August 6, 2024 • 24 mins
Woke Culture
Pros of Woke Culture
1. Increased Awareness of Social Issues
- Woke culture has heightened awareness around issues like racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination, leading to more informed and empathetic communities. This has spurred significant social change and policy reform.
2. Advocacy for Marginalized Groups
- It has given a voice to marginalized groups, pushing for their rights and representation in media, politics, and other areas. This has helped foster a more inclusive and equitable society.
3. Encouragement of Accountability
- Woke culture emphasizes holding individuals and institutions accountable for their actions, promoting transparency and integrity in various sectors, including business, education, and government.
Cons of Woke Culture
1. Polarization and Division
- The fervent nature of woke culture can lead to polarization, creating an "us vs. them" mentality. This can result in social fragmentation and reduced dialogue between differing viewpoints.
2. Cancel Culture
- The rise of cancel culture, often associated with woke culture, can lead to punitive measures without due process. This can result in individuals being ostracized or losing their livelihoods over past mistakes or controversial opinions.
3. Surface-Level Changes
- Sometimes, woke culture can lead to performative actions rather than substantial change. Companies and individuals might engage in tokenism, making superficial gestures instead of addressing the root causes of social issues.
When cause based organizations meet their goal, they pile on other causes or gin up things to keep donations coming in and their jobs secure
Pros of Woke Culture
1. Increased Awareness of Social Issues
- Woke culture has heightened awareness around issues like racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination, leading to more informed and empathetic communities. This has spurred significant social change and policy reform.
2. Advocacy for Marginalized Groups
- It has given a voice to marginalized groups, pushing for their rights and representation in media, politics, and other areas. This has helped foster a more inclusive and equitable society.
3. Encouragement of Accountability
- Woke culture emphasizes holding individuals and institutions accountable for their actions, promoting transparency and integrity in various sectors, including business, education, and government.
Cons of Woke Culture
1. Polarization and Division
- The fervent nature of woke culture can lead to polarization, creating an "us vs. them" mentality. This can result in social fragmentation and reduced dialogue between differing viewpoints.
2. Cancel Culture
- The rise of cancel culture, often associated with woke culture, can lead to punitive measures without due process. This can result in individuals being ostracized or losing their livelihoods over past mistakes or controversial opinions.
3. Surface-Level Changes
- Sometimes, woke culture can lead to performative actions rather than substantial change. Companies and individuals might engage in tokenism, making superficial gestures instead of addressing the root causes of social issues.
When cause based organizations meet their goal, they pile on other causes or gin up things to keep donations coming in and their jobs secure
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello there, Welcome into another episode of the Brent Mason Show.
I'm the forementioned Brent Mason. This is a podcast where
we cover I guess, society, religion, controversial subjects, things of
that sort. Boy, we're going to dive off into it today.
I'm so tired of hearing about woke. I'm just really
(00:22):
sick of hearing about woke. It's interesting because most things
that are referred to as quote unquote woke, most things
now I don't really think, you know, are are exactly
what they're being labeled as by usually the right, although
(00:43):
the right isn't the only people that do it. But
I'm actually in favor of quote unquote woke to a
certain extent. For sure has a place. I for sure
think the core of woke is a good thing, but
for sure bad things. And so you know, I gave
this a little bit thought over the past week, took
(01:06):
down some notes and researched some of the things that
the right tends to go off on about being woke,
and prepared a little set of bullet points so we
could talk about it in an episode. So here we go.
First of all, to me, generally speaking, the topics being
(01:29):
brought up that are labeled as woke typically involve things
in society where people are being hurt emotionally or they're
being harmed in a way in terms of access to benefits, services,
(01:49):
ordinary things that everybody else is entitled to, and just
generally speaking, I think that the core woke is like, hey,
let's just not be assholes everybody. I mean, I think
that's at the core is what it is. Now it's
for sure become more than that. So you have these
movements and organizations that latch onto a thing and then
it just gets driven hard and then there can be
(02:11):
you know, really pretty substantial divisions, fissures that happen, like
things that aren't necessarily great. But at its core, on
an individual level, I think we all should be woke.
We all should be woke on an individual level. I think,
just like many other things like BLM, you know, got
(02:32):
kind of out of hand, you know. And by the way,
I'm a huge but let me clarify this ulf from
a huge supporter of the lgbtq A. I don't know
there's more letters in that now it's plus. I don't
know if there's like two more three more letters on
the end of it. Now I don't know, like I
support marginalized people, especially people that are marginalized based strictly
(02:56):
on you know, how they choose to live their personal life.
But definitely some of that stuff has gone way too far.
And we'll talk about this when I get into the
cons if I remember, hopefully I've taken good notes. But
you know, a lot of positives I think so obviously
(03:17):
the number one when when a quote unquote woke topic
starts making its rounds or on social media or you
start seeing it on certain you know, platforms and distribution
and stuff. It for sure brings awareness to issues that
either don't get highlighted enough or need to get highlighted more.
And this can be you know, racism, instances of racism,
(03:39):
like very specific instance raism. I don't mean broad based racism.
