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…
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