Let’s stop using the word ‘woke’ as a weapon
If we can agree on one thing – and I know that we’re not supposed to, given that we are living on an increasingly polarised planet where people are expected to disseminate their entire world view in a 280-character tweet, and where all televised “debate” now feels like watching a Victorian cock fight, especially if Piers Morgan is involved – it is that the word “woke”, when used as an adjective rather than the past participle of “awake”, is one of the most jarring additions to the English language, and that it should stop being used immediately by all members of the media (or at least once I have finished writing this column).
But is being woke really as awful as the word sounds? I have been thinking about this a lot lately, as it has been bandied around like an insult, in the same way that “snowflake” is used as a way to pour scorn on anyone under the age of 30 who has the temerity to experience anything quite so un-british as a feeling.
I am troubled by the weaponisation of this word, which – as far as I can gather – originated in African American communities back in the Sixties as a way to describe staying alert to social injustice, such as the racism that was absolutely endemic at the time. In this context, it is more than a little worrying that (mostly) white people with a public profile have turned the word into something derogatory, using it as a way to shut down and silence people who have only relatively recently managed to get a voice at all.
I think most readers of the Telegraph will agree that fighting against social injustice is something to be applauded, not insulted. But similarly, I am pretty sure most readers will agree that shouting “racist” at anyone who holds an opposing view on, say, recent royal events, is not the best way to fight said social injustice. And I am pretty sure most readers will agree it is a great shame that this important conversation has come to be dominated by only the shoutiest, gobbiest members of society, the ones who seem to lack nuance or empathy or even understanding.
Does anyone really want to have their flag flown for them by Laurence Fox or Lily Allen? Do Laurence Fox and Lily Allen even want to be flying these flags themselves? Wouldn’t they rather be making movies or albums? And is anyone outside of Twitter and the media really whingeing about wokeness, or are they just trying to get on with their lives the best they can, with kindness and decency and good manners?
I suspect the latter is true. Wokeness is not really a new thing.
Before wokeness there was political correctness, and before political correctness there was politeness.
These constructs have come about not as a way to punish the majority but as a way to protect minorities. As ever, a few people feel defensive about this narrative, and must make it about themselves. Hence the word “privilege” has some clutching for their metaphorical (and literal) pearls. How dare anyone presume to tell me I have not struggled!
But for all its inflammatory language, the phrase “check your privilege” seems to be less about having a go at white people and more about asking them to uphold the values most of us were taught as kids anyway: to think of others who may not have been given as much; to stand up for people around us who have been unfairly treated; to remember that all humans are born equal but that, sadly, it is not always the case that all humans are treated equal.
Thanks to social media, it can sometimes seem that everyone is furious, that there is only the Left and the Right waging a war with one another. The casualties of this war are the vast majority of hard-working British people who haven’t got a spare minute for Twitter or the energy for Question Time; who don’t really care at all about the royals, because they have their own family issues to be getting on with; who would love to have the luxury of being able to debate for hours about wokeness and privilege, but have got jobs to do.
Hard-working British people who, above all, value manners and politeness and kindness. Even in this day and age, is that really too much to ask for?