was an illusion. If Bender had really based her position on black opinion, she would have seen the defund movement for what it was all along—an Eight Percenter fantasy that black people didn’t support. Black people opposed the idea ever since it was first cooked up. Even in the heat of the movement—summer of 2020—81 percent of black Americans told pollsters they wanted police to spend the same amount or more time in their neighborhoods.
Eight Percenters didn’t want to face the fact that black people disagreed with them on yet another hot-button issue, so the false belief (misinformation alert!) drags on and on.
Of course, our culture has shifted somewhat in recent years, but the views of most Americans have changed less than it may seem.
The more significant change occurred elsewhere. Try as they might, Eight Percenters could no longer maintain the illusion that Americans, and especially racial minorities, were all-in on their agenda.
In other words, most of us haven’t changed that much. It was the top-down hocus pocus that eventually fizzled.
Ted Balaker is a filmmaker, and former network newser and think tanker. His written work has appeared in many publications including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Reason, and The Washington Post.
His recent film work includes Little Pink House starring Catherine Keener and Jeanne Tripplehorn, Can We Take a Joke? featuring Gilbert Gottfried and Penn Jillette, and the new feature documentary based on the bestselling book, The Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. Stream the very first “Substack Presents” feature documentary here on Substack or on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and Google Play.
Ted and his wife and producing partner Courtney Moorehead Balaker are now making a narrative feature film based on Rob Henderson’s bestselling book Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class.
Regarding that 8% https://substack.com/@outis9a/note/c-88110374?r=1eolp
I totally agree. It's not over by a long shot. We need to get the Marxist out of our colleges. That could take ten years.