I mean highlighting a specific segment of business or society
or government or something where there is this egregious racism happening.
It definitely needs to be highlighted or it can't be fixed. Sexism,
you know, any other really form of discrimination that you know,
there's a billion different ones it could be, and this
(04:02):
often leads to one people being informed of it that
may not have known what was happening, and then you'll
start seeing some change, you'll see some reforms and stuff.
And we've seen this happen over and over and over again.
Of course, it gets carried too far, and I'll talk
about that in the con section. We'll get more into that.
But I think it's valuable if you think back to
(04:24):
when it hasn't been that long ago. Really it's been
in my lifetime, and I guess probably I don't know
exactly when, maybe halfway through my lifetime. But this Americans
with Disabilities Act that started out as wokeness man, and
this is just a simple concept that we have a
lot of people in society that have lost the use
of their legs or they're quadriplegic, paraplegic or whatever, and
(04:46):
they're really just trying to be what we say we
want everybody to be, which is strong, resilient, self supporting,
you know, out there doing their thing. And you just
have you know, people all around the country who are like, yeah,
but I mean, I can't get in this building with
my wheelchair, Like I would love to be able to
(05:06):
get into my car that I've had this money paid
to be wheelchair or you know, whatever handicap they have
handicap accessible usable. You know, I've figured out a way
that I can work and all this stuff, but I
can't go to the post office because I can't get
in with my chair. Like you know, that was a
woke idea. These are people who are just trying to
(05:27):
access things you and I are trying to access and
they're doing their best in life like that. That's it
to me, that's a woke that was a woke issue.
That was somebody got woke to that. Woke means you
wake up to something you weren't aware of happening. That's
what it's core. What woke means you become aware, you
wake up to this being a problem. And so look,
(05:49):
the fact that a person now with a wheelchair for
the most part, can go anywhere that a walking person
can go and get into that building for serviss or
business or whatever it may be, is amazing. Now it
came with some pain, right, little extra pain on the
(06:10):
side of business, little extra pain on the side of
government contracts and stuff where thing had to be modified.
We'd have changes in building codes, what was required. It
was painful, But man, think about how it has allowed
people to be self sufficient. And I especially find this
interesting with the political right, who's you know, they're not
(06:34):
about helping people out. They just aren't. I'm sorry, they
just aren't. If you're on the right, I apologize if
that hurts your feelings, but y'all just aren't that much
on helping people. You think it's everything is communism or socialism.
But if you genuinely want a person who who has
these limitations physically or whatever to get out there and
try to live a life where they don't rely on
(06:55):
some type of assistance or something, then I think the
minimum we can do is have it to where all
buildings they can get into, and then that way you
don't have to help them, right, you don't have to
do these things you're not a big fan of because
you think it's quote unquote communism or socialism. So this
increased awareness of these issues, you know, has produced amazing
(07:15):
benefits to people in our society. Who's allowing them to
live their best life in every way possible. So for
sure a positive you then become aware of or you
have increased awareness of groups of people, segments of the
population who have become marginalized. So we've talked about things
(07:38):
like racism and sexism. But from time to time you'll
find groups of people that are just they're just marginalized
and systemically marginalized to the point that it has become
a hindrance to them in their pursuit of life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. And it may be it
may be a multi billion dollar conglomerate has caused this.
(08:02):
It may be government has caused this due to some
law or some statute for whatever reason. But once these
things come to the forefront and you start seeing it media,
you start seeing showing politics and other areas. This phenomenon
(08:23):
happens where we recognize the people, but then we start
working towards solutions and we understand there's a solution. You know,
we all live in our own little worlds. We all
live in our own little worlds, and there's things happening
to large groups of people out there that we may
not recognize because that's not our life experience. And I
think lastly, there is an accountability aspects to wokeness. Right,
(08:49):
So this quote unquote wote culture. And again I hate
the word woke because it has its connotation to it,
but there is an emphasis and you see it on
holding people responsible, where it be an individual or whether
it be a you know, a multi billion dollar business,
whether it be some kind of financial institution, whether it
be some institution of government. You know, there has to
be accountability for actions when they are directly and unnecessarily
(09:15):
harmful to these marginalized groups or segments of the population,
et cetera. And so you know, many times we would
see people wouldn't be held accountable at all in any
kind of way if something like this didn't happen. And
so just imagine, you know, if you aren't in any
of these groups, you don't have any of these type issues,
Like like I gave the the first off, the the
(09:40):
issue of being a disabled person and just wanting to
live and have access and be able to self sustain.
You know, if you're lucky enough to be in that position,
it may not seem like a big deal to you,
but that is our brother or sister as Americans. And
it's not like it's one or two people, like it's
thousands of thousands, thousands and thousands of people, and say
(10:00):
marginalized groups. If you're fortunate enough and lucky enough to
not be in one of these marginalized groups. You may
not comprehended or understand it in any way whatsoever. And
so woke culture, this idea of wokeism, brings it to
the forefront. So, I mean, I think there's a ton
of positives, a ton of positives, for sure, and I
see them all the time. But again, I want to
go back just to the core, just to the very
(10:21):
core of wokeism is have an empathy, being concerned, having
a caring personality towards people who find themselves and positions
that really shouldn't be. And that's core. I think that's
what wokeness is. And for sure, wokeness has gone rogue
(10:42):
at times. And so we could talk a little bit
about that. In the cons' cons of just quote unquote wokeism,
woke culture, it really can cause a lot of division, right,
So it gets so fervent, right, it just gets so polarizing.
