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The “Big Issues” Series
89.3 FM seems to have defined it in the image above, so that’s good— but there’s more than that. I would say “woke” is one of the most contentious words of the last 5–10 years along ideological lines. Some see it as corrupting the traditional values of Americana and families with nonsense, and some see it as the only way out of the hellscape we’ve created around race relations. In reality, I just described about 6% of people, and 94% are just trying to get their kids to Little League and maybe get laid twice a week. We spend a lot of time talking about the furthest fringes now, probably because their stuff gets more attention in our current echo chambers. I could write whole essays on that. I’ll spare you.
In a “work” setting, “woke” becomes even more contentious. Think about pronouns, for example. That’s under the umbrella of “woke” and supposedly is an example of being an ally and promoting the disadvantaged. I kind of see it, although no one has clearly articulated that road map (that I’ve seen) and a lot of people who get heavy into pronouns end up seeming performative. When you start bringing “woke” concepts into “work” settings, a lot of legacy guys — typically men, yes, which is maybe the reason we need woke movements in the first place — start to eye roll like crazy and think (or even say out loud) “This isn’t work stuff. This is bullshit.” We saw a lot of that with COVID and George Floyd. Basically senior leaders wanted to do one or two performative Instagram posts and be done with it. But their…
