Woke and wokeness is a term I seem to be coming across more and more. In the main it seems to being used in a pejorative sense - in the way of "snowflake" and "snowflakery".
What does woke mean? I think I know but I am going to do some research. This what I found out :
Woke - an adjective - alert to injustice in society - especially racism - ie "we need to stay committed and stay woke".
Urban Dictionary - Woke” refers to being in a state of awareness: “Being Woke means being aware. Knowing whats going on in the community” specifically relating to racism and social injustice.
My obvious question - what's wrong with that? Surely this is what we should all be doing?
What does woke mean? I think I know but I am going to do some research. This what I found out :
Woke - an adjective - alert to injustice in society - especially racism - ie "we need to stay committed and stay woke".
Urban Dictionary - Woke” refers to being in a state of awareness: “Being Woke means being aware. Knowing whats going on in the community” specifically relating to racism and social injustice.
My obvious question - what's wrong with that? Surely this is what we should all be doing?
Well here are some negatives.
A “woke society” tries telling us what we’re to say and think. Social identity groups determine what’s racist and discrimination. Blame is attributed to white (especially straight) men, or Christians and conservatives, who are actually being discriminated against. But no one is woke to that!
And worse, “woke” has led to a victim mentality that justifies using bullying, violence, riots, Antifa, lying, and sadly today anti-Semitism. Anyone can escape responsibility from wrong doing by claiming to be a victim of something . . . anything! Even though they’re often the initiator of the offensive action.
Or what about colleges not admitting students with the best grades and qualifications, but meeting race and gender quotas. And why isn’t anyone “woke” to the fact that college professors are now almost exclusively liberals discriminating against conservatives? Where’s the unity and equality there?
“Woke” schools are factoring in “Adversity Scores” to SAT scores. Where you live or what your parents do, race and gender, or perceived “privilege” undermines hard work.
Did you wonder why some of the Democrat presidential candidates are talking about reparations? That’s part of the “woke” movement too. Even though you had no part in sins of the past, somebody’s gotta to pay, so it might as well be you! Even though many paid the price already with their lives.
Corporate blaming, instead of individual responsibility, has become the “woke” norm. Group think rules.
It always amuses me that most of the people talking about “white privilege” are white themselves. And they have high-paying privileged jobs on television or in government. Have they looked in the mirror lately? Worse yet is when they apologize for being white as if they had any control over the color of their skin. No one does. It’s how God made each of us.
Anyone who apologizes and changes their position to whatever they think the crowd wants, has no character or guiding beliefs.
Or another term thrown around recklessly is “male toxicity!” Satan would love us to demean men and make them ineffective in our society, in our homes, in our churches. And what exactly does that mean anyway? Are we now going to blame white men for all the troubles of the world?
And that’s really the heart of this woke movement. Let’s blame someone, anyone, instead of uniting in making our society better. The media and progressive mantra is: let’s divide on contrived issues. Let’s keep unrest, disunity, upheaval, and pit the American people against each other because that sells. That intimidates. That creates hate, misunderstanding, injustice, anarchy, tension division. That makes news. That deceives people. That gets votes.
The woke movement is trying to police what we can say by forcing on us ‘inclusive language’ prohibiting the use of male and female pronouns and even the word ‘mankind.’ Microsoft is introducing a new “AI-powered [artificial intelligence] online tool designed to improve user’s writing by offering inclusive language replacements.” You can read more about this in the article “Microsoft wants you to use approved political speech—this is a real threat to our freedom.” The heading in FOX News was “Microsoft’s insidious AI Scheme to make you ‘woke’ another word for socially correct determined by liberals.”
Instead of trying to attach moral value or injustice to social groups, let’s value the lives of individuals because every group is comprised of unique individuals.
THE right has been having a bit of a chuckle these last few days over a new book called Woke: A Guide to Social Justice. The book, by comedian Andrew Doyle writing under the pen-name Titania McGrath, mercilessly satirises the Left’s online umbrage brigade, the permanently offended, those who have taken on the role of policing thoughts and words to the point of absurdity.
