2.15 Wokeness
According to Wikipedia:
Woke, the African-American English synonym for the General American English word awake, has since the 1930s or earlier been used to refer to awareness of social and political issues affecting African Americans, often in the construction stay woke. Beginning in the 2010s, it came to be used to refer to a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism, and denial of LGBT rights.
The central pillar of wokeness is that all groups are equal in their skills, ability, preferences, and talents and if they don't achieve equal power and wealth in society it's because of racism.
The woke people define wokeness as meaning being awake to issues of social justice and racial justice. Being woke really means harassing and shouting down and cancelling and destroying the lives of people who you disagree with so that no one can hear what they have to say. Being woke really means controlling people by accusing those who say what you don't want to hear of being racist and anti-semitic. Wokeness means being offended by any opinion you don't like and retaliating against the person who offended you.
The woke warn us all not to commit microaggressions which they consider socially unjust. Here are a couple of examples of microaggressions.
Asking “Where are you from?” or "Where were you born?"
Saying "You speak English well."
Asking an Asian person to help with a math or science problem.
Saying “There is only one race, the human race.”
Saying “I believe the most qualified person should get the job.”
Saying “Everyone can succeed in this society, if they work hard enough.”
Addressing women as ladies
You may wonder why asking someone where they are from is a microaggression. There is nothing wrong with doing that. You are simply showing interest in that person and their background. However the crazy woke fanatics who find fault with everything interpret that statement as accusing someone of not being an American. First of all the person being asked may be from a different state or city so that's nonsense. Even if they're from a foreign country that's not an accusation. There's nothing wrong with being from another country. You may wonder why asking an Asian person for help with math is a microaggression. Are you only allowed to ask people who are not Asian for help with math? The woke say you can't ask an Asian for help in math because it means that you think they must be good at math because they're Asian and that's racist. Saying that there is only one race, the human race show's that you don't look down at people based on their race. The woke don't like that statement though because they want white people to feel guilty for being white and they want blacks to get special privileges because they're black. That's the same reason they don't like the statement that "the most qualified person should get the job. The woke people want the black person to get the job whether he's the most qualified or not. Isn't discriminating against a more qualified person so that they don't get a job an aggressive act? The woke hate the statement "Everyone can succeed in this society, if they work hard enough" because the woke want people to believe that it isn't true. The woke want people to believe that society is racist and that if a black person is unsuccessful it has nothing to do with his choices and actions, it's all because of racist white people. Isn't blaming someone for someone elses failures an unjust and aggressive act?
Vito Perrone was a principal and coach at Easthampton High School in Massachusetts. He quit his job to become superintendent at another school district. Eight years later the Easthampton school district offered him the job of being their superintendent but the salary they offered was less than the one he had. He sent an email to Chairperson of the committee that made him the offer, Cynthia Kwiecinski and executive assistant Suzanne Colby asking for a cost of living adjustment to their offer. In his email he addressed them as ladies. Cynthia responded that using "ladies" as a greeting was a hostile and derogatory microaggression and that "the fact that he didn’t know that as an educator was a problem.'" The committee voted to withdraw his offer. Mr. Perrone told an interviewer that "I was shocked. I grew up in a time when ‘ladies’ and ‘gentlemen’ was a sign of respect. I didn’t intend to insult anyone." Calling a woman a lady is a sign of respect. The problem is that the woke create paranoia among women by telling them that innocent, friendly and respectful remarks are insulting and derogatory when they're not. The left likes to think it's inclusive but the leftist administrators of Easthampton High School didn't include Mr. Perrone as a superintendent. They are obviously looking for a superintendent who is as woke as they are, and it will be very bad for the Easthampton schools if they find one.
A Vermont elementary school decided not to use the words male and female in a sex education course in order to be gender inclusive. Woe to the applicant who says boys or girls while applying.
People who teach wokeness teach us what we can or cannot say so that we don't offend black people, or trans people who identify as a different gender. If someone with a beard and a deep voice says they identify as something else other than male and they want to be called zim instead of him according to woke people we have to call him zim. In fact there are places, like New York where you face big penalties if you don't call him zim. Woke people who are sensitive to not offending zims don't care if they are offending the people who don't believe that hims are zims and don't want to say what they don't believe is true. They don't care that their efforts to control people by telling them what they can or cannot say might offend those people.
Woke people talk about being sensitive to other people's feelings but they are not sensitive at all to the people they falsely accuse of racism or sexism.
Andrew Doyle is a man who became concerned about the Woke attack on free speech. He decided to make fun of wokeness by creating a woke character, Titania McGrath who is so ridiculous that woke people would awaken to how ridiculous their beliefs are. So far that doesn't appear to have happened. Woke people have reacted with hostility to being made fun of. Some of his satire has become real. Mary Poppins for example got some soot on her face when she was with the chimney sweep. Andrew Doyle had Titania accuse Mary Poppins of having black face. White actors sometimes would act as if they were black people and color their faces black. That was called black face. There was a time when these actors portrayed black people in a negative way. Just because someone gets soot on their face does not mean they are portraying blacks at all. Five months after Titania made fun of how crazy woke people are by accusing Mary Poppins of black face the New York Times wrote an article saying the same thing about Mary Poppins except they were serious. Here is the headline to the New York Times article.
There was a time in England (around the 17th century) when many people had a fireplace in every room to keep warm. That meant lots of chimneys that had to be cleaned. Chimney sweeps got soot on their faces when they cleaned chimneys. In the video below Mary Poppins and all the Chimney sweeps have soot on their faces. Does this have anything to do with black people?
Here is a video of Titania being woke. She curses in the video so you may not want to watch it but it is funny.
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