In a leafy, affluent Chicago suburb of million dollar homes, the Christmas decorations are finally down but other adornments remain. “Hate Has No Home Here,” and “In This House We Believe That No One Is Illegal” say lawn signs. “Wherever You Are From, You Are Welcome Here,” says another (though my very unwoke friend adds “unless you behead your enemy or honor kill your sister on my lawn).” Another sign in front of a big home says simply “Resist,” the home apparently bought before its owner resisted the economic system.
What is the purpose of the signs? Are they self-protective as in “we love you people so don’t target or trash us?” Or are they indicative of unabashed self-hatred and guilt? As in, “Sure we live in a million dollar home, have two SUVs, cushy jobs that we perform from laptops, college educated children (who live with us) and seldom interface with the less fortunate – we are NOT racists!”
Latte liberals (also known, here in Chicago, as lakefront liberals or limousine liberals) certainly have the right to declare they are not racists. But there is a thorny and discomfiting corollary to their declarations, especially seen in twenty and thirty something Wokes. Not only are they not racists – you probably are! We have reached the moment in Wokism where the young and self-virtuous feel they can upbraid strangers in public for alleged racism or other imputed dark beliefs while their elders sit on their hands and look on. (Are you listening grown-ups?)
Look at news reporting. At least 9,000, mostly teen-aged, able-bodied “unaccompanied minors” have crossed the U.S. southern border at this writing. Instead of covering who is funding and enabling the logistics of the stampede – where are the reporters? – media collectively snivel about how the trespassing “children” are not getting showers.
Rather than asking why these trespassing “children” (not exactly Teddy Bear age) should be allowed in the U.S. to begin with and fed, housed and clothed by taxpayers, conservative media have tried a different tack. The main victims are women and children who are trafficked by cartels they point out, trying to earn Woke sympathy. But no. Woke saturated media still maintains that open borders are fine. In fact a lead story on CNN this week is not the 9,000 illegal crossers but how a U.S. sheriff … cracked a racist joke.
Some say young Wokes are just the offspring of helicopter parents who never told them “no.” (Or, as the joke goes, well behaved kids whose parents obey them.) But they are also the first generation of young people completely raised on Woke school curricula and identity politics that told them they’re good and you’re not.
Moreover, Wokes have the black hand of the Internet at their fingertips to perpetrate cyber “pile-ons” and ruin careers unlike previous reformers who exposed the wrongs of the status quo. Mature and adult leaders in politics, entertainment, education, the job world and media are more afraid of teenaged wokes with smart phones than their own constituents, customers, readers, listeners or shareholders!
Desperately Seeking Underdogs
There is a joke that when the world is about to end, the New York Times’ headline will be “World To End; Transgender Migrants Hurt Worst.” But it is hard to satirize today’s Woke journalism.
Consider the plight of the 19-year-old transgender “woman” (so Wokes get to type “she” – “she”!!) Valery Sanchez. “Sanchez said she escaped Honduras in February 2020 after strangers beat her and left her for dead because of her gender identity. She spent the next eight months at the makeshift camp in Matamoros, but fled after other Central American migrants harassed and assaulted her and her transgender friends,” writes ProPublica. And now, Biden policies won’t let her in!
According to Woke theology if you aren’t outraged at Sanchez’ plight and cruel U.S. policies you are a racist, homophobe and transphobe. (You are also probably a white supremacist, Islamophobe and anti-Asian!)
But maybe you are just a realist. For example, you may sympathize with non-gender conformed people while asking yourself how they, a previously bullied 0.6 percent, have somehow become the bullies.
And you may ask why with plenty of poor, hungry, jobless, laid off and gang-terrorized citizens in the U.S. right now – including homeless encampments – we are looking beyond our borders to bring in more victims.
