LOL. "You are sorry I grew up in a bigoted area." Racism is American in the extreme. "Bigotry is wrong, unamerican and inexcusable" yet you continue to promote bigotry against people who have to be aware of our history. I have to have an advocate with me in almost any ER department across the US.
The entire country has a history with denying equal access and opportunity. At almost every level of government.
"Woke" is the wrong word. As long as you use the word "woke" the way you use it I have zero interest in listening to your voice or reading anything you've written. You are ensuring that Black people are denied our stories. Even your diminishment--"you grew up in a bigoted area." Name a part of the US that wasn't "bigoted."
Your use of the word "woke" means that we will never find common ground or common cause. I am just something that you erase and paint ovrer with right wing hatred. You do this repeatedly. I've been having conversations with you for a few years. You have not grown in the least of your understanding. You genuinely don't have a clue about living in the US as a Black person. But woke isn't the way you and the right wing use it.
We get it. Every time you use the word "woke" you are mocking and dismissing Black people. That's why the right chose that word.
“Woke” is Black vernacular. For the vast majority of Black US individuals, It has zero to with anything other than being situationally aware of the public policies, laws, and social customs that could/can bring the power of anti-Black calamity upon us individually and as a community. It is unique to the US and was adopted as a pejorative by those who hated US civil rights.
“Woke” in my community is not philosophical. It is practical. Based on real world experiences and complaints. It is not often political and almost always personal. It's about me as an individual Black person being able to be able maneuver in my every day life.It is what we say to one another in order to keep moving forward.
For more than 100 years my community has used “stay woke” as a psalm, a prayer to arrive home safely when traversing sundown towns, neighborhoods that see us as “suspicious,” and other spaces where existing in our melanin enrobed bodies make us less safe.
Marcus Garvey in 1923 said “wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!” In 1938, Lead Belly included a spoken afterword in his protest song “Scottsboro Boys” that includes the expression. He enjoins: “So I advise everybody, be a little careful when they go along through there — best stay woke, keep their eyes open.”
“Stay woke” is what we said to each other when we had no choice but to travel through sundown towns after dark. It’s a prayer, a psalm, a reminder Black mothers admonish our children to ensure that they arrive alive unharmed to their destinations. We’ve been saying “stay woke” for more than 100 years.
That the dominant culture who enacted and enforced laws that denied us equal access because of our melanin content pejoratively turned “woke” imbued with such depth of specific meaning to our community into a synonym for “self-righteous,” “sanctimonious,” and “annoying,” denigrates, belittles, and diminishes our Black struggle for human and civil rights. “Woke” is now used as a punchline to erase our history, our stories, and struggles.
Every time you use that word I say "there is someone who is erasing Black people's struggles." Someone who hates us. So you keep using it. And keep proving how much you can't stand Black people and don't care what happens to us individually or collectively.
All because you had to sit through a training or two with which you disagreed.
