My mother told me to be nice. She told me I should think about others before myself. She said that something was not funny if everyone, especially the brunt of the joke, was not laughing. She said there were other people with worse problems than mine. She said be thankful for what I have…don’t focus on what I want. She said don’t call people names and don’t make fun of people who were “different,” which I took to mean things that were not white, educated, not-poor, healthy and able. She said don’t serve yourself more than you can eat. She also said don’t chew with your mouth open. I know I’m taking a bit of detour with the mouth open thing but I had to slip it in because it’s important.
Your mother probably told you similar things. If you are 70, like me, these were likely some of the teachings you grew up with. They weren’t political. They weren’t virtue signalling or dog whistling. They were not performative. They were imperative. No other sort of behaviour was tolerated in my house. Mother made sure of it.
In the early 1990s when political correctness became a “thing” I was in university. I learned quickly what could be said and what could not be said. Insulting people because of their race, gender, physical attributes, sexual orientation was “out.” It worked for me. Although many of my family and friends had many of these feelings, I had lived in an environment where outwardly showing bigoted and racist behaviours was unacceptable. I didn’t like bullies and big-mouths.
At this time, I lived on an Indian reserve and had had my fill of people mocking the people I lived with and loved because of their race, body size, poverty, education, etc. I thought “Just shut up” was a good motto. But I didn’t trust the new cleaned up society. Scratch the surface of the newly polite-spoken and I found the same old sentiments. I worried about the simmering resentments I felt in many conversations. I knew, one day, there would be a backlash.
And there was. Pretty soon political correctness became trivialized, as if it wasn’t legitimate, as if it was an affront to free speech. And it was. At one time or another we were all rebuked. For using the wrong word. For being the wrong colour. Political correctness had gone too far. But people didn’t just want political correctness to loosen up a bit. They wanted the right to say whatever they wanted. Insults and hurts, be damned.
And then there was woke. Just another word that had been rumbling around in common western parlance, waiting, as it were, to step in to rescue political correctness. We got rid of the offensive “political” word and got groovy.
Woke was a much better word. It had black roots as well as others. But it simply meant “wake up,” “check it out” and “check yourself out.” It meant don’t be so self-centred. It’s not all about you. There are many critical, systemic, social injustices that needed attention. Those of us from the white, educated, not-poor, healthy and able part of society needed to step aside and give way to the “others” for a while. I thought it was a brilliant message. I was all in. It wasn’t my turn anymore.
But then woke turned all political-correct on us. Cultural humility–making room for other cultures. Acknowledging privilege. Got attacked. Got reworked. Not surprising. It really was a counter intuitive idea—that the privileged should not act privileged. Woke met “Wait a minute us white people are getting left out.” Real quick. We hardly had time to think about the “other” before we had to do an about face and think about ourselves again.
My sense was that the anti-woke movement did not like white and men being lumped together with privilege—we aren’t all privileged. Some of us are poor, working class and struggling just like Blacks, Indigenous, women, gays. Woke isn’t fair.
On a personal note, this movement hit me hard. My life had been spent in a community that wasn’t mine. I was an invader. Although my academic work was about my lived experience the topics that were not considered mine. “Who are you to talk about these things?” Although I had been taught many knitting techniques and encouraged to knit them by my Coast Salish mother-in-law and even though I created unique designs and techniques of my own I was reproached for my knitting. “Who told you, you could knit like that?” Even the stories I wrote about living in the “in-between” were marginalized. “Who is she to talk about those topics?” My experiences can be wrapped up in this moment. I had just finished my Phd dissertation…the first of its kind. It was new edgy stuff. Six years of study, 20 years of working in the field, 45 years of living the topic. A very woke person asked me if I could teach a First Nations person the content of my dissertation so that person could present it at a gathering (the next week). No. Just no.
So I get it. I’m pretty sure that I get it on a deeper and more personal level than most. Stepping aside when you are white, middle-class, educated, healthy and able is not something we are familiar with. And, as we have seen, it didn’t last long.
Okay, so my version of woke might not tell the whole or even the best story. I’ve got a pretty biased look at the topic. But the latest onslaught of viciousness against the “other” and by that I mean the traditional “other” in American society…the anti-everything that was meant to even the playing field, has awakened my woke.
Yes, I get it. Some parts of society have gone too far and are trying too hard to apply disingenuous rules on people. I think it’s true that sometimes it’s not fair (it has never been fair). But the response to woke, to DEI and to anything that hints of inclusion, etc has been so quick, so thorough and so vicious that I believe it has exposed its roots. The roots are so close to the surface we can all see what has been half-hid for most of my lifetime. The response is so obviously rooted (from my perspective) in old, white, male, Christian supremacy that rather than feel frustrated that woke has gone too far I am thinking it hasn’t gone far enough.
I am angry that my mother’s teachings are being belittled. I am fed-up with the leash being extended to let bad behaviour run wild.
And what difference does it make that I’m fed-up. In the public. In society. None. But in my family and my small circle of friends it makes a difference. They will not hear the end of it. Be nice. Stop thinking about yourself. You are not a victim—others have it so much worse than you. You are not as funny as you think you are. Don’t take more than you can eat. And don’t chew with your mouth open. Please. Please. Please. Don’t chew with your mouth open.
