The other day my wife Brenda asked me what the word “woke” meant.  She had, like the rest of us, heard the word used too often in both print and electronic media, especially when mainstream media is being criticized for doing their best to justify what to most reasonable people are ultra-left-wing pronouncements and politically correct decisions. 

Because the word “woke” seems to have various meanings, I decided to try and answer Brenda’s question by using examples. 

During the 2020 election campaign, Joe Biden made a campaign promise that if he were the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, he would choose a woman to be his running mate. Such a pronouncement was not at all revolutionary as that had been done before, but Biden went further.  Not only was he committing to choose a woman running mate, but the woman would also be Black.

As we all know, Joe Biden was elected President of the United States and his running mate, as he promised, was Kamala Harris, a mixed-race woman whose mother and father were Tamil Indian and Afro-Jamaican respectively, and a US Senator from California. (She got that job because according to California law, she was not opposed by a Republican candidate, so, in effect, she was appointed to be one of two Senators from the State of California.  The other Senator from California, Dianne Feinstein, is also a Democrat).

Now, the question becomes, was Senator Harris’s appointment to run and be elected Vice President of the most powerful country in the world a wise choice or was it candidate Biden’s blatant attempt to curry favour with female and coloured voters?  Subsequent events have, I submit, clearly shown that the choice of Harris was a terrible error, as the person who is but a heartbeat away from the presidency is clearly not qualified to be president of anything, never mind the United States.  In fact, to bluntly say what many people are thinking, the woman is a fool!

Harris’s appointment was, without doubt, “woke,” and the mainstream media cheered!  As a group, it did not care if Harris was a proper choice, or whether she was qualified for such an important job; the only thing that mattered was that she was a coloured woman, blazing a trail for other coloured women to follow.  Her appointment and subsequent election were, together, a perfect definition of “woke.”  Even so, I suspect that many of those who supported her in the past no longer do so.  She has probably put female equality back a decade.

Not to pick only on Ms Harris, but other obvious appointments reek of being politically correct, woke choices.  A case in point is a Black woman being appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States.  No logically thinking, fair-minded person could possibly believe that Ketanji Brown Jackson was the most qualified candidate to sit on the highest court in the United States.  But again, candidate Biden ran on another promise and that was, if elected, he would appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court.  It is far too early to assess her abilities as a jurist, but because of an appointment that was considered “woke” by many, her performance will be, perhaps, unfairly scrutinized. She could very well become a victim of the “woke” movement, which could easily turn on appointments that are not meritorious.

In Canada, we have a long history of “woke” decisions.  Recently, Michelle O’Bonsawin, an Indigenous woman, was appointed to our Supreme Court of Canada.  Was she qualified?  You decide: compare her resume to that of Sheilah Martin who was also recently appointed to the same Court.  Justice Martin’s appointment was clearly deserving, but Michelle O’Bonsawin’s was, and continues to be, suspect.  It was but another one of Trudeau’s politically correct acts which fit the definition of being “woke.” 

Speaking of the king of “woke,” Trudeau Junior campaigned on the promise that if the Liberals formed the government of Canada, fifty percent of his cabinet would be women.  That statement was clearly “woke” because most people would support a cabinet of one hundred percent women if they were the best candidates for the job.  For Trudeau to make that silly but predictable comment causes reasonable people to think that it is okay for gender to trump competence.  For those of us being governed, such a selection criterion is not an acceptable way to govern.  And we have seen the results (think Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Freeland).  That woman is, at best, an embarrassment but her appointments were clearly “woke.”

Yet another example is the recent appointment of Mary Simon as Governor General of Canada.  Now, there have been “woke” appointments to this post in the past.  We have had Oriental and Black females, both with left-wing media backgrounds that clearly did not qualify them for the job. However, they willingly accepted the gig, and subsequent events showed how they financially abused, and continue to financially abuse, the position.

The latest appointment to the ceremonial post is an Indigenous woman from northern Canada who has been on the government teat for years. She says that she came from humble beginnings, but recent revelations seem to show that she has embraced the good life which only jobs like the one given to her enjoy, while the rest of us pay for our excesses out of our own pockets.  Not Simon, and don’t you dare even think about criticizing this lady because to do so would clearly be racist!  Now that is “woke” squared!

Groups of individuals can also be “woke.”  For example, it is “woke” to insist that we enthusiastically embrace homosexuality.  Elected officials must march in “Pride” parades or be branded homophobic. The rest of us are to clap and cheer as scantily clad queers and lesbians gyrate along main thoroughfares simulating sexual acts while traffic jams abound, inconveniencing the average person as they try to carry on their day-to-day lives.  But don’t you dare complain or you are immediately branded an irredeemable homophobe and subject to the wrath of this small, yet incredibly vocal, group.  Bowing to the insistent demands of the homosexual crowd is but another example of “woke.”

