I would fall asleep, too, if I had to play Woke games to get elected. The ranting and raving they expose us to are boring, petty, and non-productive.
For many people, rants against Woke slide into a category reserved for closed-minded, intolerant, controlling, and arrogant individuals. If it weren’t for hate-mongers stirring up division, the word would be devoid of emotion and probably relegated to words rarely used. Instead, its usage has become a rallying cry for right and left extremists.
Woke was first used in the Black community after a 1938 Lead Belly audio recording was released. In Scottsboro Boys, a song telling the story of nine Black teenagers and young men falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama in 1931, Lead Belly urges listeners to stay woke, a warning to pay attention to social and political injustice by the states and elected officials. In the mid-1900s, progressive Black Americans used Woke in the racial justice movement to refer to someone who was informed, educated, and conscious of social and racial inequality. It wasn’t until 2014, when the Black Lives Matter movement spotlighted police brutality following the police shooting of Michal Brown, that it began being used more often. The word grew in popularity in activist circles spurred by the fatal deaths of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, George Floyd, and others when it was suddenly co-opted.
Republican conservatives started labeling liberals with it during the last election, using Wokism as a pejorative term for progressive values. It was popularized byformer President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Vivek Ramaswamy, who penned the book “Woke Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam.
According to The Washington Post, the DeSantis administration’s definition of woke is “the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them,” an ideology he rejects and fights against. His anti-woke agenda created the Parental Rights in Education Law to restrict teaching about race, oppression, gender, and sexual orientation in the classroom. The Stop WOKE Act went further, eliminating content in college and high school courses that led to discussions around systems of oppression. DeSantis banned spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs from public college campuses. Hundreds of conservative-led efforts across the country have followed his lead.
Because Wokewas associated withBlack people, the word became a club used by white supremacists to batter those who embrace liberal ideology. Democrats view such people as bullies who destroy lives to leverage a cruel agenda. Wokism has been compared to the Inquisition, The Salem Witch Trials, and McCarthyism. A difference from those events is that it is heard on both sides of the political aisle, fueling media-driven hatred of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
On the left, Wokism prompted defunding the police laws that resulted in a record number of murders and violent crimes. Without fear of arrest or incarceration, criminals were emboldened to rob, assault, and kill innocent people. On the right, cruelty came to the forefront through racism that indoctrinates black children in schools, teaching them they are innately inferior due to the color of their skin.
The fight for equity in college admissions at top institutions pits poor white and Asian students with excellent grades and test scores against Black and Hispanic students with lower grades. Environmentalists clamoring to raise gas and oil prices to lower carbon emissions hurt those experiencing poverty with no other option. For Americans who rely on government health clinics and state entitlements, the influx of illegal immigrants is a tremendous problem, burdening health care delivery.
Social problems are complex and can’t be narrowed down to catchy phrases. They raise moral, economic, and social issues that need to be addressed by rational individuals who don’t throw barbs. Woke agitates and divides people instead of pulling them together. It keeps us from solving problems with compassion, equality, morality, and all the ethical things we were taught to embrace as children, by having us play a rigged game of wealth and power that creates permanent victims. It emphasizes identity politics over social class and ideology and reduces complex issues to simplistic narratives that make people afraid to express opinions for fear of misinterpretation.
I don’t believe I’m the only one with Woke fatigue and its partisan and ideological rhetoric that threatens stability and harmony. We need to reframe social issues and eliminate vitriolic words and simplistic phrases so problems will be considered from a broad perspective. The Water Factor, the first novel in my Rightfully Mine series, explores environmental issues from various perspectives, asking readers to consider an age-old question, whether the earth’s reserves should be used for individual profit or the common good. As the world’s population increases and natural resources are stretched thin, we must reexamine what constitutes a civil society to avoid bloodshed.
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I would fall asleep, too, if I had to play Woke games to get elected. The ranting and raving they expose us to are boring, petty, and non-productive.
For many people, rants against Woke slide into a category reserved for closed-minded, intolerant, controlling, and arrogant individuals. If it weren’t for hate-mongers stirring up division, the word would be devoid of emotion and probably relegated to words rarely used. Instead, its usage has become a rallying cry for right and left extremists.
