There’s been this “new” word around for a short while and it finally ocurred to me that I don’t know what it means given how it’s being used.
Woke.
“I woke up just as the sun rose.”
“That dissertation really woke him up.”
That’s my meaning…
But they mean something else. Been looking it up, more than once, and still I’m not sure I understand.
What bothers me especially is how it’s suddenly being used as a negative or pegorative term. Along with green–heads and communists.
Uban dictionary, dictionary.com, et al say (more or less):
To be informed, awake to the issues.
To be informed, awake to the issues.
How is this is a bad thing? How can they be using it as a negative word?
According to NBC News:
Woke is defined by the DeSantis administration [about as negative as you can, right?] as “the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them,” according to DeSantis’ general counsel, as reported by The Washington Post.
And this is used negatively…. Huh?
I mean, especially since there are systemic injustices built into the fabric of American society.
(So there <raspberry-like sounds>)
(So there <raspberry-like sounds>)
Then there’s the anti-wokeness movement. (Double Huh?)
The pressure against “woke”-ness in Florida has already led to restrictions of race-related content in education, including the rejection of an AP African American history course in state high schools and vows from college presidents against including some race-related content that covers “intersectionality, or the idea that systems of oppression should be the primary lens through which teaching and learning are analyzed and/or improved upon.” (From WikiPedia)
Intersectionality sounds suspiciously like systems theory applied to social dynamics (if there’s anything in the component parts of a word), but as a “primary lens” for teaching? I don’t grok(2)(3).
Marxist and Socialist and eco-crazies? These are what “woke” implies (by yet another definition).
Well, I’m in horrible “danger” of becoming all three of those. The more the ignorant right(1) pushes, the more I find myself drifting that direction. Wonder how many others are also feelings a push-back against what the right thinks is “right” ??
“Woke” has got to be the strangest perversion of a simple word in a long time, and now it’s being used to say anyone who takes an interest in social issues is a bad person. Sounds very much like an agenda in play, to me.
Think about it. Always think about stuff. Never just accept anything, especially from Mainsteam Media or Mainstream Culture… about equally ignorant and prejudicial.
[30]
(1) Please understand, by “ignorant right” I am referring to a specific group of people, not everyone on the right, by any means. Plenty of very educated, very rational people on both sides of the [so-called] fench. I too am on the right, at times. On the left at times. Depends on the issue. I do not follow any “party platform” but judge each issue as it comes up. (What a strange notion, eh?)
(2) If “grok” isn’t in your lexicon, try looking up “Robert Heinlein grok” in your favorite search engine.
(3) Clearly, the primary lens for this specific suppression of a type of education is in itself highly suspcious and agenda drive. What harm is there in people having the facts. I mean, if you’re an honest government serving the People, as the oath you swore on taking office requires of you… right?