In this area, it has become “woke” for TV shows and commercials to depict family relationships as interracial.  It seems the more minority groups that can be squeezed into a drama or a commercial, the better.  In fact, Canadian Tire had a commercial showing two men kissing.  Now, that sure is “woke.”  Minorities are now depicted as if they were members of the majority, and there is something wrong with you if you feel uncomfortable seeing members of the same sex openly pawing each other.

To be clear, I do not think so-called straight people object to what others do behind closed doors, but what they do object to is having members of minority groups mushing their sexuality into the faces of those who live a more conventional lifestyle.  But you dare not express a contrary opinion, or you are attacked and shunned by the purveyors of a “woke” culture that you are prohibited from criticizing.

Are you beginning to understand the definition of the word “woke?” No? Then I have other examples which may help.  

In the United States (although not exclusive to that country), school boards have been highjacked by ultra-left-wing individuals.  Up until recently, being elected to a school board was not something most people aspired to, and candidates with personal agendas were quite willing to let their names stand. These folks, by default, began to have great influence over the content of the education curriculum.  What these people were teaching came to light during the Covid pandemic when children were taught online, and parents got to see what their children were being taught—they were more than shocked.  Angry parents began showing up at school board meetings demanding explanations as to why their children were being taught things like critical race theory, explicit sexual content and scary climate change predictions without giving opposing positions equal time.  The teacher’s union in the United States, seeing their game being revealed and increasingly afraid of the power of united parents, quickly solicited the help of the US Attorney General. The AG, being a rabid Democrat flunky, immediately made it known that his department would prosecute any parent who might be so bold as to attend a school board meeting and loudly criticize the performance of these school board wokesters.  Merrick Garland allowed the Democratic party, the teacher’s union and the struggling President Biden to make a fool of him and his Justice Department.  All of this was clearly “woke” and dangerously so.

An even more egregious “woke” situation occurred involving a man who was a student at Penn State and a member of the men’s swim team.  This guy was but a second-rate member of the men’s team and must not have liked being a swim team also-ran.  But this guy had a solution.  He decided to identify as a woman and join Penn State’s female swim team.  Quite brilliant, really. He would get unfettered access to the women’s locker room where he had once, for obvious reasons, been denied.  He would get to compete against biological females and easily beat them while setting records and receiving accolades and scholarships in the process.

Now, any reasonable person would say: “Are you crazy?  Are you kidding me?  You are a dude!  You were born a dude and physiologically, you are still a dude regardless of what you identify as.  As a result, it is patently unfair for you to compete against females, so give your head a shake and get back to your men’s team and the proper dressing room.”

You would think that would be the logical end of the matter, but you would be wrong.  Silly you!  Out of the woodwork slithered the Penn State “woke” community, trying to justify something that was clearly unjustifiable.  But remember where wokeism was born.  Universities today are hotbeds for what most people think borders on crazy.  And these oddball people are teaching and inundating our children with their nonsensical thoughts.  These clowns have perfected “woke.”

Very recently, the governing body of female university swimming in the United States has, finally, banned physiological men from competing against women.  Most of us knew or at least hoped that common sense would eventually prevail, but the fight against this blatant form of “wokeism” was not easily won.

Of course, there are many other examples of “woke,” but I detect that the “woke” movement is on its last legs, socially and politically.  Recent elections in Italy and Sweden, along with the Vancouver City Council elections and the new leader of the Conservative Party in Canada give me hope.  The icing on the “anti-Woke” cake will be a decisive defeat of the Democratic Party in the November mid-term elections in the United States.  How anyone with a brain could vote for Democratic Party candidates is more than a surprise. For the sake of that country’s future, a dithering old man must be neutralized by the Republicans by taking at least one of the House of Representatives or the Senate while the country treads water until 2024 and hopes and prays that nothing happens to Biden, the lesser of two evils.

Finally, it is no longer acceptable to advocate for equality amongst people of all races and colours.  Now, the clarion cry is “equity.”  What that means is if you were born with white skin, you are, by definition, unfairly advantaged. You must atone for your racist sins and take a back seat to alleged disadvantaged members of minority groups. You are not to question the fairness of this ideology, which will certainly be the cause of never-ending, ongoing human conflict well into the future. The introduction of “equity” into the discussion as opposed to aspiring to treat everyone fairly and as equals, epitomizes what is known as being “woke.” It is the blatant pandering to minority members of our society at the expense of those born with white skin.  “Woke” policies, when implemented, are clearly the most obvious form of racism sanctioned and condoned by society.

Now, Brenda, do you kind of understand what “woke” means and how unfair and damaging its widespread implementation is on common sense and our fragile democracy?