by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
If I ever blow up with my DJ money, as they say, I will immediately become the subject of scrutiny and, as such, all my drunken women chasing and general bad behavior over the years will be probably be picked part. I know this is a very real possibility — I’m a very flawed person and I’ve done my fair share of things that some people will put me in the “canceled” dustbin of history for.
Having said that, in my experience, whenever I have a run-in with “woke” people on Twitter my biggest complaint is I just don’t know how to deescalate things. The moment they start using “woke cancel culture mob” buzzwords I’m taken aback. They frame things in a way that it’s impossible for me to say, “But, but, I’m on your side…:
Which gets me to thinking, what, exactly does it mean to be “woke.” The first instance of gratuitous wokeness that I remember is when in one of the Jurassic Park sequels everyone was saved by a young African American woman gymnast out of the blue. It was totally out of place and weird and I immediately realized that Spielberg was, in a very ham handed manner, trying to make a point, even if making that point was to the detriment of the story.
Now, of course, that young African American woman would probably be transgendered or something. Which, there’s nothing wrong with that, but unless the storyteller did the hard work of setting up her heroic turn would just be weird and take you out of the movie.
But, again, what does it mean to be “woke?”
I think it means different things to different people. It’s so abused by the Right to score political points that its use has grown very grating. But I suppose one definition would be framing things in such a way that straight white men are seen as the enemy. I’m not saying this is my definition, but it is a definition. To me, I see being “woke” often as a crutch that over sensitive people use on Twitter to start a fight even if what you said was just a random, stray thought without any deeper meaning.
But I will say this — people who are excessively woke are doing the cause of liberal democracy no favors. It’s extremely corrosive because if you totally alienate conservative white straight men then they’re going to vote for fucking fascists. And then where are you with your wokeness?
And, yet, I don’t think there really is any unified, agreed upon meaning for “being woke.” It’s generally so broad and so apt to be warped for the political motives of the Far Right that it’s kind of a “know it when you see it” kind of thing.
All I want is Leftist not to attack me if I don’t follow their orthodox. I generally am not Leftist and don’t even like them, but I’m willing to make common cause with them if that’s what I have to do to defeat the rise of the fascist MAGA New Right.
