The Woke Are Activism Evolved
The following essay was originally written and performed for BUGHOUSE! #38 in Las Vegas at the Bunkhouse Saloon on January 27, 2020. The topic of debate was The Woke: Warriors for Justice or Hippies 2.0? Don Hall went up against Dana Jerman. Hall won the argument.
The best part about the art of the dialectic is that, by participating, one must pull the head from the ass of emotional attachment to opinions held deeply and look hard at those beliefs. Effectively, you gotta argue with yourself and, because it’s you battling your own shit, honesty is the default (if you do it correctly).
I find the Woke to be tedious. Obnoxious. Narcissistic. I personally can’t stand their use of social media to call out people they disagree with, cancel people they’ve targeted, use the very tools of the bullies they despise for their own ends. I hate the idea that these fucking kids show up and, because I don’t agree lock, stock, and barrel with their intersectional, inclusive, anti-patriarchal, gender fluid bullshit that all of my Leftist street cred, built up over decades of my own experiences in the world are instantly invalid.
As I thought through this argument, that the Woke are Warriors for Justice rather than just another iteration of idiots using fashion and the conundrum of conformist nonconformism to get attention, it occurred to me that perhaps the Woke are different, are more evolved than their activist predecessors.
Maybe it’s the specter of constant connectivity with the rest of society, maybe it’s the reneged promise of the American Dream, maybe it’s the almost pathological disappointment provided by the leadership they’ve had to endure.
The predominant agenda of most activism in America’s history has been self interest. The patriots in the Revolutionary War fought primarily against being taxed by England. The suffragette movement in the early 20th Century was primarily about giving women power and those activists were white women fighting for themselves. The pro-Union strikers, the Haymarket anarchists, the Communists of the first half of the last century fought for themselves, for their rights, for their own piece of power in the hierarchical structure.
The hippies in the late 1960s fought against the Viet Nam War but the impetus was to avoid the draft. The Free Love, don’t bathe much, long hair, flower children movement was far more about self interest than the lives of the Viet Cong or Civil Rights and the Civil Rights activists were predominantly focused on black autonomy and power.
The Woke, on the other hand, fight for everyone else. The Woke, comprised mostly of white, heterosexual twenty-year olds, fight for #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, Transgender Equity, Indigenous Land Claims, Puerto Rico, Palestine, the Homeless, Fat People, Cripples, and Immigrants. These annoying white kids, co-opting a black culture term derived from the closing moment of Spike Lee’s School Daze, are activists for almost everyone but themselves.
Sure, the free college thing is self serving and the trigger warning thing makes me want to collectively punch all of them in their safe spaces, but the hard reality is this: The Woke are the least selfish, most selfless activists we’ve ever seen in this country. Using the democratized soapbox of technology, they crowdsource change for the most diverse range of peoples and causes than any single march or protest in history.
The Woke listened to the words of the most marginalized, embraced the perspective of America presented by Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, recognized their own unearned privilege through the prism of a more politically correct paradigm, and found themselves at a crossroads. Self interest or utilize that privilege to benefit those whom history has beaten up time and time again?
The true test of this altruistic and wholly self loathing demographic is how they react to the very slowness of change. The hippies fought hard but once the war ended and they were no longer at risk of being shipped to the other side of the world to lose their legs, decided that it was a better idea to jump on the capitalist bandwagon and ride it to climate apocalypse. Thus, the Boomers.
The Woke seem different. Yes, there is Black Twitter which is almost wholly narcissistic and self important and the trans community which is almost wholly selfish and angry but out of the 8% of America who identify with or demonstrate Wokeness, the bulk is white kids claiming to be queer to fit in. If the Woke are truly Warriors for Justice, this thirst for a better, more equitable society will not dwindle once they have kids, buy homes, have extensive debt, and realize that despite their intersectional activism black people still don’t invite them to BBQs.
I have some hope that they will be more evolved, more thoughtful, and, indeed, better people than the rest of us. Society sure needs them to be.
