Sometimes parents use control words designed to steer you to the choice they want you to make. For me, the one I remember the most was mature. If I made the choice they wanted me to make, that was mature. If I made the choice, they didn't want me to make, that was immature. It was used to end discussions because the last thing we wanted was to be declared not mature.
Conservatives love to do this. For decades, they will find a word that they believe will end all arguments and make everyone genuflect on their choices. They love turning words into weapons.
Judt tracing through my own time, initially in the fifties and early sixties, the most often used word by Republicans was communist. Take any idea designed to help support the middle class and/or the poor and call it communist. Well, we didn't want to go there, did we? End of discussion!
Social security? Communist! Medicare? Communist! Medicaid? Super duper communist! Also - civil rights, open housing, food stamps, women's reproductive rights - on and on!
When one word would lose its sting, another would come to take its place.
Socialism.
Liberal.
Change Democratic Party to DEMOCRAT Party - emphasis on the RAT.
Politically Correct.
Social Justice Warrior.
Libtard.
And now, the latest word twisted to become a negative pejorative -
WOKE.
A word designed to simply state that a person acknowledges our past history and prejudices, that they've read and experienced and are aware of our country's flaws and discrimination, and they want to respect everybody and want to do better.
But no! People who are open and awakened to our authentic history are monsters to be condemned! And now, the unwoke side of our politics wants to condemn anybody whose eyes are open.
Now, if you want to win an argument, just call something woke. Apparently, we're just supposed to melt into a puddle.
There are many places in the country where the unwoke army rages. But nowhere is it worse than in Florida. Their Christofacsist* Governor has made leading the army of the unwoke his principal rallying cry. History is revised so white people won't be challenged or offended. The LGBTQ+ community is ostracized and vilified. Any state official who won't aggressively pursue perceived violators of abortion procedures is subject to being fired.
It's so bad in Florida that many donated books are withheld from school libraries, including a large number of donated dictionaries (given yearly by the highly radical and woke ROTARY CLUB), for fear they won't pass the Governor's standards.
This is madness. Access to books in school and public libraries may totally collapse.
Am I aware that some can take woke too far? Sure. I have no respect for those who try to exclude speakers from colleges, create artificial safe spaces that can be as exclusionary as what DeSantis is doing, or try to remove books from the library that violate their own perspective.
But they are a minority and perversion of what it means to be woke.
We need to know our true history. Only then can we change it for the better. It does no good to hide our heads in the sand.
*do I realize that Christofascist can be thought of as a control word by the other side? Yep. And I don't care.
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