The recent uproar over Sydney Sweeney's Levi's jeans campaign, as highlighted by Bo Winegard in his August 2025 Aporia Magazine essay, lays bare a troubling trend: the relentless assault on "whiteness" by the woke Left is not a pursuit of justice but a thinly veiled form of anti-white racism. From equating whiteness with historical atrocities to mocking its cultural expressions, this campaign seeks to erase a racial identity while cloaking itself in moral superiority. Yet, Whiteness, like Blackness, Asianness, or any other racial or cultural identity, has inherent value and deserves defence. All identities contribute to the rich mosaic of human experience, and singling out one for vilification is not progress but prejudice.
Winegard argues that liberal elites detest whiteness, framing it as a monolithic evil tied to Nazism, eugenics, or slavery. The Sweeney ads, featuring a blonde, all-American actress in classic denim, triggered accusations of coded racism, with critics on platforms like X decrying the campaign as a dog whistle for "white supremacy." This reaction isn't about jeans, it's about an aesthetic and identity deemed unacceptable by a progressive ideology that equates whiteness with oppression. As Winegard notes, the goal isn't harmony but "replacement," a deliberate effort to dismantle Western culture's foundations, its art, norms, and heroes, in favour of a "diverse" canon that often excludes or diminishes white contributions.
This attack is anti-white racism in disguise. When scholars like Robin DiAngelo call for the "abolition of whiteness" or equate it with inherent privilege, they're not critiquing systems but targeting an entire racial group. A 2023 study from the Journal of Social Issues found that anti-white rhetoric in academic and media spaces has risen 20% since 2015, often framed as "anti-racism." This double standard is stark: celebrating Blackness or Indigenous identity is encouraged, but defending whiteness is taboo, branded as supremacist. If pride in one's racial identity is valid for some groups, why not all? The woke Left's selective outrage reveals a hypocrisy that undermines their claims of fairness.
Whiteness, like any racial or cultural identity, is not a monolith but a tapestry of histories, traditions, and contributions. From Shakespeare's sonnets to Beethoven's symphonies, from the Enlightenment's scientific revolutions to the democratic ideals of the American Founders, white cultures have shaped the modern world. These achievements don't negate the contributions of other groups, like the mathematical innovations of ancient India, but they deserve recognition, not erasure. Winegard critiques conservatives for capitulating to the race-blind narrative, arguing that dismissing whiteness as a "racist construct" distorts history and cedes ground to those who seek its annihilation.
Every identity has value. Blackness carries the resilience of African diasporas, from jazz to civil rights. Asianness reflects millennia of philosophy, art, and technological innovation. Whiteness encompasses the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and countless cultural touchstones. To vilify one while exalting others is not equity but prejudice. A 2021 Pew Research survey found 74% of Americans believe racial pride should be inclusive, yet progressive narratives often exclude whiteness from this framework, fostering resentment and division.
Winegard rightly calls out mainstream conservatives for their timid response, hoping race will "fade" by chanting colour-blind slogans. This retreat leaves whiteness undefended, allowing the left to frame it as inherently toxic. The Founders, as Winegard notes, built a nation with a distinct cultural identity, not a raceless "idea." Ignoring this fuels a fiction that alienates those who value their heritage.
This capitulation has real-world impacts. When schools replace classic literature with "diverse" texts, as seen in California's 2023 curriculum changes, or when corporations like Levi's face backlash for featuring white models, it signals that whiteness is unwelcome in public life. This not only marginalises white individuals but fuels a backlash, as seen in rising populist sentiments across the West. A 2025 YouGov poll found 55% of Australians feel cultural heritage is under threat, a sentiment echoed in the U.S. and Europe.
The woke left's attack on whiteness is not about dismantling systems but demonising a race. Terms like "white privilege" or "white supremacy" are weaponised to shame individuals, not critique structures. A 2022 study from Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found that exposure to anti-white rhetoric increases feelings of alienation among white individuals without reducing prejudice in others, contradicting claims of fostering harmony. When Sweeney's ads are labelled "problematic" for their aesthetic, or when white cultural icons are sidelined, it's a deliberate effort to erase one group's identity while pretending it's justice.
This mirrors historical racism's tactics: dehumanise, mock, and exclude. If Blackness were similarly targeted, say, mocking African cultural symbols, the outrage would be swift and justified. Yet anti-white racism hides behind "punching up," ignoring that it harms real people, not abstract systems. The double standard is glaring: a 2024 X thread by @EquityWatch noted that while Black History Month is celebrated, proposals for "White Heritage Month" are dismissed as bigoted, revealing a cultural blind spot.
The solution isn't to double down on racial tribalism, but to defend the value of all identities. Whiteness, like Blackness or any "colour," is a thread in humanity's fabric, neither superior nor inferior. Conservatives must reject the race-blind trap and boldly celebrate their heritage, as Winegard urges, without fear of being labelled racist. Progressives must confront their own prejudice, recognising that targeting whiteness fuels division, not unity. A 2023 Gallup poll found 68% of Americans want less focus on race in public policy, suggesting a path forward: mutual respect for all identities.
Anti-white rhetoric alienates millions who see their identity attacked. The Sweeney backlash is a microcosm: a blonde woman in jeans isn't a policy proposal, but she's a lightning rod for a culture war that thrives on bad faith.
The woke Left's assault on whiteness, exemplified by the Sydney Sweeney ad controversy, is anti-white racism dressed up as progress. It seeks not harmony but erasure, targeting one group's identity while pretending it's justice. Whiteness, like Blackness or any cultural identity, has value, its contributions to art, science, and history are undeniable. Conservatives must stop retreating and defend their heritage, while progressives must abandon their double standards.
https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/conserving-whiteness
Written by Bo Winegard.
The reaction to those Sydney Sweeney advertisements once again makes clear that liberal elites detest whiteness. Some call for its abolition. Others are content to belittle it, equating it with history's greatest evils: Nazism, eugenics, slavery. In the fulness of time, it will disappear, mocked and disgraced.
But are mainstream conservatives much better? Many have capitulated. Rather than defend whiteness, they dismiss it, either as a racist construct or as a mischaracterization of American history. For them, the concept itself obstructs the long-cherished goal of race-blindness, the hope that we might one day transcend race altogether. America, in this lofty vision, is an idea, not a people. And whiteness is a calumny.
This capitulation is unfortunate. It leaves conservatism in retreat like a timid boxer always backpedalling and evading, never striking. Worse still, it compels conservatives, like their progressive counterparts, to distort and regret their own inheritance, fabricating convenient fictions about the beliefs of the Founders and the nature of the nation they built.
Conservatives seem sincerely to hope that the whole unseemly race problem will simply fade. And they believe that if they remain quiet or repeat the proper slogans about colour-blindness and equal opportunity, the salience of race will dissipate or even disappear altogether.
But it will not. The race issue remains for many reasons, perhaps the chief being that the goal of progressivism is not harmony, but replacement. Not reconciliation but transformation. The persistent battle against whiteness will not stop until the very foundations of the West, its aesthetics, its norms, its history, its heroes, and its people, have been irrevocably and often unrecognizably altered. Shakespeare, Beethoven, Faulkner will stand aside for a more representative, i.e., a less white, canon. Whiteness will be annihilated by diversity."