OK, Let's Define Woke.
Discover more from Conflicted with Greg Berry
OK, Let's Define Woke.
And review the dark path it formed.
Geraldo doesn’t know what an AR-15 is, yet he wants to ban them.
And he likely can’t tell you the difference between semi-automatic and fully-automatic rates of fire, either.
In his own words:
People on either side of the gun debate continue to offer the same arguments as they have for years.
But simple questions, like Gutfeld’s, often expose ignorance most efficiently.
We can do the same with the “assault rifle” issue.
And people on the left noticed the effectiveness of these basic inquiries on the woke subject:
Last month, a federal court posed the same question to Governor Ron DeSantis following a lawsuit from former Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren.
In 2022, DeSantis suspended Warren for his soft-on-crime policies, aka woke policies, a move supported by law enforcement officials statewide.
Gray Rohrer from Florida Politics was present in the courtroom when the court asked the DeSantis team to explain ‘wokeness.’
Ryan Newman, General Counsel for the DeSantis team, defined woke as:
“it would be the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.”
Personally, that’s not how I would define woke. At least not in the modern form.
In a press release last year, DeSantis himself referred to “the wokeness as a form of cultural Marxism.”
Now that sounds more like it.
But let’s check with the “experts” to see how they define “woke.”
And, of course, the all-knowing Wikipedia:
Historical Roots
While the phrase “woke” appeared in a 1962 New York Times article titled “If You’re Woke, You Dig It,” by Melvin Kelley, Martin Luther King Jr. popularized the term in his 1965 commencement speech at Oberlin College titled “Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution.”
Now there is another problem facing us that we must deal with if we are to remain awake through a social revolution. We must get rid of violence, hatred, and war. Anyone who feels that the problems of mankind can be solved through violence is sleeping through a revolution. -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
The current dictionary definition of “woke” has far more in common with these original references than the modern meaning.
But after high-profile cases such as Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin caught fire on social media, which the corporate media lied about, social justice warriors promoted the term as a global catchphrase that often encouraged violence.
The opposite message of what MLK promoted at Oberlin.
So how did wokeness go from “being socially aware” to claiming everything is racist and become the motto for the extreme left?
Why Did Wokeness Change?
For many years, the Democratic party gained support by fighting for social issues such as race relations and women’s rights.
And that was great for the time.
But what happens after segregation dissolves?
Or once all citizens can vote?
What happens after Americans elected a black president? Twice?
Of course, racism and discrimination will always exist to some degree, as in any society.
But how do progressives win elections after they socially level the playing field and incentivize or require diversity quotas in the workplace, academia, and government?
So far, we’ve seen a couple of things:
One is to insist that systemic racism is alive and well, despite the many progressive victories in law and society in general.
The other is to create new inequalities.
Think of the pronoun police or claiming that astronomy is rooted in white supremacy.
Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before
But this tactic isn’t new in human history, and DeSantis touched on it in his speech last year when he mentioned ‘cultural Marxism.'
Marxism and communism historically collected support by claiming that capitalism took advantage of workers for profit, negatively impacting low-level employees' quality of life.
To combat this, communist leaders promised equal rights, fair factory conditions, and updated equipment for the working class.
But what has happened throughout history in countries like the Soviet Union?
Communist leaders formed an authoritarian government, killed and imprisoned countless innocent people for speaking out, and destroyed the country.
Hitler did the same thing with the German people by promising to rebuild the economy and bring back a sense of German pride following their defeat in World War 1.
Aspiring authoritarians always exploit social grievances to gain support.
Only justice never comes. Just more power and control wielded against the masses.
Global Agenda
After 9/11, Americans would do anything to ensure something like that couldn’t happen again.
And we got the Patriot Act which politicians branded as a new level of prevention by granting the government more powers to collect information from everyday Americans.
When people opposed the legislation, they were called conspiracy theorists or terrorist sympathizers.
These laws will help us catch terrorists. You wouldn’t want another attack, would you? If you’ve nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.
And surprise, surprise, Edward Snowden exposed the NSA for spying on private, law-abiding citizens.
They played on our grief to gain power and control.
