Persons who reject woke viewpoints are frequently attributed a form of false consciousness. From a woke perspective, almost all privileged persons possess false consciousness, which enables them to justify their own behaviour (see Socialisation).162
In the theory of Critical Whiteness, there are multiple manifestations of false consciousness that explain why privileged persons are blind to their involvement in oppression. These include white complicity, white fragility, white tears, white innocence, white silence, white solidarity, white ignorance, and a lack of humility.163
Marginalised groups that are not woke enough also suffer from false consciousness: these groups either adapt to the system for their own personal advantage or have been indoctrinated by the system just like privileged persons, so that they have internalised their own systemic oppression.164
Many activists avoid the term false consciousness (among other reasons because of its linguistic proximity to Marxist class consciousness). Instead, they often speak of unconscious biases (English: “unconscious bias”). Persons are called upon not to hide their alleged biases but to consciously confront them in order to overcome them. The willingness to do so is used for woke struggle sessions: activists interpret any contradiction to their worldview as a lack of willingness to become aware of one’s own privileges and publicly confess one’s own biases (see Fragility). The fight against (conscious or unconscious) biases degenerates in these workshops into psychological gaslighting with the aim of imposing woke ideas on well-meaning people.165