As a longtime fan of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, I’ve seen the man chokeslammed, Stone Cold Stunned, Pedigreed, Mandible Clawed and more. And yet he never looked weaker to me than he did the other day on Fox News, which saw him tap-dancing and, in a way, turning against some of his biggest fans.
Johnson made a bit of news in an interview that aired Friday on Fox News, in which he announced that he won’t be endorsing a presidential candidate this year — saying he had realized that his 2020 endorsement of Joe Biden had “caused an incredible amount of division in our country.”
He also decried “cancel culture” and “woke culture,” saying:
That really bugs me. And in the spirit of that, you either succumb and be what you think other people want you to be, or you go: ‘No, that’s not who I am. I’m going to be myself, and I’m going to be real.’ If you ask me something, a real answer is important, and the truthful answer is important, and that may get people upset, it may p— people off, and that’s OK.
None of us should be surprised about the endorsement stuff. Johnson has long tried to play both sides of the fence when it comes to U.S. politics. And in January, he became a board member of TKO Group Holdings, the company that owns World Wrestling Entertainment and the Ultimate Fighting Championship — two Trump-friendly organizations.
But none of us should be surprised by Johnson’s dalliance with racial politics, either. Decrying “woke” culture — using a Black slang term that has been demonized and negatively racialized by white folks — was certainly an unfortunate choice from a guy who, at times, has openly celebrated his Blackness. And yet, this is someone who launched into superstardom playing a caricaturized Nation of Islam member (arguably, an embodiment of the wokeness he now decries). This is someone who participated in a wrestling segment in which he was mocked by characters in blackface. Someone who has occasionally trafficked in racist stereotypes of his own.
I guess the difference now is that The Rock doesn’t seem to be playing a role.
I guess the difference now is that The Rock doesn’t seem to be playing a role. And we’re living at a time when so-called anti-wokeness is pushing Black history out of school curricula — perhaps even pushing Black students out of schools, period, when you consider the right-wing assault on DEI programs designed to make schools more amenable to Black students.
It’s sad that Dwayne Johnson has, through his own words, aligned himself with that movement.
Sure, he has the right to oppose whatever he claims qualifies as wokeness. But it’s somewhat jarring, to be honest. I’d be lying if I denied the sense of betrayal I felt watching a man who has always been celebrated by the Black community throw that same community under the bus.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.