It becomes a US versus them, and to them is
always evil. A lot of times that people aren't evil,
it's just they haven't been made aware of it. And
(11:04):
then I'll see what I see a lot of times
is the US part. The ones on the US side
of this woke issue pushed so hard that they now
push for things that are rather than just being a
remedy or a solution to whatever the issue is that
they're bringing awareness to, they push too far to where
it's injurious towards everyone else. Right, so it's go too far. Well,
(11:25):
they want to actually become punitive, when all we really
need is it just push far enough that it's solution based,
not punitive based. Now, I'm not saying that there's never
a time that you shouldn't be punitive. You know, if
somebody's infringing in somebody else or a group of people
to a degree that it is repeatable, it's perpetual, it's egregious,
or whatever. Of course, there should be times, I think
(11:47):
where it should not just be solution based but punitive
based to some degree. But I think for the most part,
we accomplish the most when we keep it in this
solution based realm rather than the punitive based realm. And
I see this and in a lot where what's happening
more and more, but you know it's sweet. We're seeing
politics a lot Republicans call Democrats evil, Like that's all
(12:10):
we hear anymore, is how evil the Democrats are. And
you know, I'm sure there's a few evil Democrats out there,
but by and large Democrats I see her there is
not evil at all. Is have a different viewpoint on
how things should happen, and they want the best for
America and themselves and their families, so ad vice versa. Again,
it's not just one side of Democrats do it too.
They think Republicans are evil for this, that, and the other.
(12:32):
And so it causes this rather than a place where
we can reach solutions, it just causes this constant attack.
It's an attack syndrome, so we're always an attack mode,
and so you know, it kind of pushes solutions to
the side, and it just becomes a thing of attack.
Tack tack tack tack. Cancel culture arose out of wolk
(12:53):
culture and is going too far, too far, and again
leads to this punitive thing. And if it's left in
the realm of the court of public opinion, usually adjudicated
on social media, it harms or ostracized people. It can
affect their livelihoods all over. And this is the worst
part overall, something that may have happened twenty years ago.
(13:16):
And if you don't understand that, people learn and grow
as humans and something they said or something they did
twenty years ago may not reflect in anyway who they
are what they're doing now. You know, then you're the
one that we need to be woke about. You know,
you're the one that we need to be concerned about. Now.
Somebody that had extreme views or extreme actions or something
(13:36):
that affected groups of people or something twenty years ago,
and they've just continued to be that person, then it
matters because now we show a history of wellgay but
you know, recently, all too often who was it, who
was the guy that had that was gonna he was
gonna host the Oscars or host he was gonna host
one of those award shows, and somebody went and dug
(13:58):
up some tweety made fifteen years ago or something, and
they just canceled him over it, given no thought to
anything he's done since, how he's grown as a human sense,
how he's handled himself since, Like, that's a big problem.
Cancel culture is a big problem. And this is another
thing where I see Republicans touted a lot, Oh, it's
canceled culture is evil, it's horrible me canceling people. But
(14:22):
then I see Republicans canceling people all the time. They
do it too, They just do it over different issues.
They pick different issues, and it happens on different platforms,
but it happens from both sides, and it's definitely a
negative aspect of woke culture. And then a lot of
times we just see these token you know, these token
(14:44):
things thrown at things that really need solutions that are robust.
You know. I think that's the one thing. When something
gets so popular and it spreads to social media and
it kind of comes a meme, right when the issue
becomes a meme, what we generally is the solutions kind
of a meme too. Something that can be widespread quickly
(15:04):
really doesn't, you know, address the core issue at hand.
It's like, yeah, you know, putting lipstick on a pig
is an old saying that I've heard. But you see
this happening a lot with companies, but you see it
happening a lot in a government too, where they'll do
some kind of superficial thing and say they fixed it,
and where really they haven't. And then all they got
to do is just switch the quote unquote woke mob
(15:28):
over to this new oh okay, and then suddenly it
gets the same thing gets widespread, or it's fixed, or
it's better when it really isn't. I was talking a
little bit earlier about how things go too far. So
you see these you see woke, which starts out as
an individual thing. It's awakening to a problem, it's awakening
into something systemic, it's awakening to something that existed I
(15:49):
know before, And it happens on a personal level. Then
sometimes it gets expressed and then it's you know, it
spreads to four or five people, or it spreads to
a group. But eventually what's been happening lately, as you'll see,
a cause is born, and then an organization is born.
And so I'll do a throwback to the thing I
(16:11):
kind of led with early on about this LGBTQ plus
plus A A. I don't know. There's so many I
can't keep up with them. If you remember way back,
you know, when I was growing up, like when I
was when I was growing up in early teens, teenager,
late teens, even early twenties or whatever. I don't want
to say the word ofgers. I don't want to offend anybody,
(16:31):
although I think you still should be able to say
words if you don't mean them. In a harmful way.
