Believe the top 1% benefits the most from U.S. inequality? Perhaps not.

Who gains the most from inequality in the U.S. currently? According to Musa al-Gharbi, it is precisely the individuals most inclined to identify as anti-racist, feminist, and LGBTQ+ supporters.

Al-Gharbi, a Stony Brook University journalism educator, presented principal arguments from his “We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite,” during a campus event earlier this month. The 2024 publication asserts that the left-leaning knowledge workers of the 21st century are genuinely committed to social equity but fail to recognize how their beliefs often clash with other values they hold.

“We also believe that our opinions should hold more weight than the clerk serving us at Stop & Shop,” asserted al-Gharbi, who received his sociology Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2023. “We consider that we deserve a better quality of life than those delivering packages to our homes. Furthermore, we desire our children to mirror our social standing or surpass it.”

The “we” referenced in the book’s title, al-Gharbi explained, pertains to a faction of Americans he designates as “symbolic capitalists.” This term, derived from the works of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, indicates individuals engaged in professions such as human resources, education, finance, law, and media.

“As a simple reference point, think of individuals who don’t deliver physical goods and services,” al-Gharbi noted. “If you’re part of this gathering, it’s highly likely you are a symbolic capitalist — or aiming to become one.”

“We believe that our viewpoints should be valued more than the employee at Stop & Shop. We feel entitled to a higher standard of living than those delivering packages to our doorsteps.”

The 21st century marked a transformation in how these highly educated, predominantly white professionals engage in discussions about race, gender, and sexuality, he observed. The book reveals a historic cycle of similar patterns, including the “politically correct” fervor of the late 1980s and early ’90s. The roots of what al-Gharbi refers to as the “Great Awokening” are found in the Occupy Wall Street movement of the early 2010s, which propagated the famous mantra “We are the 99 percent.”

However, this narrative obscures the actual architects of inequality, he indicated, as social scientist Richard Reeves posited in “Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do About It” (2017). The wealthiest 1 percent controlled 26 percent of the nation’s wealth in 2022, the year al-Gharbi referenced in his analysis. Moreover, the top 20 percent of earners represented 71 percent of the nation’s wealth.

Many individuals within this last category are symbolic capitalists who garner significant profits from the ultra-wealthy. “Are the billionaires drafting their own public relations efforts to help mitigate blame and portray themselves as part of the solution? Are they managing their own legal documentation and reallocating their wealth?” queried al-Gharbi.

Moreover, consider the expert evaluations utilized in various sectors from litigation to media coverage, painting a comprehensive portrait of the group’s cultural supremacy — and disproportionate influence. Symbolic capitalists also prevail across all three branches of the federal government, holding 100 percent of the judiciary, about 70 percent of the House, and over 90 percent of the Senate, as al-Gharbi highlighted.

“Here’s an intriguing fact,” he mentioned. “Every single Democrat who has secured the presidency since Jimmy Carter has been a variation of symbolic capitalist: a lawyer.”

“We Have Never Been Woke” begins with al-Gharbi’s initial observations of New York’s “racialized caste system” after relocating from his conservative hometown in Arizona in 2016.

“You have disposable service workers who will tidy your home, care for your children, walk your dogs, deliver pre-prepared meals to you,” he writes. “It’s primarily minorities and immigrants from specific racial and ethnic backgrounds who fulfill these roles, while those from other racial and ethnic groups are the ones being served.”

So why do members of the latter group fail to perceive themselves as elites? “Many of our professions are explicitly designed to hold the elites accountable,” al-Gharbi clarified. However, studies have shown that those within these fields often sustain a type of credential inflation to safeguard their own status while excluding outsiders.

Using journalism as an illustration, al-Gharbi remarked on the high proportion of Ivy League alumni currently employed at esteemed publications such as The New York Times. “This is significant,” he stated. “Because if the elites you are supposed to criticize are your contemporaries from Harvard, or your neighbors, or your former partners, then that fundamentally alters how you perform your role.”

“Woke” rhetoric serves as an additional tool symbolic capitalists utilize to further their agendas, al-Gharbi claimed. Wealthy urban and suburban professionals deploy “mocking, censoring, and deriding” language not only to morally rationalize their own status. They use it to depict some of America’s most marginalized as unworthy racists, sexists, and homophobes.

“And this behavior opens a path for political entrepreneurs, often associated with the right,” he concluded, noting that “political correctness” has followed a path akin to the current “woke” opposition.

The event on February 21 was hosted by the Center for American Political Studies and the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. During the question and answer segment, a student inquired about what symbolic capitalists could do to disrupt the cycle.

“We haven’t truly attempted persuasion,” responded al-Gharbi, who contributes to publications including the Guardian and the American Conservative. “If I aim to convince individuals that, for instance, bombing Syria is a misguided idea, it is not very effective to write in an outlet like Al Jazeera where everyone already agrees. You need to engage with those in favor of bombing Syria and elucidate to them why that is a poor idea in a manner they find convincing.”