Woke Up

“Want to have some fun? Find someone who insists on not being woke and ask them what it means. The fun starts when they start stammering and stalling, attempting to come up with a definition!” – paraphrased from a meme on social media.

Now there’s a nugget of truth. I’ve been seeing incidents where some politician or another (exclusively Republican) swears that they will never be “woke,” while accusing someone else (usually someone other than a Republican) of being “woke” or of “wokeness.”

Woke is a lot like the phrase I used to hear: “That’s just too liberal for me!” I haven’t heard that phrase in at least two years… since the demise of Rush Limbaugh.

The word “liberal” became a pejorative under Limbaugh’s watch. As was pointed out in a brilliant cartoon I saw at least 20 years ago, the dictionary definition of “liberal” is not what Limbaugh made it out to be. A “liberal” is someone who is open-minded, accepting of new ideas… something you would hope your children would be.

Almost as importantly, a “liberal” is someone who respects points of view other than his or her own. “Woke,” in my view, is much the same thing. It means that I can sympathize with other points of view.

Put another way – Sure. I am a straight, white, Anglo-Saxon protestant, but that doesn’t mean that I am unaware of some of the struggles experienced by the LGBTQ community; it doesn’t mean that I am unaware that being white or being male gives me certain societal advantages not afforded to people of color, or females. I see being “woke” as a matter of respect to other people not blessed to be in my situation.

This little essay will likely be lost in the flood of politicians using “woke” as a pejorative. There are various conservative think tanks out there which will suggest the use of the term “woke” as a pejorative and more than a few politicians who will use the term whenever they think it will be to their advantage. And there are more than enough willing dupes who will take the bait and firmly declare, “That’s just too woke for me!”

As Mr. Barnum once pointed out, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

Be Seeing You!