But will spell it out fag right, if you called
somebody that when I was twelve, thirty, fourteen, fifteen, sixty,
seventy eighteen, it was fine. Usually it was done in
a joking manner or whatever, but you know, there was
on a serious note, there was this real extremism and
(16:55):
prejudice and stuff against people who were homosexual at that time.
And you know, people who are homosexual who loved each
other or had no remedy, these are people that they're
good people. They found somebody that they loved and wanted
to settle down with Andy, wanted to enter into a
you know, into this into this bonding relationship with them,
(17:17):
and they really wanted to get married because that is
the dream, right, the dream is to find somebody you
love and marry them and you know, you know, have
a home together and maybe have a family together, other
stuff that they couldn't And so they fought for it,
fought for fault and this is this is the beginning
of this, this LGBT movement, right, I think it was
LGBT was the beginning, or maybe this LGB I don't remember.
(17:40):
LGBT maybe in the beginning, but uh so you had
these groups that sprung up, right, some of them bigger
than others, but you know, it's like, I'm not gonna
call any names. Its one really big one, right, one
really really big one, and then a couple of satellite
groups or whatever that we're also pushing part pretty hard
for awareness and funds. And you know, the group, you know,
(18:02):
these nonprofits are born, and then you have people on
the uh, you know, you have the head of the nonprofit,
and then they hire a few people on staff who
are drawing salaries and stuff, and they're doing good work.
For sure. I'm not saying that they're that they weren't
doing good work or that it wasn't still a good
organization to donate to and support. But then, you know,
after years and years, a couple of decades and pushing
(18:25):
and pushing and all this kind of stuff, finally they
do get the gay marriage right. And so some of
these groups, the whole thing they set out to accomplish
was accomplished, but the group didn't go away. So the
group is still there, and so you've got this guy
who's the chairman, you got somebody who's the president or whatever,
(18:46):
and then you've got a couple of board members, and
you've got some people that are hired to do this job.
You know, maybe you've got ten salaried people in this
big group that have been a big part of this organization,
and rightfully so, because it takes a lot of people
to push forward. But now that you have no goal
to achieve, right, they have no goal to achieve anymore.
So gay marriage is legal, and you see this insidious
(19:11):
side move in. And look, this is the extreme end
of wocism. We probably even have taken a step past
woke wokeism in the subject of woke. But this is
the what I would call the far extreme end of
what can happen. And so you have these organizations and
rather doing what they should do, just disband and be
like they should have a big party and congratulations, we
did it. We accomplished our goal. We're going to keep
(19:35):
this name and you know, we're going to renew it
in case in the future we need something else comes
up when we need to band together again. But you know,
you guys that were in charge of media, you know,
you need to be looking for more jobs and new
jobs now. And we all need to start looking for
new places to go get hired and we're going to
start ramping this thing down over you know whatever, the
(19:55):
next six months. So in the next six months, we're
gonna start ramping this thing down, and you everybody sees
aren't looking for new jobs, and then we'll shut the
doors on this. But no, what happens. Those people like
those jobs. They've become accustomed to those jobs, working in
these nonprofits and these you know, things like that. And
so what's the solution, Well, you got to find something else.
(20:17):
The fact, you got to jump on board with something else.
And this is how the T gets added to the LBGT.
Then the Q gets added, and then the A and
all the other letters get added. And then sitting there
just ad plus is like, oh, we're on board with
that too. And so they just start fighting for things
they were ever fighting before, and they start coming up
with things to add on. And again I'm not saying
(20:37):
that all or some of that isn't good stuff, but
I'm just saying these people are kind of lumped in
with these people on this thing because well, you know,
the chairman wants to keep getting paid and they don't
want to go look for a job, and the board
members they you know, they want this that and the
other and the person that's in charge of media, and
the person that's in charge of scheduling and events, and
you know that have been drawing paychecks in this organization
(20:58):
doing good things. For sure. You know they don't want
to get out a look for different jobs and stuff.
Let's figure out a way to keep this going. And
so I think it goes too far. And so then
you find these organizations that started out with a really wholesome, pure, necessary,
righteous cause or now just piling on and things get
out of hand and it turns bad. So look, I
(21:20):
think at its core, we all should be woke. That's
the point I'm trying to make. You should be woke.
What does that mean? Anytime you can become awakened to
a travesty and injustice, you should fully support a rectifying
of that for your fellow American. You just should. That's
what makes America great is when we all do that.
(21:42):
You know, one of the things that's fundamentally misunderstood about
our country. Our country is founded around an individual. It
so founded around an individual. It's the rights of one.
It says that you, as a one are just as
important as any group or anything else. You as a one,
and so me, I'm standing here my rights, my liberties,
(22:04):
my freedoms and all that stuff that I hold. Boy,
I embody them and I pursue them with a vengeance.
