“Woke” is just the current verbal straw-boogeyman. I’ve seen the same reactionary bullshit many times since my political awareness in the 90s. It’s just one stupid moral panic after another. From the vestiges of the Red Scare, to the Satanic Panic, plastic soda can holders, the demonization of the word Liberal, the conflation of Socialism and Communism, backlash again same-sex marriage, plastic straws, interracial marriage, gay people in bathrooms, trans people in bathrooms, trans people in sports, home-made cloth facemasks, “wokism”…
It’s all the same bullshit. It’s people getting worried about something they don’t understand, and they wind up making stories about whatever the thing is that feel salient and dangerous, and then they freak out over the latest straw-boogeyman.
Some of it is opportunistic politicians stoking fears to get votes, but I don’t think that is required. To paraphrase Agent K, a person is smart, but people are dumb panicky animals.
“Woke” is just the current verbal straw-boogeyman. I’ve seen the same reactionary bullshit many times since my political awareness in the 90s. It’s just one stupid moral panic after another. From the vestiges of the Red Scare, to the Satanic Panic, plastic soda can holders, the demonization of the word Liberal, the conflation of Socialism and Communism, backlash again same-sex marriage, plastic straws, interracial marriage, gay people in bathrooms, trans people in bathrooms, trans people in sports, home-made cloth facemasks, “wokism”…
It’s all the same bullshit. It’s people getting worried about something they don’t understand, and they wind up making stories about whatever the thing is that feel salient and dangerous, and then they freak out over the latest straw-boogeyman.
Some of it is opportunistic politicians stoking fears to get votes, but I don’t think that is required. To paraphrase Agent K, a person is smart, but people are dumb panicky animals.