HAS WOKENESS BECOME A DIRTY CULTURE?

What does it mean to be woke in today's world? Did Wokeness ever help anyone? Is Wokeness now such an unpleasant concept we should distance ourselves from?

If you have been following the culture trends of the past couple years, these questions would either answer themselves or confound you even more depending on the level of simplicity you apply in contemplating the events surrounding the topic.

A couple years back, millennials and even the older Gen Zs are seen to be proud of being woke. The Internet is splattered with each person showing off how woke they are in their social media posts and in calling out the evil in other people's comments or actions. We were all trying to out-woke each other. This was where we gave birth to cancel culture but that is discussion for another essay.

At the peak of all these, a section of Internet citizens begin to get fed up with the so called Wokeness. Even former US President Barack Obama ahead of the Democratic Primaries in 2019 in an interview cautioned young woke Democratic voters that the way to make an impact in the world isn't by owning or calling out those who show less understanding and knowledge but to be kinder in their interactions.

In the years to follow, the woke movement would descend into something of social media intimidation and bullying. But we have to see that the concept of Wokeness can't be blamed for the human flaws of its proponents.

Wokesm in its onset was a call for humanity to be alert to its own demons of inhumanity that would ordinarily go untraceable in its systemic subtlety.

Wokeness intends to heal the world and with any luck it could do a fair job of that. It has not eradicated marginalization in all its forms or in any of its forms to be quite honest, but Wokeness has proven to be humanity's most potent weapon so far in that battle against marginalization.

It brought global attention to police brutality not only in the US but in a few other countries. It has done a decent job of defending the basic human rights and dignity of the Trans community. It has in certain beautiful ways inspired pride in diverse cultural heritages of the world.

It is hence a shame that Wokeness has found itself in the middle of a petty culture war fought albeit by political sides. In recent years, major republican political figures have attacked, condemned or even mocked Wokeness. From Donald Trump to Ron DeSantis, they might have their reasons but we have to remember that Wokeness isn't identity politics or anything coined to play politics with. Wokeness is consciousness, alertness and awareness of the ills of marginalization and the courage, backed by knowledge, to stand up to it. If society losses that, we lose everything civilization has gained in the past century.

We want to continue to have a society where people are not blind to the inherent ills plaguing it. We want a society where people are not afraid to speak up against injustice or any form of violation against any segment of the society.

Granted, there are instances aplenty where it can be argued to have been taken a tad too far. One would not have to look too far in the Internet to find pockets of movements championing often laughable opinions in the extreme of the culture. But we know extremism is the love child between ideologies and crusadism of excitement and is more often than not the death of the former.

Every ideology ever birthed in human history,  be it political, religious or whatever else, soon finds its extremists who at first help it grow in popularity and then begin to beat it out of the grasp of common sense where it starts making unnecessary enemies of people who would otherwise have been sympathetic.

We have come to know by experience that a cheap tool for detractors to discredit any ideology is a focus on its extremists. By focusing on those who claim to represent said ideology but in reality are on the fringes of it or outright misrepresenting its essence, you can make a case for its rejection. The feminist movement ran into this quagmire in the late 90s and well into the early millennium.  This is what Woke culture is currently battling.

So have we as humans succeeded in making woke culture a detestable idea? I think not. Though we tried. As unaccommodating as many of us woke people might be to those we find to be the enemy of our liberties, as coockoo as we may present our resistance, I believe woke culture adds to the sanity of the world than it gets credit for. After all, a world without Wokeness benefits no one, not even the one fighting Wokeness today.