And they are intact and guaranteed right up until the
point that they start infringing on your rights and your liberties,
right up to the tip of your nose. I can
go right up to it, but that's as far as
I can go. And so once my pursuits and aspirations
(22:26):
and drive and things that I want to achieve and
things I believe in and all that, once they start
to just leach over into you know, affecting your rights
and your liberties and your freedoms and your pursuits, that's
when we start getting a problem. And so we are
a nation of many, but we are a nation of one.
Everybody has an individual right, which I think is important
(22:52):
about our nation. And so in that sense, I think
we should not over not only stand up and defend
and assert our individual right, but also become awakened to
the plight of others who have individual rights and see
when there are wrongs being done, and celebrate when wokeness
(23:17):
begins to happen around that issue. And awakening to the problem.
Thanks for joining me so sure. Appreciate you being here
so much. Try to tackle stuff on here that sometimes
puts my head to a wringer. This one did. When
you believe that you're okay with something to on a
point and you try to figure out how you're going
(23:37):
to defend it, it causes you to think and you
have to think things through, and as oftentimes does happen
with me, at the end of me trying to defend
the thing, I'll find out. You know, I've learned something
about my position on this. Some of them have been wrong,
which is a beautiful thing. Challenge yourself, challenge your beliefs,
and I appreciate you being here today. We'll talk to
(23:58):
you in the next episode.
Hello there, Welcome into another episode of the Brent Mason Show.
I'm the forementioned Brent Mason. This is a podcast where
we cover I guess, society, religion, controversial subjects, things of
that sort. Boy, we're going to dive off into it today.
I'm so tired of hearing about woke. I'm just really
(00:22):
sick of hearing about woke. It's interesting because most things
that are referred to as quote unquote woke, most things
now I don't really think, you know, are are exactly
what they're being labeled as by usually the right, although
(00:43):
the right isn't the only people that do it. But
I'm actually in favor of quote unquote woke to a
certain extent. For sure has a place. I for sure
think the core of woke is a good thing, but
for sure bad things. And so you know, I gave
this a little bit thought over the past week, took
(01:06):
down some notes and researched some of the things that
the right tends to go off on about being woke,
and prepared a little set of bullet points so we
could talk about it in an episode. So here we go.
First of all, to me, generally speaking, the topics being
(01:29):
brought up that are labeled as woke typically involve things
in society where people are being hurt emotionally or they're
being harmed in a way in terms of access to benefits, services,
(01:49):
ordinary things that everybody else is entitled to, and just
generally speaking, I think that the core woke is like, hey,
let's just not be assholes everybody. I mean, I think
that's at the core is what it is. Now it's
for sure become more than that. So you have these
movements and organizations that latch onto a thing and then
it just gets driven hard and then there can be
(02:11):
you know, really pretty substantial divisions, fissures that happen, like
things that aren't necessarily great. But at its core, on
an individual level, I think we all should be woke.
We all should be woke on an individual level. I think,
just like many other things like BLM, you know, got
(02:32):
kind of out of hand, you know. And by the way,
I'm a huge but let me clarify this ulf from
a huge supporter of the lgbtq A. I don't know
there's more letters in that now it's plus. I don't
know if there's like two more three more letters on
the end of it. Now I don't know, like I
support marginalized people, especially people that are marginalized based strictly
(02:56):
on you know, how they choose to live their personal life.
But definitely some of that stuff has gone way too far.
And we'll talk about this when I get into the
cons if I remember, hopefully I've taken good notes. But
you know, a lot of positives I think so obviously
(03:17):
the number one when when a quote unquote woke topic
starts making its rounds or on social media or you
start seeing it on certain you know, platforms and distribution
and stuff. It for sure brings awareness to issues that
either don't get highlighted enough or need to get highlighted more.
And this can be you know, racism, instances of racism,
(03:39):
like very specific instance raism. I don't mean broad based racism.
I mean highlighting a specific segment of business or society
or government or something where there is this egregious racism happening.
It definitely needs to be highlighted or it can't be fixed. Sexism,
you know, any other really form of discrimination that you know,
there's a billion different ones it could be, and this
(04:02):
often leads to one people being informed of it that
may not have known what was happening, and then you'll
start seeing some change, you'll see some reforms and stuff.
And we've seen this happen over and over and over again.
Of course, it gets carried too far, and I'll talk
about that in the con section. We'll get more into that.
But I think it's valuable if you think back to
(04:24):
when it hasn't been that long ago. Really it's been
in my lifetime, and I guess probably I don't know
exactly when, maybe halfway through my lifetime. But this Americans
with Disabilities Act that started out as wokeness man, and
this is just a simple concept that we have a
lot of people in society that have lost the use
of their legs or they're quadriplegic, paraplegic or whatever, and
(04:46):
they're really just trying to be what we say we
want everybody to be, which is strong, resilient, self supporting,
you know, out there doing their thing. And you just
have you know, people all around the country who are like, yeah,
but I mean, I can't get in this building with
my wheelchair, Like I would love to be able to
(05:06):
get into my car that I've had this money paid
to be wheelchair or you know, whatever handicap they have
handicap accessible usable. You know, I've figured out a way
that I can work and all this stuff, but I
can't go to the post office because I can't get
in with my chair. Like you know, that was a
woke idea. These are people who are just trying to
(05:27):
access things you and I are trying to access and
they're doing their best in life like that. That's it
to me, that's a woke that was a woke issue.
