Ah-Hah!!!\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ve found another term to hang around the neck of some candidate, along with \u201cbleeding heart liberal\u201d (neutered to \u201cProgressive\u201d) or demagogue (trimmed to \u201cPopulist\u201d).\u00a0\u00a0It sums up an entire load of loathing held deep down for decades.\u00a0\u00a0You don\u2019t have to describe what a candidate stands for or believes.\u00a0\u00a0You just have to use one word to paint them as unacceptable to the \u201cmasses\u201d:\u00a0\u00a0just call them \u201cwoke\u201d!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It all started with the second phase of educational desegregation in the 1970\u2019s. Phase one was in the late 1950\u2019s and early 60\u2019s. It required school districts to integrate, allowing black students to attend \u201cwhite\u201d schools, and white students to attend \u201cblack\u201d schools. That was the product of the two Brown v Topeka Board of Education<\/em> cases, and most Americans, once they got past inherent racism, realized it made sense. The black kid who lived down the street from a public school, shouldn\u2019t have to walk past that school to attend another one far away, simply because of the color of their skin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it soon became clear that the \u201cneighborhood school\u201d, so deeply in-bred into an American culture like a Norman Rockwell\u2019s painting; was synonymous with racially segregated schools. Letting black students into Little Rock Central High School; outlawing \u201cwhite\u201d schools and \u201cblack\u201d schools, didn\u2019t change the racial makeup of most public schools. If the attendance area was almost all one race of the other, then the school remained segregated. The result was that Brown <\/em>wasn\u2019t altering most American education. And so a new term entered the American racial lexicon: bussing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the late 1960\u2019s and early 70\u2019s, students were bussed across school districts to reach some racial balance. The goal was to have black and white students going to schools together; bussing was the only way to desegregate our educational systems. But the division it created was huge: taking away \u201cthe school\u201d that generations of locals attended, forcing them to \u201cthe other\u201d side of town, and making them go to school with \u201cthem\u201d. It really made folks angry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next \u201cmove\u201d was called \u201cwhite flight\u201d. If you didn\u2019t want your kid in an integrated school across town, then move out of town, out of the district, out of the county. There were rural schools, technically desegregated but practically \u201call white\u201d, just across the county line. If you were willing to move out in the country and commute into town, your kid could go to a neighborhood school, usually of all one race. And that\u2019s what many did, here in Columbus, and in most large cities in the nation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Or there were private schools, where practical segregation was still \u201cavailable\u201d. If only the government could help pay for that private, segregated education. That\u2019s when the movement for public funding of private schools began. We have a special term \u201ceducational\u201d term for that \u2013 vouchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Folks who wanted truly desegregated schools, not just on paper but in fact, were \u201cawake\u201d to the realities of America. They saw past the law, Brown v Board of Education, <\/em>and saw that the \u201cneighborhood Black school\u201d was still getting less. \u201cEquality\u201d was more than just equality in law, it had to be equality in opportunity, in access, and in facilities. That wasn\u2019t going to happen until everyone of every race had the same amount of \u201cskin in the game\u201d. Folks who understood that were \u201cawake\u201d to reality \u2013 they were \u201cwoke\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many white parents were \u201caggrieved\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 When desegregation extended to higher education, and then into the work place, they became even more \u201caggrieved\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0And so a new political polarity developed:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cwhite grievance\u201d versus \u201cwoke\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And in the past couple of decades, when equal opportunities were extended to women and to LGBTQ persons, the \u201cgrievance versus woke\u201d divide became a even more potent political force.\u00a0\u00a0Grievance came to represent the lost \u201cadvantages\u201d of White men over women and minorities.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cGrievance\u201d drove the Tea Party movement (especially when the first\u00a0\u00a0black President was elected).\u00a0\u00a0And tapping into \u201cgrievance\u201d was Donald Trump\u2019s \u201csuperpower\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0With all his immense failings, it still is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So when DeSantis or other Republicans use the shorthand term \u201cwoke\u201d, they are simply trying to tap the power of grievance that many white, and particularly white male Americans still feel. They won\u2019t define what they really mean by \u201cwoke\u201d. After all, who wants to say that they are losing their advantages because of race, or gender. That sounds like whining, like white men can\u2019t compete on a level field, and need \u201chelp\u201d to make it. And no one wants to admit that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So they harbor their yearning for the \u201cgood old days\u201d; when minorities, women, LGBTQ folks, weren\u2019t allowed to compete.\u00a0\u00a0They hold close to their grievance, their \u201churt\u201d, their lost \u201crights\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0And for those whose eyes are wide open, and see what\u2019s fair, what fits into the American story of greater equality and inclusion:\u00a0\u00a0why those folks are just \u201cwoke\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"White Flight<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Awake or Aggrieved<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Shorthand<\/h3>\n\n\n\n