As a liberal-leftie, I’ve been laughing too, as these people need mocked. They are an impediment to everyone who actually cares about tackling sexism, racism and homophobia. These people make good causes look ridiculous, they alienate when they should be persuading, and they turn liberalism – which I hold dear – into something stupid.
Woke, of course, means someone is “awake” to discrimination, that they see what the rest of us narcoleptics cannot. Not only is the word “woke” utterly toe-curling, it’s also the height of arrogance. Those who call themselves “woke” have taken two very important words, “social justice”, and ruined them. Social justice should be something to celebrate, but the Woke have made a mockery of the idea in their pursuit of ideological purity.
So I’ve enjoyed lines in Woke like: “Being woke is actually much easier than people think. Anyone can be an activist. By simply adding a rainbow flag to your Facebook profile, or calling out an elderly person who doesn’t understand what non-binary means, you can change the world for the better. Indeed social media has now made it possible to show how virtuous you are without having to do anything at all.”
The book does not set out to mock victims of discrimination – ethnic minorities, the LGBT community, women, the disabled – it mocks the self-appointed arbiters of morality, who often come from positions of privilege themselves. As Titania says in Woke: “I learnt early on that my private education and frequent family holidays to Montenegro and the Maldives were merely a ruse by which my parents could distract me from my oppression.”
There is a silent majority of liberals who have been working their entire lives to make the world a better place when it comes to sexism, racism and homophobia. They do not need to be lectured on what it means to be a progressive by someone whose idea of activism is a hashtag.
There have been some egregious examples of Wokeness – each one undermining the idea that social justice is a good thing, through absurdity and puritanism. Jamie Oliver was accused of “cultural appropriation” by Labour’s Dawn Butler MP for making “jerk rice”.
“Your jerk rice is not ok,” she tweeted (of course it was on Twitter). “This appropriation from Jamaica needs to stop.” In a country where racism scars the lives of countless people, this is what a public figure saw as one of the big issues of the day.
Steve Martin, the comedian, was publicly shamed after the death of Carrie Fisher when he wrote: “When I was a young man, Carrie Fisher was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. She turned out to be witty and bright as well.” There was outrage at his slightly clumsy, but loving, tribute. It was irrelevant that the pair had been friends for decades.
During the early stages of the MeToo movement, Matt Damon was attacked for saying “there’s a difference between patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation. Both those behaviours need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated.”
Just a few days ago, the gay Tory MP Nick Boles was subjected to a woke Twitter storm when he shared a tweet about an interview Labour MP Jess Phillips had given. Boles wrote: “There is something about @jessphillips that I find irresistible. I would walk over hot coals for her. And yes she would be a great Prime Minister.”
The Woke deemed him a creepy predator. Ms Phillips had to come to his defence saying she couldn’t believe how “awful people are being” over two MPs from different parties being “nice to each other”. Mr Boles responded to the attacks saying that he was “wondering how I’m going to explain this to my husband”.
I could go on with this list and fill the entire paper. This selection is simply examples which have stuck in my mind – there are many less egregious and many much more egregious. And, of course, you could accuse me of cherry-picking, but let me assure you that there are plenty of cherries to pick.
I’ve spent much of my life laughing at the excesses of the right-wing, and justifiably so. From Tory MPs lecturing Britain about morality in the 1990s caught in some sex scandal, to the pompous privileged idiocy of George Osborne telling Britain to tighten its belt while he tries to take the silver spoon out of his mouth, the right needs mocked. The Alt-right is absurdity made flesh, and Brexit is literally a sick joke – so point and laugh.
Equally, the tyranny of the Left’s thought police needs mocked too. I don’t mean that “political correctness” needs mocked – like “social justice”, the words ”politically correct” have been debased by ideological purists who have no idea what liberalism means; who damage the causes they seek to further. Political correctness just means “try to be nice, try to act decently” – that’s a good thing. It doesn’t mean staging a witch-hunt over nothing in order to show how superior you are.
The Woke suffer from an intellectual deadness which runs through society today – they lack nuance, they cannot compromise, and their narcissism makes them zealots. Just as it doesn’t make you an anti-Semite to criticise the policies of the Israeli government, it doesn’t make you a monster if you cook jerk rice. Do we really need to explain these issues in 2019?
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