That was somebody got woke to that. Woke means you
wake up to something you weren't aware of happening. That's
what it's core. What woke means you become aware, you
wake up to this being a problem. And so look,
(05:49):
the fact that a person now with a wheelchair for
the most part, can go anywhere that a walking person
can go and get into that building for serviss or
business or whatever it may be, is amazing. Now it
came with some pain, right, little extra pain on the
(06:10):
side of business, little extra pain on the side of
government contracts and stuff where thing had to be modified.
We'd have changes in building codes, what was required. It
was painful, But man, think about how it has allowed
people to be self sufficient. And I especially find this
interesting with the political right, who's you know, they're not
(06:34):
about helping people out. They just aren't. I'm sorry, they
just aren't. If you're on the right, I apologize if
that hurts your feelings, but y'all just aren't that much
on helping people. You think it's everything is communism or socialism.
But if you genuinely want a person who who has
these limitations physically or whatever to get out there and
try to live a life where they don't rely on
(06:55):
some type of assistance or something, then I think the
minimum we can do is have it to where all
buildings they can get into, and then that way you
don't have to help them, right, you don't have to
do these things you're not a big fan of because
you think it's quote unquote communism or socialism. So this
increased awareness of these issues, you know, has produced amazing
(07:15):
benefits to people in our society. Who's allowing them to
live their best life in every way possible. So for
sure a positive you then become aware of or you
have increased awareness of groups of people, segments of the
population who have become marginalized. So we've talked about things
(07:38):
like racism and sexism. But from time to time you'll
find groups of people that are just they're just marginalized
and systemically marginalized to the point that it has become
a hindrance to them in their pursuit of life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. And it may be it
may be a multi billion dollar conglomerate has caused this.
(08:02):
It may be government has caused this due to some
law or some statute for whatever reason. But once these
things come to the forefront and you start seeing it media,
you start seeing showing politics and other areas. This phenomenon
(08:23):
happens where we recognize the people, but then we start
working towards solutions and we understand there's a solution. You know,
we all live in our own little worlds. We all
live in our own little worlds, and there's things happening
to large groups of people out there that we may
not recognize because that's not our life experience. And I
think lastly, there is an accountability aspects to wokeness. Right,
(08:49):
So this quote unquote wote culture. And again I hate
the word woke because it has its connotation to it,
but there is an emphasis and you see it on
holding people responsible, where it be an individual or whether
it be a you know, a multi billion dollar business,
whether it be some kind of financial institution, whether it
be some institution of government. You know, there has to
be accountability for actions when they are directly and unnecessarily
(09:15):
harmful to these marginalized groups or segments of the population,
et cetera. And so you know, many times we would
see people wouldn't be held accountable at all in any
kind of way if something like this didn't happen. And
so just imagine, you know, if you aren't in any
of these groups, you don't have any of these type issues,
Like like I gave the the first off, the the
(09:40):
issue of being a disabled person and just wanting to
live and have access and be able to self sustain.
You know, if you're lucky enough to be in that position,
it may not seem like a big deal to you,
but that is our brother or sister as Americans. And
it's not like it's one or two people, like it's
thousands of thousands, thousands and thousands of people, and say
(10:00):
marginalized groups. If you're fortunate enough and lucky enough to
not be in one of these marginalized groups. You may
not comprehended or understand it in any way whatsoever. And
so woke culture, this idea of wokeism, brings it to
the forefront. So, I mean, I think there's a ton
of positives, a ton of positives, for sure, and I
see them all the time. But again, I want to
go back just to the core, just to the very
(10:21):
core of wokeism is have an empathy, being concerned, having
a caring personality towards people who find themselves and positions
that really shouldn't be. And that's core. I think that's
what wokeness is. And for sure, wokeness has gone rogue
(10:42):
at times. And so we could talk a little bit
about that. In the cons' cons of just quote unquote wokeism,
woke culture, it really can cause a lot of division, right,
So it gets so fervent, right, it just gets so polarizing.
It becomes a US versus them, and to them is
always evil. A lot of times that people aren't evil,
it's just they haven't been made aware of it. And
(11:04):
then I'll see what I see a lot of times
is the US part. The ones on the US side
of this woke issue pushed so hard that they now
push for things that are rather than just being a
remedy or a solution to whatever the issue is that
they're bringing awareness to, they push too far to where
it's injurious towards everyone else. Right, so it's go too far. Well,
(11:25):
they want to actually become punitive, when all we really
need is it just push far enough that it's solution based,
not punitive based. Now, I'm not saying that there's never
a time that you shouldn't be punitive. You know, if
somebody's infringing in somebody else or a group of people
to a degree that it is repeatable, it's perpetual, it's egregious,
or whatever. Of course, there should be times, I think
(11:47):
where it should not just be solution based but punitive
based to some degree. But I think for the most part,
we accomplish the most when we keep it in this
solution based realm rather than the punitive based realm. And
I see this and in a lot where what's happening
more and more, but you know it's sweet. We're seeing
politics a lot Republicans call Democrats evil, Like that's all
(12:10):
we hear anymore, is how evil the Democrats are. And
you know, I'm sure there's a few evil Democrats out there,
but by and large Democrats I see her there is
not evil at all. Is have a different viewpoint on
how things should happen, and they want the best for
America and themselves and their families, so ad vice versa. Again,
it's not just one side of Democrats do it too.
