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| A protest 'woke' people are likely to attend (Image: The Times) |
I feel the word 'woke' needs to be banned. No, not 'woke' as in 'I woke up at 8am', but as in 'You're woke'. It's currently being used a cheap-shot insult towards those who raise issues they care deeply about, and it's being overused with no substance.
Some of you may not be familiar with the new definition of 'woke'. I envy you, but I'll entertain you with an Oxford English Dictionary definition regardless. The Dictionary defines it as "Originally: well-informed, up-to-date. Now, chiefly: alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice." You read that and may easily come up with lots of recent examples - the Black Lives Matter movement, for instance.
The definition itself isn't the issue. My issue is the way some people lazily overuse it, in a way which downgrades the well-intended meaning. A simple Yahoo search of 'criticism of woke' offers me so many petty stories of people slamming others for their views because it differs from the supposed mainstream. On page one alone, I see actress Olivia Newton-John hit back at claims that musical Grease was 'rapey and racist', the BBC was criticised for adapting classic novels purely for 'diversity-obsessed' viewers, and even Barack Obama - a champion of tackling racial and social injustices - has warned young people about 'woke culture'.
Online news stories that feature comments around 'woke' and 'cancel culture' are increasingly common. The main culprits driving this are the tabloids, of course, but it goes wider - Piers Morgan has published an entire book about it, talkRADIO has a show called 'Plank of the Week' scheduled every Sunday afternoon (targeting activities by 'woke' people) and GB News will feature a segment called 'Wokewatch' when the channel launches later this month. The words are stitched in the public's minds on a daily basis, and often is referred to in a negative way.
Don't get me wrong; I look at some of the stories and think, "Don't be silly, Grease isn't racist, what are you on about? Political correctness has gone mad." I remember seeing a story about how the hit TV sitcom Friends' had transphobia, sexism and 'fat shaming' references, and I scratched my head thinking; the show was always a positive influence on the 90s generation and it was incredibly hilarious and inoffensive. But looking closer at that particular story, the angle is based on a small number of social media posts. This is a cheap journalistic tactic, attempting to attract attention and stir the pot, even if there aren't any pots to stir. This has always worked for reporters - even pre-internet - yet, is inflated because of the wild digital world we live in.
It is tiring to read these stories. What happened to a civil debate where arguments are met with friendly disagreements and no personal attacks? How does being 'woke' not equal to common sense? Does Piers Morgan really have more common sense than Meghan Markle and Prince Harry? He doesn't call them 'woke' because of their personal and admirable quest to ending racism and mental health stigma. He calls them 'woke' because he feels they're approaching their quest in a way that breaks away from tradition. Morgan is perfectly entitled to do this, and of course, many agree with him. But if Prince Harry feels as though he has to express his psychological pains through the platforms he uses, nobody should stop him either. The same rule applies to Naomi Osaka, the tennis champion who had to back out of the French Open for speaking out against doing press conferences as it had impacted on her mental health. Morgan called her "an arrogant spoiled brat", but why personally attack her when she shouldn't be forced to do something she is uncomfortable with?
We need to remember that as years go by, so does the times. In the 1950s and 60s, black people were segregated from white people, and the thought of changing this at the time sounded abhorrent to so many people. But the likes of Martin Luther King pushed ahead and the situation has improved greatly today due to the sacrifices he and other campaigners made. King, in the Oxford English Dictionary sense of the word, is 'woke' and he had common sense in bucket loads. Racism isn't tolerated in mainstream society today. Decades from now, we'll see people's ideals we see as crazy today, will be normal then. And we will accept it the same way as society gradually and openly accepted integration of races in the 1960s and beyond.
I'll put it this way to those who are so-called 'anti-woke' - the champion for 'common sense' was Margaret Thatcher. While I wouldn't want to imagine what she'd think of those who are 'woke' as she's no longer with us and I rather not speculate what the dead would say about things that they're unaware of. But, the 'no-nonsense' former Prime Minister, who wasn't known for championing political correctness, did say this; "If they attack you personally, it means they have not a single political argument left." I suggest those who call people 'woke' in a flippant way, should take a leaf out of her book on this occasion.
Let's be honest - we all have opinions that we're convinced are true and nobody else's alternative views matter. Everyone has a passion that's close to their hearts, no matter how big or small. But there are very few things that are unique to an individual, which include feelings, hunches and decisions. Who are we to deny a person who see the world differently to us? Who are we to criticise the way someone else feels psychologically or physically? Unless that person has a genuine diagnosis which a key symptom is compulsive lying, we can't allow ourselves to believe we know better than another when it comes to how that other person chooses to live or feel.
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