As each day passes, the increasingly totalitarian nature of Woke Culture is becoming more apparent.

Recently, the U.K. Daily Mail described the reverse racism emerging in Hollywood, which has created a "toxic" climate for white middle-aged men:

"A revolution is under way. White actors are being fired. Edicts from studio bosses make it clear that only minorities — racial and sexual — can be given jobs.

A new wave of what has been termed by some as anti-white prejudice is causing writers, directors, and producers to fear they will never work again. One described the current atmosphere as 'more toxic than Chernobyl,' with leading actors afraid to speak out amid concern they will labeled racist."

The article goes on to quote a "highly respected" Hollywood executive, a white female:

If you are brown and female and gay then come on in. We're all getting diversity training. We're walking on eggshell during every Zoom meeting. It's got to the point where, if there's a person of color in the meeting, we can't hang up before they do, for fear of it being considered offensive. [My emphasis]

To anyone familiar with the history of the Soviet Union, this has a disturbingly familiar ring to it.  Back in the USSR, when Joseph Stalin was introduced at a rally, no one wanted to be first to stop clapping for fear of appearing disloyal.

In The Gulag Archipelago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn tells of us a Communist Party conference that concluded with a tribute to Comrade Stalin:

"Of course, everyone stood up (just as everyone had leaped to his feet during the conference at every mention of his name). The small hall echoed with 'stormy applause, rising to an ovation.' For three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, the 'stormy applause, rising to an ovation,' continued. But palms were getting sore and raised arms were already aching. And the older people were panting from exhaustion. It was becoming insufferably silly even to those who really adored Stalin. However, who would dare be the first to stop?"

Eventually, after eleven minutes, the director of a paper factory assumed a businesslike expression and sat down in his seat. "And, oh, a miracle took place! Where had the universal, uninhibited, indescribable enthusiasm gone? To a man, everyone else stopped dead and sat down. They had been saved! The squirrel had been smart enough to jump off his revolving wheel."

"That, however, was how they discovered who the independent people were. And that was how they went about eliminating them. That same night the factory director was arrested." [pp. 69–70]

The lesson, Solzhenitsyn tells us: "Don't ever be the first to stop applauding!"

This ethos has now come to Hollywood.  Don't be the first to hang up, or you might be labeled a racist.  To be sure, never did such a calamity fall on such utterly deserved victims.  Hollywood has been asking for this for years.  They are learning — painfully — that words precede action.

However, on further reflection, schadenfreude should be resisted.  The ultimate target of the revolution isn't Hollywood; it's you.