They think Republicans are evil for this, that, and the other.
(12:32):
And so it causes this rather than a place where
we can reach solutions, it just causes this constant attack.
It's an attack syndrome, so we're always an attack mode,
and so you know, it kind of pushes solutions to
the side, and it just becomes a thing of attack.
Tack tack tack tack. Cancel culture arose out of wolk
(12:53):
culture and is going too far, too far, and again
leads to this punitive thing. And if it's left in
the realm of the court of public opinion, usually adjudicated
on social media, it harms or ostracized people. It can
affect their livelihoods all over. And this is the worst
part overall, something that may have happened twenty years ago.
(13:16):
And if you don't understand that, people learn and grow
as humans and something they said or something they did
twenty years ago may not reflect in anyway who they
are what they're doing now. You know, then you're the
one that we need to be woke about. You know,
you're the one that we need to be concerned about. Now.
Somebody that had extreme views or extreme actions or something
(13:36):
that affected groups of people or something twenty years ago,
and they've just continued to be that person, then it
matters because now we show a history of wellgay but
you know, recently, all too often who was it, who
was the guy that had that was gonna he was
gonna host the Oscars or host he was gonna host
one of those award shows, and somebody went and dug
(13:58):
up some tweety made fifteen years ago or something, and
they just canceled him over it, given no thought to
anything he's done since, how he's grown as a human sense,
how he's handled himself since, Like, that's a big problem.
Cancel culture is a big problem. And this is another
thing where I see Republicans touted a lot, Oh, it's
canceled culture is evil, it's horrible me canceling people. But
(14:22):
then I see Republicans canceling people all the time. They
do it too, They just do it over different issues.
They pick different issues, and it happens on different platforms,
but it happens from both sides, and it's definitely a
negative aspect of woke culture. And then a lot of
times we just see these token you know, these token
(14:44):
things thrown at things that really need solutions that are robust.
You know. I think that's the one thing. When something
gets so popular and it spreads to social media and
it kind of comes a meme, right when the issue
becomes a meme, what we generally is the solutions kind
of a meme too. Something that can be widespread quickly
(15:04):
really doesn't, you know, address the core issue at hand.
It's like, yeah, you know, putting lipstick on a pig
is an old saying that I've heard. But you see
this happening a lot with companies, but you see it
happening a lot in a government too, where they'll do
some kind of superficial thing and say they fixed it,
and where really they haven't. And then all they got
to do is just switch the quote unquote woke mob
(15:28):
over to this new oh okay, and then suddenly it
gets the same thing gets widespread, or it's fixed, or
it's better when it really isn't. I was talking a
little bit earlier about how things go too far. So
you see these you see woke, which starts out as
an individual thing. It's awakening to a problem, it's awakening
into something systemic, it's awakening to something that existed I
(15:49):
know before, And it happens on a personal level. Then
sometimes it gets expressed and then it's you know, it
spreads to four or five people, or it spreads to
a group. But eventually what's been happening lately, as you'll see,
a cause is born, and then an organization is born.
And so I'll do a throwback to the thing I
(16:11):
kind of led with early on about this LGBTQ plus
plus A A. I don't know. There's so many I
can't keep up with them. If you remember way back,
you know, when I was growing up, like when I
was when I was growing up in early teens, teenager,
late teens, even early twenties or whatever. I don't want
to say the word ofgers. I don't want to offend anybody,
(16:31):
although I think you still should be able to say
words if you don't mean them. In a harmful way.
But will spell it out fag right, if you called
somebody that when I was twelve, thirty, fourteen, fifteen, sixty,
seventy eighteen, it was fine. Usually it was done in
a joking manner or whatever, but you know, there was
on a serious note, there was this real extremism and
(16:55):
prejudice and stuff against people who were homosexual at that time.
And you know, people who are homosexual who loved each
other or had no remedy, these are people that they're
good people. They found somebody that they loved and wanted
to settle down with Andy, wanted to enter into a
you know, into this into this bonding relationship with them,
(17:17):
and they really wanted to get married because that is
the dream, right, the dream is to find somebody you
love and marry them and you know, you know, have
a home together and maybe have a family together, other
stuff that they couldn't And so they fought for it,
fought for fault and this is this is the beginning
of this, this LGBT movement, right, I think it was
LGBT was the beginning, or maybe this LGB I don't remember.
