To Be Woke or Just Awake?

 

woke - adjective. informal, U.S. - alert to injustice in society, notably racism (Google)

Because society is composed of fallible human beings, there will always be injustice. Trying to combat it is always an upward battle. As an apolitical person myself, I tend to stand clear of movements that find their way back to partisan politics. For this reason, the Woke Movement is one that I tend to avoid although I have always been alert to wrongs, particularly racism and have quietly attempted to right them via volunteer work and monetary contributions. In short, I'm awake to the possibilities of change, not woke. Those claiming to be woke in the Movement, however, can be loud yet non-participating, meaning they are all talk and little to no action. 

Case in point: The other day, I went to Michaels, innocently looking to buy frames for some prints I had bought as gifts. At the check-out, the young male clerk, like vanilla ice cream in root beer, was floating in a good mood, which was communicable in that his positivity succeeded in elevating me. The amount that I owed for the frames wound up being $14.92. As I handed him a twenty, I recited jokingly, "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." He and I both laughed; but a woke interloper, another, somewhat older female clerk, heard the word "Columbus" and started a lengthy lecture in support of his relations with indigenous peoples. As she pontificated, I wondered who this woman thought she was to consider herself a pundit on the subject as obviously she wasn't old enough to have been an eyewitness to Columbus's exploits, positive or negative. At the close of her monologue, which was actually a soliloquy because the other clerk and I had stopped listening half way through it, I simply said, "The problem with people today is that they have no sense of humor. People need to lighten up." She mumbled a word or two in complaint as I exited the store into 2021. Indubitably, the woman was woke, yet caught up in her own rhetoric–all talk, no action. 

Another problem with the Woke Movement (along with the female clerk) other than inaction is that it is too centered on the past and not on the present.  For instance, the Native American tribal people once owned and operated the entire continental United States. Should the government fork over all of the land that it had stolen from them? If so, with the exception of the indigenous people, we'd all have to return to our points of origin. Personally, I'd be okay with returning to Scotland, but I don't think too many others would be keen on going home; otherwise, they'd be there already. What I am trying to stress here is that some Native American people on reservations are suffering in the now, suffering from inequities that have led them to lean on drugs and alcohol. Surely there is a way for the government to assist them. I am all for reparations if they concern persons in the present, not the past.

If the Woke Movement were truly awake, it would concentrate on what is happening now, not on what happened hundreds of years ago that history cannot rewrite favorably. Stop talking about yesterday and do something about the injustices that afflict minorities today. Just saying. 

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