I cannot identify who exactly popularized the term “woke.”
But I have had cause to wheel it out here and elsewhere on off for the last few years, generally when describing some absurd piece of academic or corporate or government obeisance to political correctness.
Back in the Spring of 2019, I discovered the great English satirist Andrew Doyle, the creator of the character Titania McGrath, the “radical intersectionalist poet” who is full of woke showstoppers.
Item: “If you don’t think exactly the same way as me, then you’ve clearly got a lot to learn about diversity.”
Could Ibram X. Kendi, the author of the bestselling anti-white diatribe “How to Be an Antiracist,” put the gospel of wokeness any better?
Well, maybe so.
McGrath/Doyle can weigh in deliciously on Jussie Smollett, the actor who staged a racist attack on himself in order to elicit sympathy and boost his sagging career.
“It is absolutely essential,” she/he wrote, “that we believe Jussie Smollett. If we don’t, other people who haven’t been attacked might not have the courage to come forward.”
Ha, ha, ha.
But Kendi puts the claws in the paw with observations such as this: “The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
Race-based discrimination now, race-based discrimination tomorrow, race-based discrimination forever.
Kendi says the quiet part out loud.
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