Wokeism Wasn’t Woke Enough, Part I of II on Why Wokeism Failed
Our Racial Curse and Why Wokeism Failed
The problem with woke-ism, or being woke, is that the ideology was not woke enough. What do I mean by that? Let’s take a step back and define it:
Wokeism is an ideology pertaining to a state of having an elevated level of awareness about social injustices.
“Stay woke,” is a phrase that may have been first heard in the 1930’s, and most definitely reinvigorated on Twitter soon after the murder of George Floyd, #staywoke #georgefloyd. Racism is obviously a type of social injustice, and the police officers involved in the homicide of George Floyd were convicted of various charges by the District Court of Minnesota. “Stay woke,” served as a reminder for people to be alert and spread awareness about types of social injustices, occurrences, and events—disproportionately so with those regarding race.
Wokeism failed because the phrase was spread without an understanding or an education of what people were supposed to be woke about. In other words, society was never “awakened” for the phrase “stay woke” to be applicable. Wokeism was restricted—it did not go far enough—and it was improperly applied. I’ll go as far as to say that it was unjustly applied. This resulted in movements that caused harm, divided societies, and perhaps worst of all, kept people unwoke.
Actually Woke
Students that graduate from institutions of higher education, largely in part, consider themselves woke, especially those graduating from liberal states or metropolitan areas. Their curse is that they cannot seem to reason critically on topics outside of race. They are partially woke to racial injustices and blind to all other injustices. This results in educated individuals taking any and all other social issues and turning them into racial ones. Template observations and solutions relevant for racial injustices are then incorrectly applied to all other social issues.
When Kyle Rittenhouse, a then 17 year-old who participated in an armed militia to protect businesses from rioters and looters, was acquitted of all 6 murder charges, the social headlines circulating were not about the appropriate ages for American citizens to participate in militias, nor did the topics include whether or not police departments and national guards should allow aid from an armed citizenry—no, this issue was analyzed in the only way our government sponsored public education system taught us to critically think: Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges because he is white; and had he been black, then he would have been declared guilty. This sentiment, shared by many, was not even an advocacy to help black Americans receive equal protections from the law in future cases—no, it was to say that though Kyle might be innocent under the law, he should be sentenced guilty because had he been black, he certainly would have been. Unfortunately, the racial lens is the only lens many educated Americans are equipped to assess any and every social crisis. For the record, because Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges, I expect similar sentencing for all Americans in the future, regardless of race.
An awareness on racial issues is certainly part of being woke. But it isn’t woke enough, it is incomplete. The term to grasp is institutional discrimination. Ironically, this was a term that I learned at the University of Southern California (USC) in a required general education course called, Racial and Diversity Conflict. Ironic because it was in a class on race, when the term supersedes racial issues, and again ironic because USC discriminated at an institutional level in how they responded to COVID, but that is a topic for another day. Let us focus on institutional discrimination.
What is institutional discrimination?
This is best described with an example. Let’s say your local school district were to declare, “Henceforth, our public school buses will not pick-up or drop-off negro students at bus stops. Negro students must either walk or be dropped off at designated locations.” This would be an explicit example of racism with no attempt to pretend that it isn’t. It’s racist. But what if your local school district instead declared, “Due to school financial shortages and concern for the safety of our drivers, our school board has agreed that henceforth, our buses will no longer pick-up or drop-off students from communities where there are reported cases of school bus vandalism and where the community crime rates are higher than N.” Race was not mentioned in that policy. But what if I told you that both policies, in that example, result in the exact same outcome where black students will no longer be provided school transportation services due to reported cases of school bus vandalism and communities with high crime rates being primarily black communities? That is an example of institutional racial discrimination. That is what people must be woke about. But again, wokeism should not stop at racial issues. People must be woke, or educated, on topics where social groups are discriminated against due to policies, whether or not it was intended to discriminate or not!
Let’s go through a mental exercise. Which social groups were affected when the United States Government mandated that citizens without a COVID-19 injection, or “vaccine”, cannot work in offices, cannot dine in restaurants, and cannot use transportation services? How were they affected? What advantages could citizens who were able to work in offices, dine in restaurants, and travel during this time gain over citizens who were not allowed to? Could such a person have used this time to be “in-the-know” at workplaces and social events to build or maintain a rapport with people in leadership roles that might make them preferable towards a promotion when an opportunity became available? Could such a person have been allowed to romantically court or date at fine restaurants aiding emotional health? Could they have travelled for business to expand and make deals gaining an advantage over competitors who could not? Or just simply provide their families an educational and bonding experience by traveling abroad? How much further could it have gone? HOA conditions to live in certain communities? Being required to only live in certain communities if unvaccinated (unvaxxed ghettos)? Segregation at eating areas? Grocery stores? Are you not convinced that this is an example of institutional discrimination? What if instead of citizens without a COVID-19 injection the government said, “Native Americans without documentation renouncing their affiliation to any and all tribes?” Why do race-based social issues scream at us and other types not so much? These are not rhetorical questions, per se, and I will leave these questions unanswered so that they may be pondered over.
Being able to identify injustices and discrimination across social groups is part of being woke.
Good Intention, Bad Judgment
Understanding the implications of the solutions proposed and applied to address social issues is the other side of the wokeism coin.