And today, instead of terrorism, they use wokeness.
Give us the power to criminally charge people for being racist. You aren’t racist, right? If you’re not racist, you have nothing to worry about. (We decide what’s racist.)
Here’s a discussion about “illegal hate speech” at Davos:
That sounds promising.
I don’t support hate speech, but I support the First Amendment and know such laws would do nothing but give the government more control and restrict more rights for citizens.
Fighting Back
So what can we do?
Governor DeSantis declared war on woke, as did House Representative Jim Banks, who intends to form an “anti-woke caucus.”
Earlier this month, in an op-ed for The American Mind, Banks wrote:
“The most toxic part of this tyranny is its doctrine—’wokeness.’ Everyone has by now heard this word but it means something very specific. It means that all the so-called oppressor groups must be punished for their past and present alleged sins. There are many steps to punishing them: inducing self-hatred through indoctrination, stripping away their rights by not enforcing the laws on their behalf, public humiliation, hatred, expropriation, and ultimately violence. That’s what the Left has done so far. It’s not exactly clear yet how far this can go.”
Banks went on to say:
“And what does wokeness mean for the so-called oppressed? It means privileged status, exemption from certain laws and norms, and the public recognition that their views are unimpeachable—they cannot be contradicted by reason, they cannot be doubted, but must be believed.”
Specifically, Banks seeks to rescind Executive Order 13985, which requires all federal agencies to create “Equity Action Plans” and stop overall funding of woke policies.
Let Me Define Woke
In my opinion:
Woke, or wokeness, is an ideology that exploits social issues to guilt people into believing certain people and groups are infinitely oppressed to gain control in government, academia, the workplace, and society in general.
Politicians manufacture perpetual victimhood to secure elections for the establishment, which we know is made up of Democrats and Republicans.
Victims equal votes.
For example, they don’t care about the black community.
They call for riots when a black person is shot by the police, while the black community suffers in low-income neighborhoods, shooting each other daily, and dying from overdoses.
No headlines there.
But once a lunatic marches into a shopping mall with an “assault rifle,” they demand that law-abiding citizens give up their rights.
They want to keep black people down so they can blame their problems on US history and whites. God forbid marginalized communities make progress and stop relying on the government.
Corporations market cheap, processed fast food to growing black minds, contributing to health issues that require a lifetime of medication.
Don’t you want to help those poor black people? Don’t they deserve money for our past? You want their medical bills covered, right? Vote blue today.
And they don’t care about our children.
Schools claim to be inclusive by introducing adult content in the classroom and pumping kids full of prescription drugs, and encouraging students to make decisions that make profits for pharmaceutical companies.
You want their checkups, gender-affirmation surgery, ongoing maintenance, and hormones covered, right? Vote for me.
The “experts” say climate change is a detriment to our future.
Don’t you care about the Earth and your children’s future? Give us your vote. We’ll make it better. Sure, making everything electric and connected to the internet allows us to control everything, but don’t be a conspiracy theorist.
They say we should subsidize abortion clinics and corporations should fund abortion travel.
Don’t you care about women’s health and rights? Do you really want to go backward? Make the check out to my campaign and put this sign on your lawn to let your neighbors know that you don’t support the patriarchy.
Politicians don’t have to worry about being robbed or shot because they hire armed guards.
Look at these school shootings. Aren’t they awful? I’ll make the guns go away. At least from law-abiding citizens. The only people left with guns will be my bodyguards, police, and criminals. Don’t you care about the kids?
Elitists aren’t scared of criminals and guns.
They’re scared of educated black people.
They’re scared of independent and conservative minorities because once the truth is out, so are the votes.
They’re scared when people see that the government is not interested in solving their problems because their problems win elections.
Anyone that doesn’t rely on the government doesn’t need more government.
But let’s assume I’m wrong for a second.
Isn’t it convenient that wokeness gives the government everlasting control and makes money for the establishment?
What a coincidence.
Unlike Geraldo, I know what an assault rifle is, and I know the difference between semi-automatic and full-auto rates of fire.
I know what AR-15 stands for.
And I know these people could have used one.