Woke was first used in the Black community after a 1938 Lead Belly audio recording was released. In Scottsboro Boys, a song telling the story of nine Black teenagers and young men falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama in 1931, Lead Belly urges listeners to stay woke, a warning to pay attention to social and political injustice by the states and elected officials. In the mid-1900s, progressive Black Americans used Woke in the racial justice movement to refer to someone who was informed, educated, and conscious of social and racial inequality. It wasn’t until 2014, when the Black Lives Matter movement spotlighted police brutality following the police shooting of Michal Brown, that it began being used more often. The word grew in popularity in activist circles spurred by the fatal deaths of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, George Floyd, and others when it was suddenly co-opted.
Republican conservatives started labeling liberals with it during the last election, using Wokism as a pejorative term for progressive values. It was popularized byformer President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Vivek Ramaswamy, who penned the book “Woke Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam.
According to The Washington Post, the DeSantis administration’s definition of woke is “the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them,” an ideology he rejects and fights against. His anti-woke agenda created the Parental Rights in Education Law to restrict teaching about race, oppression, gender, and sexual orientation in the classroom. The Stop WOKE Act went further, eliminating content in college and high school courses that led to discussions around systems of oppression. DeSantis banned spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs from public college campuses. Hundreds of conservative-led efforts across the country have followed his lead.
Because Wokewas associated withBlack people, the word became a club used by white supremacists to batter those who embrace liberal ideology. Democrats view such people as bullies who destroy lives to leverage a cruel agenda. Wokism has been compared to the Inquisition, The Salem Witch Trials, and McCarthyism. A difference from those events is that it is heard on both sides of the political aisle, fueling media-driven hatred of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
On the left, Wokism prompted defunding the police laws that resulted in a record number of murders and violent crimes. Without fear of arrest or incarceration, criminals were emboldened to rob, assault, and kill innocent people. On the right, cruelty came to the forefront through racism that indoctrinates black children in schools, teaching them they are innately inferior due to the color of their skin.
The fight for equity in college admissions at top institutions pits poor white and Asian students with excellent grades and test scores against Black and Hispanic students with lower grades. Environmentalists clamoring to raise gas and oil prices to lower carbon emissions hurt those experiencing poverty with no other option. For Americans who rely on government health clinics and state entitlements, the influx of illegal immigrants is a tremendous problem, burdening health care delivery.
Social problems are complex and can’t be narrowed down to catchy phrases. They raise moral, economic, and social issues that need to be addressed by rational individuals who don’t throw barbs. Woke agitates and divides people instead of pulling them together. It keeps us from solving problems with compassion, equality, morality, and all the ethical things we were taught to embrace as children, by having us play a rigged game of wealth and power that creates permanent victims. It emphasizes identity politics over social class and ideology and reduces complex issues to simplistic narratives that make people afraid to express opinions for fear of misinterpretation.
I don’t believe I’m the only one with Woke fatigue and its partisan and ideological rhetoric that threatens stability and harmony. We need to reframe social issues and eliminate vitriolic words and simplistic phrases so problems will be considered from a broad perspective. The Water Factor, the first novel in my Rightfully Mine series, explores environmental issues from various perspectives, asking readers to consider an age-old question, whether the earth’s reserves should be used for individual profit or the common good. As the world’s population increases and natural resources are stretched thin, we must reexamine what constitutes a civil society to avoid bloodshed.
References;
Alfonseca, K. (2024) What does ‘woke’ mean, and why are some conservatives using it?ABC News. Retrieved from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/woke-conservatives/story?id=93051138
Hanson, V. (2022) Wokism is a Cruel and Dangerous Cult. Independent Institute. |Retrieved from https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=13968&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw1K-
Matter of Opinion podcast (2023) The Woke Burnout Is Real—And Politics is Catching Up. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/07/opinion/woke-culture-wars-schools.html?
Neiman. S. (2023) The Fatal Tension at the Heart of Wokeism. Time Magazine. Retrieved from https://time.com/6290367/susan-neiman-tension-at-the-heart-of-wokeism/
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