Are You Woke Enough?

In podcast #26, Millennial Z and Boomer X talk about being "woke" and what is woke enough...or is there such a thing? Stemming from the early to mid 20th century from the black culture in the U.S., the term "Woke" is in relation to racial prejudice as was used as an adjective to describe people that recognized the unfair discrimination that those of African ancestry had to endure each day in American society. However, the term gained great traction and usage during the early 2010s and became a catch-all phrase for many progressive political descriptions and goals.

When Boomer X first heard the term "Woke" especially with regard to someone who suddenly understands that a person had learned to use individual critical thinking to overcome a herd mentality or see through an particular injustice, he actually enjoyed the term for awhile. But it soon became used so widely and co-opted so greatly by those with their own agendas it started to become apparent that those considered "woke" were just a different flavor of the lock-step demands inflicted by one group over others to enforce their own brand of "what's right". Many so-called woke people were simply calling out unfair discrimination or social justice violations through their own brand of unfair discrimination and blanket stereotypes making them worse by being hypocritical, blind, unfair and crowd pleasing while imagining themselves to be righteous and signaling virtue.

Deseret News reported in March 2021 that Tesla CEO Elon Musk, recently tweeted an idea for a video game entitled, "Woketopia: Battle for the Moral Ground" as the woke culture had become so overused and absurd in its identification and activities.

Calling out someone as being asleep and note "woke" is an obvious insult unless meant as an ironic joke. As an insult it means, "I understand something you don't, therefore, am right about this and if you disagree you're 'asleep' which just proves that I'm correct." It's a form of gaslighting due to it's subjective and perceptive denials while belittling others.

Nike profited greatly as a corporation appropriating woke culture into their shoe advertising in 2018 utilizing NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick who refused to cooperate with the singing of the U.S. national anthem by taking a knee for "Black Lives Matter". Nike was obviously well aware of their customer demographics and profited significantly from the marketing campaign by exploiting a cultural movement.

Starbucks seems to have miscalculated by attempting to using woke culture an attempt in a marketing scheme by having their baristas who make little more than minimum wage engage with their customers on the complexities of race and the injustice of discrimination while folks were merely trying to purchase coffee and go on about their day. Their customer base must have been as different as the approach they used as the campaign was quickly halted.

It appears the average person became so overrun with the idea of 'woke" that it became to be resented even if it was seemingly justified. Or perhaps people simply aren't woke enough. Are you?

It's quite obvious that Boomer X, while pleased to see a move towards increased compassion with the woke crowed, that he probably isn't woke enough by those who claim to be fully woke. Millennial Z is undoubtedly weary of constant calls to wokeism, but still holds the idea that some things simply should be tolerated because "why not?"

Thank you for listening!