My inbox remains a reliable source of vitriolic accusations about the so-called woke mob, as well as more specific accusations that I am myself a member in good standing with the so-called woke mob, so I guess it’s time for a pertinent question:
Uh, what is it?
The woke thing is fairly ubiquitous and has been for a few years, but its comprehension is decidedly not. Confusion about woke reached a tipping point in the last couple weeks with yet another mindless assertion by Donald J. Trump, specifically that Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks “made a horrible mistake when he went ‘woke’ and stated, referring to the 2020 Presidential Election Scam, ‘Put that behind you, put that behind you.’ ”
Brooks, lest you’ve misplaced your handy roster of Jan. 6 insurrectionists, is the guy who turned up in Washington that day for conspicuous speech-making that somehow required him to wear body armor and carry a Glock.
“Today is the day American patriots start takin’ down names and kickin’ ass,” Brooks yelled as the opening act of the Stop the Steal rally. But now that he’s put that behind him, he’s felt compelled to point out that he’s not woke.
“When the (former) president calls me ‘woke,’ there’s not anybody in Alabama with a brain larger than the size of a pea who believes that Mo Brooks is a woke liberal,” Brooks told ABC.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has warned that Disney will destroy the country if its “woke ideology” is left to flourish unabated. Luckily, the line to destroy the country is longer than the one for Space Mountain, and I doubt Disney will be cutting the line in front of Ron DeSantis.
This is the first reference I’ve seen to a woke ideology, even if I admit the suspicion that if anyone was about to foist some sinister agenda upon America it would be Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Laugh if you must, but I believe it was Democratic strategist James Carville who told CNN not long ago that some Democrats need to visit a “woke detox center.”
As it happens, there is an official definition of woke, and it’s not surprising that it’s as benign as can be. According to Merriam-Webster, woke means aware and attentive to important facts and issues, especially issues of race and social justice. It has lyrical roots in a 1938 protest song by bluesman Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly), who urged listeners to “stay woke.”
Oooh. So scary.
No one on the left should allow themselves to be defined by the pejorative slang of people who’d be hard-pressed to define such terms for themselves, and vice versa. It’s the same with the left’s “socialist” agenda. What percentage of people who throw “socialist” around can ascribe to it an accurate definition? I’d say about 16 percent.
Thankfully, we’re coming up on the 70th anniversary of that time Harry Truman put the “socialist” trope to bed for good.
“Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years,” Truman said in a speech at Syracuse. “Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called Social Security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.
“Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.”
And who is the “they” in all of that?
Not the woke mob.
Gene Collier is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
