I don’t have any problem with wokeness.
In fact, all being woke really means is calling people what they want to be called. Sure there’s the confusion about gender — cis and otherwise — but mostly it’s avoiding the unpleasant, derogatory terms for various races and ethnicities.
Yes, it gets confusing. I was eight years old the first time I called another kid a ni**ger — the only time I used the word in my life, and I got spanked for it. If there’s an irony, it’s that the kid I used that word on was whiter than I was. I had no idea what the word meant.
I soon learned that only ignorant people used that word. The polite term in the late 1950s was “colored,” and within a few years it was “Negro” and then “black.” Where it started to get confusing was with “Afro-American” and then “African-American.” The one that really floored me was when it became “people of color,” which to me seemed like we had come full circle.
A child once said all the different terms for black people confused him and asked me what he should call them.
How about just “people,” I suggested.
Most of the controversy about so-called “wokeness” has come from conservative Republicans trying to stir up low-income, low-education white voters. Much of their anger has been at the portrayal of historical characters, fictional heroes or even cartoon characters as other than white.
Take Jesus, for example.
Given his ancestry and the part of the world he was from, the last thing Jesus would be is Aryan with brown hair and blue eyes. In fact, Christ would be more likely to be African than Scandinavian, but try telling Jim Bob from Cornhole, Alabama, that and his head might explode.
Then there are the various ethnicities, derogatory names from every type of people from the original Americans (“Redskins”) to immigrants from every country there is — Limeys, Frogs, Krauts, Wops, Polacks and the rest.
At least most of those immigrants get credit for being white. Some of the worst names are for various types of immigrants from Asia, and then with Vietnam, the term “gook” sort of racialized all Asians.
So when it comes down to it, being “woke” just means treating people with respect.
Florida’s goofy governor Ron DeSantis, the man with the white disco boots, seems to be basing his entire political persona on being anti-woke, saying that Florida is where woke goes to die.
Actually, Ron, Florida is where everything goes to die.