(17:40):
LGBT maybe in the beginning, but uh so you had
these groups that sprung up, right, some of them bigger
than others, but you know, it's like, I'm not gonna
call any names. Its one really big one, right, one
really really big one, and then a couple of satellite
groups or whatever that we're also pushing part pretty hard
for awareness and funds. And you know, the group, you know,
(18:02):
these nonprofits are born, and then you have people on
the uh, you know, you have the head of the nonprofit,
and then they hire a few people on staff who
are drawing salaries and stuff, and they're doing good work.
For sure. I'm not saying that they're that they weren't
doing good work or that it wasn't still a good
organization to donate to and support. But then, you know,
after years and years, a couple of decades and pushing
(18:25):
and pushing and all this kind of stuff, finally they
do get the gay marriage right. And so some of
these groups, the whole thing they set out to accomplish
was accomplished, but the group didn't go away. So the
group is still there, and so you've got this guy
who's the chairman, you got somebody who's the president or whatever,
(18:46):
and then you've got a couple of board members, and
you've got some people that are hired to do this job.
You know, maybe you've got ten salaried people in this
big group that have been a big part of this organization,
and rightfully so, because it takes a lot of people
to push forward. But now that you have no goal
to achieve, right, they have no goal to achieve anymore.
So gay marriage is legal, and you see this insidious
(19:11):
side move in. And look, this is the extreme end
of wocism. We probably even have taken a step past
woke wokeism in the subject of woke. But this is
the what I would call the far extreme end of
what can happen. And so you have these organizations and
rather doing what they should do, just disband and be
like they should have a big party and congratulations, we
did it. We accomplished our goal. We're going to keep
(19:35):
this name and you know, we're going to renew it
in case in the future we need something else comes
up when we need to band together again. But you know,
you guys that were in charge of media, you know,
you need to be looking for more jobs and new
jobs now. And we all need to start looking for
new places to go get hired and we're going to
start ramping this thing down over you know whatever, the
(19:55):
next six months. So in the next six months, we're
gonna start ramping this thing down, and you everybody sees
aren't looking for new jobs, and then we'll shut the
doors on this. But no, what happens. Those people like
those jobs. They've become accustomed to those jobs, working in
these nonprofits and these you know, things like that. And
so what's the solution, Well, you got to find something else.
(20:17):
The fact, you got to jump on board with something else.
And this is how the T gets added to the LBGT.
Then the Q gets added, and then the A and
all the other letters get added. And then sitting there
just ad plus is like, oh, we're on board with
that too. And so they just start fighting for things
they were ever fighting before, and they start coming up
with things to add on. And again I'm not saying
(20:37):
that all or some of that isn't good stuff, but
I'm just saying these people are kind of lumped in
with these people on this thing because well, you know,
the chairman wants to keep getting paid and they don't
want to go look for a job, and the board
members they you know, they want this that and the
other and the person that's in charge of media, and
the person that's in charge of scheduling and events, and
you know that have been drawing paychecks in this organization
(20:58):
doing good things. For sure. You know they don't want
to get out a look for different jobs and stuff.
Let's figure out a way to keep this going. And
so I think it goes too far. And so then
you find these organizations that started out with a really wholesome, pure, necessary,
righteous cause or now just piling on and things get
out of hand and it turns bad. So look, I
(21:20):
think at its core, we all should be woke. That's
the point I'm trying to make. You should be woke.
What does that mean? Anytime you can become awakened to
a travesty and injustice, you should fully support a rectifying
of that for your fellow American. You just should. That's
what makes America great is when we all do that.
(21:42):
You know, one of the things that's fundamentally misunderstood about
our country. Our country is founded around an individual. It
so founded around an individual. It's the rights of one.
It says that you, as a one are just as
important as any group or anything else. You as a one,
and so me, I'm standing here my rights, my liberties,
(22:04):
my freedoms and all that stuff that I hold. Boy,
I embody them and I pursue them with a vengeance.
And they are intact and guaranteed right up until the
point that they start infringing on your rights and your liberties,
right up to the tip of your nose. I can
go right up to it, but that's as far as
I can go. And so once my pursuits and aspirations
(22:26):
and drive and things that I want to achieve and
things I believe in and all that, once they start
to just leach over into you know, affecting your rights
and your liberties and your freedoms and your pursuits, that's
when we start getting a problem. And so we are
a nation of many, but we are a nation of one.
Everybody has an individual right, which I think is important
(22:52):
about our nation. And so in that sense, I think
we should not over not only stand up and defend
and assert our individual right, but also become awakened to
the plight of others who have individual rights and see
when there are wrongs being done, and celebrate when wokeness
(23:17):
begins to happen around that issue. And awakening to the problem.
Thanks for joining me so sure. Appreciate you being here
so much. Try to tackle stuff on here that sometimes
puts my head to a wringer. This one did. When
you believe that you're okay with something to on a
point and you try to figure out how you're going
(23:37):
to defend it, it causes you to think and you
have to think things through, and as oftentimes does happen
with me, at the end of me trying to defend
the thing, I'll find out. You know, I've learned something
about my position on this. Some of them have been wrong,
which is a beautiful thing. Challenge yourself, challenge your beliefs,
and I appreciate you being here today. We'll talk to
(23:58):
you in the next episode.
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