What does woke mean?
Does it matter?
Let’s once again, begin by using dictionaries.
Merriam-Webster has these two definitions of “woke”:
chiefly US slang
1 a: aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)
2. disapproving: politically liberal or progressive (as in matters of racial and social justice), especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme.
Cambridge Dictionary says:
woke
adjective
UK /wəʊk/ US /woʊk/
aware, especially of social problems such as racism and inequality
Candice Pinault Novak expresses:
No matter your political stance or cultural affiliation, this short and simple word, in use since the twelfth century, now has the power to raise your blood pressure—and your guard.
Here’s her article: https://www.umass.edu/magazine/spring-2024/why
I totally agree with her on that!
Here we have Short Fat Otaku, a YouTuber I like a lot giving his definition:
And two videos by Konstantin Kisin, another man I truly admire:
Rather than defining the world again, I’ll write about how we use it.
I’ve been called woke before, and I guess if you use it to describe people who see everything through the Marxist-Oppression-Olympics lens, I’d be the person they should love the most. I’m brown, female, bisexual, neurodivergent, disabled, and an atheist (or not? That’s a topic for another post), but because I DO NOT think all straight white cis religious males are inherently superior or way more privileged than I am…then I’m enemy #1 and a Nazi.
Being woke was supposed to be about being aware of injustices. I am aware of them, and that’s why I advocate for the things I do. It’s unfair people can pay their way out of a crime or that males can’t legally be victims of sexual assault in the UK due to their definition. I don’t think people should be fired because of a post they made a decade ago, or going to jail because of using the wrong pronouns. Ableism, racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, xenophobia they ALL still exist and they are horrible when they do happen, it’s just that now they are used incorrectly. I care about justice, meritocracy, freedom of speech, equality of opportunity, education, values, and so on. All of those concepts will mean different things to different people. I am woke if it means I’m aware the world is unjust, but woke people as the right describes them…don’t like me at all.
On the other side, the “anti-woke” can be as idiotic as the so-called wokes they hate. Libs of TikTok is an account that raised important points and exposed deranged progressives, but many of their videos criticize people who just like alternative fashion, normal LGBT people, or simply serve to demonize “the left” as a whole. Some conservatives are extremists and want everyone to think just like they do.
Women crying about me calling Blaire White she or a trans woman and yelling that you can’t use cis. Isn’t that speech control? Hazel Appleyard celebrating a post (that turned out to be fake) that said bringing a pride flag to the classroom is a crime. Christian nationalists want the state and religion to be the same. People like Pearl Davis, Cadance Owens, Matt Walsh, Andrew Tate, etc. Not everyone on the right is rational. Many have double standards that they can’t see just like “woke” people on the left can’t.
I guess the real issue isn’t to be woke or anti-woke, it’s to see everything through a puritan, dogmatic, rigid, black-and-white thinking lens. When you generalize people, ignore the individual and worst of all…you want to force everyone to think and act the same way you do, then that’s a huge issue.
Identity politics are toxic and they hurt everyone. “Woke Hollywood” made it so representation is not considered important and now if you see a show with any minority you instantly hate it despite it being a good show. As Dev explains, both white supremacists and anti-racists see everything through race which is horrible. The right calls anyone they disagree with woke and the left calls anyone they disagree with an alt-right fascist. The sentiment is the same, either you agree with me or you’re evil.
Most normal people want to live and let live. We don’t want our ways of life that don’t hurt anyone or at least are not inherently evil to be banned. I don’t want people censoring, banning, and forcing the population to all have one ideology, and discussions to grow and learn are out of the question.
I’d love a world where the government doesn’t overreach, where people can grow as much as they can as long as they try, where we listen to each other, where education is important, and where we can work together to improve. That’s probably a utopia and will never truly happen, but we can try!
There are many issues in our world, but it’s not about woke and anti-woke because some anti-woke people can be as insufferable and authoritarian. I think the issue is eliminating nuance from conversations. Black-and-white thinking hurts everyone, so it’s not a left vs right or conservatives vs liberals. It’s people who want to abuse power and force others to comply and the rest of us who just want to live our lives the best we can.
I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know it all. And that’s why I want to keep writing and sharing my thoughts! Maybe then we can learn and grow together.
Thank you so much for reading, sharing, subscribing.