Choosing Wholeness Over Wokeness (Africa Brooke)
Listen now (56 mins) | “In writing my book, I wanted to bring it back to the self because being online allows us to have this inappropriate level of audacity. And I think audacity is a very..."
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Africa Brooke is coach and author of The Third Perspective: Brave Expression in the Age of Intolerance. I’ve been smitten with Africa for years, after I was one of the 12 million-odd people who read her Instagram manifesto, “Why I’m Leaving the Cult of Wokeness” in 2020. There, Africa gave voice to being part of a culture that was supposed to be tented around diversity and inclusion, and yet, she found herself sounding and behaving in an increasingly intolerant way, a way that resisted diversity of thought. Originally from Zimbabwe, Africa lives in the U.K. and had already amassed a following for documenting her path to sobriety online—a path that anticipated the sober curious movement that’s become more mainstream today. She’s well-versed in spotting patterns and recognizing the way culture was working both on her and in her, in ways that were separating her from herself.
I loved this conversation, a conversation I was very excited to have—it’s a vulnerable one. I’m grateful to Africa for saying what needs to be said and conscious that more of us need to join her. As she explains, people quickly finger her as far-right—and the far-right would love nothing more than to co-opt her—but she’s more of a social justice advocate than ever. She needs people in the center, and people on the left to join her in pointing out how our cancel culture is, to use her term, actually “collective sabotage.” And how we abandon our highest principles when we turn on each other so quickly and make each other “wrong.”
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Africa Brooke Episode
MORE FROM AFRICA BROOKE:
The Third Perspective: Brave Expression in the Age of Intolerance
“Why I’m leaving the cult of wokeness”
Africa’s Website
Follow Africa on Instagram
Africa’s Podcast: “Beyond the Self”
Loretta Ross’s Episode: “Calling in the Call-Out Culture”
Just listened to this Elise. Wow. I looooved every minute of it. Because I’ve been feeling like this for, like, two years now, and hadn’t really been able to put conceptual form to it. I’ve long thought of myself as a “staunch progressive”, and lately I just thought I was becoming more conservative or something…identity crisis to be sure. But realized through this podcast that I was simply becoming more nuanced.
Thank you so much for having Africa on your show.
I have to say that funnily enough, the whole fundamentalist thing (I think Africa called it “sect”) was one of those moments for me that I saw how far I’ve come. I used to be super allergic to the Pentecostal evangelical Christianity that she mentions, because I, too, grew up around it. But it started changing for me when I started studying, as part of a masters in religious studies, the reasons, motivations and lives of women who adhere to fundamentalist Christian movements.
Many of these women have all my respect now. 💕🌸