The decision to institutionalize race-based slavery at the foundation of our United States continues to plague our nation 246 years after the revolution against England. Scattered Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian ministers condemned slavery as a sin and declared that it was contrary to God’s Word. Meanwhile many planters, especially in Virginia and Maryland, described slavery as a stream of income, a prevention to economic stagnation, and morally justified absent religion. 159 years ago, in 1863, African Americans were freed as declared in the Emancipation Proclamation. Today, we work to address social and economic disparities between black Americans and white Americans—well, actually, all minority races and white Americans.
Solutions proposed tend to be race based. This is the circular dilemma that our nation can’t escape. In software development terms, this is referred to as an infinite loop. Let’s explore how some of these solutions play out.
Diversity in the workplace
Companies proudly campaign for diversity in the workplace. They are not talking about diverse industry experiences, diverse skills and qualifications, diverse interests, perspectives, levels of successes, or even age. They mean that they are prioritizing one main metric: non-white employees (wokeism and LGBTQ is addressed in Part II of this article).
Companies, for example Disney, train their hiring recruiters to build portfolios of candidates that have a make-up of “diverse” races, meaning non-white. What this translates to is that even if a candidate is strong and qualified for the job, if they are white, they must be passed up due to their ethnicity or color of their skin in favor of another candidate who is of a favored ethnicity or race, even if less qualified or a weaker candidate for the job. A white person in 2022 may not get hired for the job because of the color of their skin. Some people use the term reverse-racism to describe this consequence. It is racism to fight racism. It’s an injustice to address an injustice. It’s vengeance.
Race targeting policies are rationalized because of the historic sociopolitical and economic advantages this nation benefited white Americans. I am not saying that white Americans did not have an advantage—what I am saying is that a race-based reversal strategy is just that, race-based, and therefore racist. More importantly, there is no agreed upon declaration or milestone definition about when this should stop or when the race battles would consider themselves “squared.” In Agile software development, we would say that this epic or story does not have a definition of what it would mean to be done. The result? A continued race cursed society with no end in sight.
Retributions and Reparations
Several bills have been proposed to either elevate black Americans with an intention of minimizing the wealth gap between white Americans and black Americans, or to disincentivize white Americans for their inherited privilege of not being descendants of enslaved Americans, or worse, for being descendants of slave owners. These are race based and race targeting retributions and reparations.
There are several problems with this approach, primarily that there is no sum of new privilege that can ever make up for the sins of the generations before. There is also no declared and agreed upon sum of what it would mean to be “squared.” But the problem I want to address is the nature of the solution being a type of vengeance, and the Pandora’s Box this strategy opens. If we are going to be woke we must be able to think beyond race.
Race based slavery was controversial even in the 18th century. Today, society debates other controversial issues, such as abortions. If retributions are a just method for mankind to right a wrong, then woe to those and their generational offspring who end up on the wrong side of history. A dominant conservative and right-wing force 20 years from now can look at our history today and declare:
Abortions are evil and have always been evil. Anybody who participated in the murder of their own child, anybody who participated in the operation of aborting a child, and anybody who advocated for aborting a child will face retributions due to the immorality of their wicked actions, and for the financial advantage an abortionist gained over families who rightly kept and raised their children to contribute and benefit future societies. Furthermore, any honors, awards or artistic representations crafted that commemorate leaders who participated in abortions or advocated for them must be removed for the shame that they stain our nation’s history with.
Society would be at the mercy of the political party in power and its projected morality if they desire justice by vengeance for that generation and the sins of their parents. Is that really how we would like to live as a people? That one is a rhetorical question. I certainly hope that nobody desires this for themselves or anybody.
The Social Dilemma
What would it take for a nation to heal and be rid of the racial curse that plagues society today? Can we move on from racial issues if the solutions are race targeting? No, we cannot. Not unless both sides of this multi-century tug-of-war battle tire themselves out and decide to mutually drop the rope.
Can America Forgive Herself?
Adultery classically continues be a challenge from one marriage to another. Some choose to terminate the marriage and file for divorce, while others choose to forgive and heal. What isn’t a proper solution is an adultery freebie opportunity. Because you caught your spouse committing adultery, the proper resolve is not for you to sleep with whoever you want and call it square. We cannot repay evil with evil. Similarly, we cannot fight racial issues with race-based diplomacy that favors one race over another.
Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written: “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
— Romans 12:19–21
In other words, can we trust God to provide his just and righteous judgment on the wicked, and allow each other to move on from our racial curse? Absolutely. The issue is and has always been sin. Understand that if not race, then something else—i.e., religion, denomination, political party, levels of education, marital status, wealth classes, COVID injection status, citizenship status, age—because of sin, people throughout history have always and will always find a means to group people and unjustly depress target groups. Wokeness will still be required of us all.
My hope for this article is to project awareness that not all social issues are race-based issues, or at least, not always the most appropriate lens to apply. My objective is not to undermine or deny that there are still racial issues our globe suffers from. My prayer is for people’s eyes and hearts to be opened and to recognize when their emotions are being stirred and manipulated by the media and governing authorities, and to be emboldened not to cower when systematic injustices are occurring at their doorstep, much like German citizens once cowered when labor camps were built in their backyards.
So yes, please, be woke, then stay woke.
To be continued in Part II: ”Wokeism wasn’t woke enough, LGBTQ and why wokeism failed”
