Being "Woke" isn't a bad thing!

The first time many people heard “woke” in its current context was likely during the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri, Black citizens took to the streets nightly to protest the police shooting death of Michael Brown. As they did so, they urged each other to “stay woke” against police actions and other threats.

But “woke” and the phrase “stay woke” had already been a part of Black communities for years, long before Black Lives Matter gained prominence. “While renewed (inter)national outcry over anti-Black police violence certainly fueled widespread and mainstream usage of the word in the present, it has a much longer history,” deandre miles-hercules, a doctoral linguistics researcher at the University of California Santa Barbara, told me.

The earliest known examples of wokeness as a concept revolve around the idea of Black consciousness “waking up” to a new reality or activist framework and dates back to the early 20th century. In 1923, a collection of aphorisms and ideas by the Jamaican philosopher and social activist Marcus Garvey included the summons “Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!” as a call to global Black citizens to become more socially and politically conscious. A few years later, the phrase “stay woke” turned up as part of a spoken afterword in the 1938 song “Scottsboro Boys,” a protest song by Blues musician Huddie Ledbetter, a.k.a. Lead Belly. The song describes the 1931 saga of a group of nine Black teenagers in Scottsboro, Arkansas, who were accused of raping two white women.

How do Republicans define "Woke?"

"Woke" is currently the favorite word of the right. Republican politicians can't go more that 5 or 6 words without peppering "woke" into their sentences. Turning on Fox News, you'll hear the word "woke" repeated ad nauseam, like a record skipping, but for hours at a time: "woke woke woke woke woke." Everything is  "woke": Banks. Children's books. The military. Disney. M&Ms. Super Bowl performances. To be a Republican in the year 2023 is to spend every waking moment outraged and terrified by "woke," certain its wokey tendrils will snake their wokeness into your brain and woke-ify you into wokeitude. 

But the funny thing about "woke" is that, while all Republicans hate it, they don't seem to have any idea how to define it. That was hilariously demonstrated in a viral video clip of conservative author
Bethany Mandel falling completely apart when asked in an interview to define "woke," a concept she wrote an entire book denouncing. Mandel couldn't do it.

"So, I mean, woke is sort of the idea that, um..." she stammered before admitting it "is something that's very hard to define," and then failing utterly to get close. 

It isn't surprising that the party of misinformation use the word "woke" untruthfully to spread their message of everything they hate from a word meaning the opposite.  Thus proving that most (but not all, Republicans are the party of intolerance of those who are "not the norm."

It is sad to me that people are not embracing diversity, especially in America.  A place that brags that we are the greatest country in America and the land of opportunity, and yet when people from other countries and backgrounds come to the USA looking for those opportunities, there are those that tell them to go back to their own country.

There are those who are more open about trying to discourage immigrants from coming to our country, and will stop at nothing to do it, even if it means coming up with the most ludicris statements to do it.

The misguided ideas that come from her head, and those who think like her are astounding.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (and announced candidate for the presidency) and his feud with Disney are a prime example of how intolerance and narrow mindedness can cost Americans jobs, and states millions of dollars.  Calling Disney "woke" just because they disagree with some of his ideas and policies is just stupid.

Bottom line, people in the MAGA movement and more intolerant than Archie Bunker (younger people, YouTube Archie Bunker and you'll know what I mean) is doing more to harm and divide this country since the Civil War.

Younger Americans need to, now more than ever, need to make their voices heard on issues such as guns, equality and inclusion.  A lot of younger people are already doing that,  and this trend needs to continue to move forward.  This isn't the 1920's anymore...it's the 2020's, and we should be well past this by educating ourselves on history, and what America is really all about.

Fight to keep books from being banned.  Republicans say that they are trying to save this kids from indoctrination, when it is quite the opposite.  When parents and other adults rant about how we should hate other religions, races and people different than they are, that is indoctrination.

When the Bible says "Love thy neighbor, it doesn't have an asterisk next to it saying unless they are differnt than you.

Remeber what Jesus said..."Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone."