Sixteen months ago Chelsea Clinton had a surprise induction into woke shame. While attending a NYU vigil for the Muslims who were murdered in Christchurch, New Zealand in March, 2019 (she had also attended a Muslim-solidarity rally against Trump’s immigration policies in 2017) she was ambushed by two Wokers she had never met.
“This right here is the result of a massacre stoked by people like you and the words that you put out into the world,” said one.
“I want you to know that, and I want you to feel that deep down inside. Forty-nine people died because of the rhetoric you put out there,” said the second Woker.
Earlier in June, Harry Potter author JK Rowling was piled on for a tweet that suggested women, not trans people, menstruate. She was promptly called “transphobic” and worse.
Despite a rabid backlash from name calling woke identity politickers screaming about personal suffering, Rowling held her ground.
She tweeted:
“If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.”
“The idea that women like me, who’ve been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they’re vulnerable in the same way as women – ie, to male violence – ‘hate’ trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences – is a nonsense.
A recent poll revealed that only 0.6% of U.S. adults identify as transgender. Their bullying of the other 99.4% online, on social media and in person is way out of proportion to their actual numbers. (Nor will the trans “vote” tip the upcoming U.S. presidential elections in either direction.)
Fearing virulent woke shame, mainstream media capitulate by referring to trans men, once known as drag queens, transvestites or cross dressers as “she.” Referring to a man in women’s clothes as “she” because “she” says she is a she is not accurate journalism.
Do trans people have a psychological problem? Of course. Should they be discriminated against? Of course not. But fear of bullying should not subvert accurate reportage. Moreover, outrage against the same cyber-bullying directed against LGBT people was one of the origins of woke culture. Talk about hypocrisy.
How Far Will Media Capitulate?
Recently the editorial-page editor at the New York Times, James Bennet, and the top editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Stan Wischnowski, resigned over allowing material to be published that the woke generations considered microaggression. Whatever happened to airing both sides of an issue, once journalism’s credo?
There are other examples of journalism capitulation. Why are poor, Appalachian, working-class and lower-class white people excluded from the dialogue about “white privilege”? Because it will invoke woke shame.
Why are the punishment of LGBT people and honor killings of women in other countries ignored by media outlets? Because it will invoke woke shame.
Emotional Hemophiliacs
Members of the woke generation have been called emotional hemophiliacs for a reason. Their hurt and angry feelings immediately spill over into bullying, recrimination, rudeness, shame, and a willingness to suspend free speech. Why are grown men and women, especially in media, rolling over and playing dead when this happens?
Social media has certainly created the reflexive “take-this,” “you-made-me-angry,” “I’ll show you,” culture which is behind some of the woke shame. But so, maybe, weak parenting.
There used to a joke about how well-behaved parents “obey” their children. But we are now hearing about how members of the woke generation are shaming their parents who raised them to be, well, woke.
Shaming of ideological enemies, whether the attacks upon Chelsea Clinton or JK Rowling, is not only becoming more common – it is becoming more tolerated.
