The Best Antidote To Wokeness Is Knowing The Truth About This Country

Woke ideology is everywhere. Over the past thirty years, it has captured many American institutions.

Like many people, I once assumed that young Americans who dabbled in a little political correctness at college would soon grow out of it when they left.

I was wrong. Rather than change when they entered the world of work, they changed the workplace. Today there is hardly an HR department in corporate America that is not committed to promoting Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI).

A generation ago, corporate America did not know what a preferred pronoun was. Today you cannot apply for a job without declaring yours.

DEI means that Martin Luther King’s vision of a color blind meritocracy is in danger of slipping away. Obama’s election to the White House was supposed to herald a post-racial America. America today feels like it is increasingly re-racialized.

If you had told me at the time of the Iraq war that American students would be protesting in support of Hamas in 2024, I would not have believed you. So prevalent are the extreme Left on campus it’s seldom considered newsworthy today.

Conservative America needs to launch a concerted effort to fight back. It is not enough to hope that Congress passes legislation. I’m done hoping my governor gets around to issuing an Executive Order to defeat DEI.

We need to take action ourselves by ensuring our own families are immunized against the woke mind-virus.

Born in Britain and raised in Uganda, I came to America by choice. Shocked at how social media and progressive professors often teach young Americans to think the worst of their country, I did not want my young daughter to grow up seeing things that way.

So, I started to tell my daughter what I felt she needed to know about her new home.

America, I explained, was founded in liberty. Sure, I joked, the first Americans might have beaten Brits like us at Yorktown, but the important thing is that liberty that won. 

Returning from a trip to Washington DC, we talked about why the US Constitution was one of the best systems of government in the world. The Founders, we discussed, borrowed from both the English and the Roman tradition (There’s a reason the Senate is called the Senate). 

America might be a superpower, I wanted her to understand, but America has for the most part used that strength wisely. The United States has not built an empire, but used her might to set other people free.

Talking in our kitchen one day, I pointed at all the everyday objects around us – light bulbs, microwaves, a passing airplane – to illustrate that Americans are remarkably inventive.

Discussing George Washington’s letter to the congregation at Touro synagogue one evening, I explained that Jewish and Christian beliefs are the key to understanding Americans’ strong sense of individualism.

As we celebrated our first Thanksgiving, I told her it was a chance for every American to feel gratitude for being here, whether your ancestors arrived at the end of the last ice age, or like our family, a few months earlier.

No matter how carefully we raise our children, it is inevitable that as they grow up they will be exposed to the “woke” mind virus. Teaching them these basic truths about America, I believe, will give them an antidote against it.

When our children come across progressive professors, or leftist ideas on social media, or through friends of friends, knowing the truth about their country will prove important.

If we do not teach our families these truths about America, TikTok and progressive professors will fill the void.

That’s why I decided to take these six lessons and turn it into an illustrated children’s story book, “What Makes America Special.” I want every child in the country to be able to draw from the lessons I taught my daughter about our new home.

We all take for granted the things we are familiar with. It is human nature to overlook what we have always known. So take it from me as an immigrant when I tell you that this is an extraordinary country.

America’s success is not a question of having lots of natural resources. The American achievement cannot be attributed to geography or the climate. This country is exceptional not because the laws of physics are any different over here.

The United States has flourished because of decisions made in a courthouse in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, which hardwired freedom into the DNA of the young Republic. So long as America stays true to that tradition, each generation of Americans will bequeath an even greater country.

It is essential we pass on knowledge of that tradition to the next generation.

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Douglas Carswell is the President & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. He was previously a Member of the British Parliament.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.