Eric's Beijing Diary

What is it with the woke stuff? Where did this come from? Semantically it came from Black English. If you said something like, “I just woke up,” maybe standard English and Black English would be the same, but when describing the current state of affairs, they tend to differ:

Standard English: “I’m still awake.”
Black English: “I’m still woke.”

So “woke” means awake, alert, sensitive to the current situation. Opposite words might include “clueless,” “unaware,” “insensitive.”

OK, that takes care of the word part. But the real question is, how did the ideas associated with the whole “woke” mentality get to be regarded as sensitive and caring. I guess it’s a bit like the term “politically correct.” When I first heard that term years ago, I thought, “How do they get to decide what should be considered correct?” Well, they didn’t, in the end. You see, what people react to the in the end—especially in America—is not just the mindset associated with terms like “woke” or “politically correct.” What people also react to is the idea that anybody should have the power to decide which patterns of thought are acceptable, and which ones should be crushed because they do not comport with some arbitrary standard.

So the first problem with what Elon Musk in the video at the end of this blog post calls the “woke mind virus” is the tendancy of the woke crowd not only to insist that their voice be heard—that they have a chance to speak. They are not content with that. They also demand that anyone who disagrees with them be branded as a heretic and burned at the stake, so to speak. It is not merely the propagation of nonsense ideas, it is the insistence that those ideas be accepted or else. The woke movement is very vindictive. They will burn down buildings if you don’t buy into their philosophy. They not only demand the right to share their views. They completely disrespect anyone else’s right to do the same. If you go to their campus to speak, they will not refute your statements with logical arguments (because they don’t have any). They will shout you down.

But let’s get into just what those ideas are, because there is a great deal of confusion about this, mainly because of a plethora of deceptive memes on the internet implying that the reason people reject woke ideology is because they don’t want their children to be taught about the history of slavery or the history of civil rights. That’s not true at all. Shame on everyone who made one of those memes, and shame on everyone who posted one. Show me one parent—just one Black parent or one White parent who does not want their children to be taught the history of racism in America (specifically slavery in the 19th century and the Jim Crow laws in the 20th). Of course parents want their children to be taught that history. But they do not want their children to be taught that White babies are racist from the time they are six months old. And hard working, successful Blacks who have made a life for themselves to NOT want their children to be taught that they are oppressed. Why? Because they know what that kind of poison can do to a child.

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Labels: Racism, Woke Mindset