Woke is an interesting term. Prior to the modern conservative obsession with it, the word had a definition that made sense. Woke was a slang term for people that understood the systematic historical oppression of racial inequality. They woke up and saw the racial injustice. That was all it was. I don’t love the term, but I accept it for what it is. I suppose you could make the argument that ‘woke’ had expanding to cover not just racial injustice. People were using it to discuss discrimination based on gender and other minorities as well. The more the merrier I guess, but I think it dilutes the purpose.
A few years back, Black Live Matter became a big topic, and the racists needed a way to say they were racist without saying it. They couldn’t fight Black Lives Matter as a slogan directly. All Lives Matter was not catchy enough and easy to strike down. They decided to go with Anti-Woke. Or fighting the woke agenda.
At its core, anyone fighting the woke agenda is advocating for racism and oppression. When a politician uses it, it’s not even a dog whistle to the Klan or Nazis. It’s a flat out call to arms. But a phrase that people feel comfortable putting on the local news. It’s something they can say to proclaim their allegiance to racist groups and still get airtime.
Am I woke? Yes. But I didn’t use to be. I grew up in a small rural town where all the black people lived in a tiny portion of houses that were generally in disrepair. They were poor. Most of the crime in town occurred there. The kids I went to school with that were black were almost entirely in the more remedial classes. They wore crappy clothes. The crappy rural public education system waved their hands over the emancipation, reconstruction, and acted like everything was good after the civil rights movement. They could vote, so we’re done here. I knew that was wrong because clearly people still openly called them the N word and treated them like crap, but I didn’t understand it all until much later. I used to think those black people should be better. Less lazy. Or lift themselves up. Because my young dumbass still thought bootstraps were something you could lift on your own and didn’t realize they had a lot more obstacles in front of them than I had in front of me.
Then I went to college to get edumucated and discovered that there was a reason for that. As a population, those families have been getting the short end of the stick for centuries. The staircase they climb to the top has a lot more steps on it, and a few of them are traps designed to send them back to the beginning. I was ignorant. But I learned. And now I’m woke.
The real question is this: Why isn’t everyone woke?
Answer? Educated people are far less racist than uneducated people. And certain groups have gone out of the way to make sure that education is this country is a lot more like my public school and a lot less like my university. They want people to be asleep. Being woke comes with accepting that injustice exists. That not every group is as well off as middle-aged white men. Not everyone has a silver spoon.
Some people are racists. Others are just ignorant dupes. But anyone fighting against being Woke is ignorant and worthy of derision. There are no exceptions. Anti-woke is just Pro Racism. Weather the dumbass saying it knows it or not.
So, why not wake up. Look around you. See things as they truly are. Then we can talk about how to make it better.
Seriously.
Wake up.