Meerkat Prompts: The Woke Pejorative
In recent years, the term ‘woke’ has come to be seen in a derogatory light. Well, to be more precise, people have tried to paint it in a more derogatory light. To be woke is to be aware of society’s injustices and inadequacies, and to speak of them. The pushback from certain quarters is to suggest the ‘woke mob’ is anti-this and anti-that. As a pejorative, woke is to apparently be intolerant, and overly moralising.
Then again, what exactly are woke people intolerant of? Raising awareness of both historic and current inequality in terms of race, gender, the LGBT community and beyond does not strike me as especially intolerant, yet it is presented as such by certain right-wing commentators and pundits. The objection might lie in how being opposed to racism, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia leads to conflict with people who cannot or will not find it in themselves to be even the least bit tolerant themselves. Since they tend to project their failings onto others, anyone who is woke is therefore intolerant in their eyes.
To put it another way, the pushback is because the woke crowd is intolerant, albeit of intolerance itself. Those who have traditionally held power and status in society are threatened by equality, because it means they have less power than they once did, and so they spin the narrative of a threat to culture and tradition. The Daily Mail was recently running articles about woke sandwich fillings, an absurd notion, and an even more ridiculous concept to get worked up over, but the Mail is a right-wing news outlet, committed to fermenting opposition to the woke movement, even if this means some ludicrous games. They want the association of woke with ‘destroying society as we know it’, so they resort to the insane in order to help breed dissatisfaction.
Can the woke movement go too far? Yes. Any movement of any sort can sometimes stretch to some pretty wild ideas. Certain concepts – such as innocent until proven guilty – should not be undermined (though it goes without saying that victims of crimes should not be assumed to be lying either). Cancel culture can go to some ridiculous territory of its own (though this is also over-stated). However, overall, the objection to it is rooted in the objection to equality and equity. It is important not to lose sight of that.
