By Hayley Armstrong
As a Black Woman in America, it has been mind boggling to see the terms “woke” and “stay woke” turn into the “woke mind virus” and “anti-wokeness,” whatever that’s supposed to mean.
How did a term that initially meant to be aware of systemic inequities and covert attempts at quelling Black and other marginalized voices become a catch-all term for anything heterosexual white men deem, “too Black,” “too Queer,” or “too Feminist?”
That’s all “wokeness” is, as white men have co-opted and redefined it.
A popular new TV series having more than two Black characters?
Woke.
A company hiring its first female C.E.O.?
Woke.
A store aisle decorated with rainbow colors to celebrate Pride month?
Woke.
This “movement” isn’t fooling anyone.
Whenever you hear someone complaining that something has gone “woke,” you know what they mean.
Woke is just the latest substitute for several derogatory terms people would typically use to denigrate marginalized people.
But since those words could get people in trouble, they’ve decided to replace them with, “woke.”
I would honestly respect the unabashed use of slurs more than this word they’ve chosen to hide behind.
I find it so ironic that the diversity everyone hates, wouldn’t exist were it not for colonization.
Do white men not realize that if their ancestors hadn’t brought people of color to these countries they now think are overwhelmed with unnecessary, forced diversity, that they’d be lily white?
You could have had the alabaster land of your dreams.
You wouldn’t have to see a single Black or Brown face, your television and streaming options would be as white as Charmin Ultra Soft, completely unstained with the colors you despise so very much.
Your kind brought wokeness to your land. Turn on each other like the spiderman meme, because the only ones to blame for a culturally diverse nation… are yourselves.
You could’ve left Africa alone.
You could’ve let the natives be.
You could’ve stayed in your world, with your cuisine, your systems, your art, your dances, your music, your everything.
But the biggest part of your culture is theft.
So, here we are.
Let’s step away from the concept of racial anti-wokeness, for a minute, because apparently many of you don’t want to see Queerness or transgender people in your utopia either.
Guess what? The world is gay. It’s Queer. Transgender people exist, non-binary people exist, they exist loudly and proudly, and they’re not going anywhere.
People who may not be a part of those communities themselves, are trying to provide a more welcoming world for them by not assuming anyone’s pronouns based on appearance alone.
Some people are trying to help normalize the truth that there are more ways of identifying than one of the two genders we’ve been assigned, and somehow you anti-diversity pushers have a problem with that, too.
Who is that hurting? How is it a bad thing to be inclusive?
Many of you chronically online trolls are using “pronouns in bio” as a pejorative, but WE’RE the snowflakes?
The veins in your temples are about to burst at the sight of “he/him,” but progressives are the ones who get offended by everything?
Sure, Jan.
It’s not just lazy, it’s petty and ridiculous.
The culture is evolving into one that caters to more than just one group, and that angers cisgender white men to their core.
Because if society isn’t centering them, what’s the point?
It’s sickening. It’s childish.
It’s fragile, and you need to grow up.
We learn how to share in preschool, and you’re all full grown adults still struggling with making space for others.
But again… WE’RE the snowflakes.
And I’m giving white men a lot of criticism, but even people from underserved communities are guilty of falling for this anti-woke ideology.
A rise in cisgender white women promoting anti-trans rhetoric and becoming TERFS, (There’s nothing radical about your hatred of trans women)
Black People still dealing with homophobia/transphobia (rampant toxic masculinity is a major issue contributing to this in our community, and fellow Black Women, you realize that society still doesn’t see us as “real” women, right? See the treatment of popular figures like Serena Williams and Ciara)
Gay people wanting to eliminate the T from LGBTQ,
Asian kids helping to get rid of affirmative action because they think a couple of Black kids got Ivy League spots that should’ve been theirs.
Come on.
It’s heinous to see oppressed people oppress others, because we know directly what it’s like.
But it’s better to be a “model minority” than a victim “playing the race card,” right?
There can be such comfort in feeling close to the oppressor.
Keep tap dancing. I promise the second you’ve helped massa wipe out the group beneath you, you’re next.
Because guess what? They don’t like you either.
Being an anti-woke minority is not a badge of honor. It just gives you a few more seconds of air before they snatch your raft away and you start to drown like the rest of us.
But, I’ll save that for another post. Back to the common threat.
Anti-wokeness is just bigotry.
Plain and simple.
It’s nothing more than that.
There is no intelligent definition or real meaning rooted in logic. It is simple hatred.
If you hear the word, “woke” used unironically, know that it has no basis in anything valid or worthy of figuring out or studying.
This is simply the new name they have given to the long lasting hatred of progress within minority groups.
“Woke” is NEVER used when a straight white man is involved in something.
White men being involved is just considered normal. That’s how the world should be, to them.
You ask people who claim to be anti-woke what wokeness actually is, and their answers never fully align, because it just means the bigotry Du jour.
Which oppressed group have you decided to make the scapegoat for your mediocrity today? is the question you’re asking when you ask those people what their definition of woke is.
As a woke person, I’ll tell you what the anti-woke movement REALLY is:
What Is Woke?
Woke is when Black, gay, trans, and female voices become too loud for fragile straight white male ears. Woke is when white men can’t use racial slurs without consequences. Woke is when women don’t dress or perform for the male gaze. Woke is when genders other than cis man and cis woman exist.
I want to make this super clear to anyone still fuzzy on what “anti-wokeism” is.
When people say they’re anti-woke, what they’re really saying is that they’re:
anti-Black,
anti-Feminist,
anti-Trans,
anti-Gay, etc.
One, two, or all of the above. I don’t care what they tell you they mean, what I’ve listed above is what they actually mean.
Basically, if you are someone who would’ve been lynched in the 1950s, you’re what this generation would call, “woke.”
And america’s most recent attempt at eradicating “wokeness?”
Making a convicted felon its president.
But, hey… at least he’s not “woke” like Kamala, right?
Hayley Armstrong, Voice Actor
