Letter to the editor: The problem with the “woke” movement

To the editor,

The “woke” movement attempts to reconstruct the moral foundations of America in order to amass power over others via fear.

This secular theology seeks to dismantle the building blocks of society such as community, family, faith, free markets, and responsible liberty. It also attempts to emasculate good men and demean values-driven women — all to supposedly create a new, utopian world.

Wokeness demands that everyone adhere to an arbitrary vocabulary of convoluted words and phrases that are deemed “inclusive.” The capricious nature of the ideology is meant to keep people on their heels so that leftist elites can exercise an insatiable appetite for raw power. One of those new vocabulary words is “karen.” “Karen” is now defined as “a middle-class, white woman who exhibits behaviours that stem from privilege.” For example, a white woman who refuses to wear a face covering in shops, won’t stick to quarantine, and thinks the whole pandemic is overblown. Another term in their new vocabulary is “white adjacent.” This refers to Asians who  are no longer identified as people of color.

Disciples of “wokism” utilize the Saul Alinsky playbook of targeting opponents by isolating them, freeing them, and then canceling them. It becomes an Orwellian world where vices are virtues, virtues are vices, lies are truth and truth is a lie. In this fantasy men can become women and women can become men. This inverted ideology manifests itself as “transhumanism” which runs counter to universally accepted moral and natural laws. It’s the ultimate Jekyll and Hyde form of nature tampering.

Wokeism’s primary tools of repression consists of manufactured grievances, economic ignorance, unearned entitlement, revisionist history, gender-based employment quotas, and a perpetual victimhood mindset. Folks attracted to this vision lack the ability to move beyond emotions to a realm of realism and reason. They’re doomed to repeat the history they never absorbed.

Wokeists battle perceived racism with racism by evaluating folks by their skin color, ethnicity, or gender. This identity politics is the opposite of what Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela preached. Progressives peddle CRT and diversity-equity-inclusion narratives, but essentially these theories are themselves racist against Caucasians and Asians.

Let’s be a people who seek to be informed. Dr. David Jeremiah said in today’s world, we can react to what’s happening in one of four ways: bury our heads and hide, bemoan things and just be sad, live extravagantly because there’s no tomorrow, or live as Christians knowing God loves us and has prepared an eternal home for us — live in hope.  

David E. Johnson

Cambridge