This is an interestng article and you raise some very good points that I'm inclined to agree with. Your complex version of America certainly sits better than most people screaming into the void about us and them..... however, does it create anything better than us, and them, and them and also them?
In short, you've presented the same problem in a more complicated way and I don't think you've provided a solution. If indeed there is a solution.
When you give people the platform to provide their own labels, their level of self reflecton stops at their identity. Their entire thinking becomes about what groups they belong to and which groups they aren't part of. That can cause huge amounts of anxiety for people - as outlined in your final section breaking out of your 'cis-bubble' as though this is a real thing and not a construct of your private reality. The actions of the 'woke' then become performantive, they're desperately trying to please other people. Everyone walks aroun in a perpetual state of anxiety desperate not to cause offence, whilst simultaneously creating new areas of offence in which to show their superiority to others. That's why white people who posted their black squares were naive... within about an hour of doing so, they were accused of performative activism (which was true) and accused of furthering the cause of racism (which probably wasn't).
The first two groups don't care about this, they'll generally rally around anyone with a clear vision - and that's problematic when you get a demagogue like Trump (and whichever more sinister leader is next on the agenda). So whilst the left continually shoots itself in the face, the political conversation moves right. The last two groups fuel exhausted average Joes into the first group. The rise of the first group pushes people like you from Woke to activist. Neither group is aware that they're fueling the other and unless you bring a coalition of average-joe and woke warriors together, you've got a civil war on your hands.
The solution, in my opinion, is for the average joes and the woke to drop their insistence on capitalism as the ultimate grood and identity politics respectively. That means that people need to focus on things that aren't sex, gender, race and not see making money as the ultimate measure of success. When this happens, you may see a gradual blending of communities of different races embracing an inclusive approach on what they share. The importance of friendship, families, having community projects, educating their children and investing in protecting the most vulnerable members of their society. When people psychologically focus on what they share rather than what diferentiates them (anathema to the mantra of identity politics) - they slowly move to a place where racism doesn't happen. Fairness and justice will evolve from such societies - and I would argue that prior to the arrival of social media and the woke warriors - this was happening. The movement from Martin Luther King to Barack Obama wasn't easy, but it was steady. Identity politics and social media has done very little for race relations other than letting people find white supremicists wherever they want - those two words are rapidly becoming meaningless.
Now that I've disagreed with your conclusion - I would like to say that this is one of the best articles I've read about American politics in the last few years. You're an excellent person to disagree with. and please write more of this sort of thing so I can disagree with it further.
