Simon Lincoln Reader discusses ‘wokeness’ and ‘cancel culture’ in the South African context. He describes how a growing number of people are choosing to submit to the ‘parasites’ of race theory and cancel culture to join a misleading movement possessed by a set of ‘menacing, vacuous, dissembling and ahistorical delusions’. Helen Zille herself has been a victim of the ‘cancel culture’ that is so intertwined with ‘wokeness’, and she has written a book about its toxic effect on South Africa’s society. Reader explores the ramifications of speaking out against the ideology and why, in his view, Helen Zille’s book is so important. – Melani Nathan