By Landis Lain
Folks shouldn’t use words they don’t understand. Recently, a self-professed conservative author Bethany Mandel talking head was asked to define the word ‘woke’. She stumbled, fumbled, and then punted, saying it was tough to come up with a definition in fifteen seconds. She should have said that woke is anything that reeks of fairness. It causes racists and bigots to become triggered and miserable.
It reminds me of a few days ago, I was walking in a parking lot. Two people seated in a Toyota covered in anti-woke, buy American and MAGA stickers glowered at me, a stranger, while I marveled at the astounding dissonance of driving a Toyota while touting American supremacy. Why are they proud to be unconscious or asleep? The use of the term ‘woke’ was created by Black people. It references being alert to systemic racial and societal injustices. The earliest documented use of the term ‘Stay Woke’ is documented in the 1930s, when musician Lead Belly advised people to be careful while traveling through Alabama by telling them to “Stay Woke”. Spike Lee used it in the movie School Daze when he cautioned people to ‘Wake Up” to the fact that people should not be mistreating one another. The use waxes and wanes over time, but the meaning remains the same.
In plain words, woke means we clearly see the agenda. We understand that fascism, racism, and sexism are directed toward us. We will not allow it to go unchallenged because we believe in the right to liberty and justice for all, even for those who would kill us. Wokeness is aware and actively attentive to important societal issues, especially of racial and social injustice, or as Google defines it: alert to racial prejudice and discrimination. Some synonyms are astute, insightful, discerning, or fair. We can also use it as an adjective – a state of awareness achieved by individuals who have empathy for the plight of others, especially those who suffer injustice and oppression. In short, to be woke means to acknowledge the ways in which social and political systems are manipulated to be unfair and unjust for certain groups of people. The antonym to woke is asleep, unaware, unconscious, uncaring. That doesn’t sound like a person I want to know.
We the people that the Michigan Governor, House, and Senate, for being woke to discrimination, hatred, gun violence, Medicaid expansion, and the taxing of pensions. The woke citizens of this state appreciate you, and acknowledge that the other citizens of Michigan benefit immeasurably from recent legislation. High jacking ‘woke’ to turn it into a slur for fear-mongering, and using it to disempower and victimize people is the opposite of greatness. If one uses ‘woke’ as a slur, one should go to church to right quick and repent. By the way, the most famous woke person ever to step foot on earth is gasp and swoon – Jesus Christ. Remember he gave that commandment to love thy neighbor as thyself? That’s woke.
