What is "woke"?

I was watching a Youtube video about "wokeness", and as part of the video this person was attempting to define it, and was making the point that nobody on either "side" can define it.

I think "woke" has two meanings today, depending on whether you're on the right or the left.

On the left (the most positive definition), it is the idea that oppression of minorities has a systemic cause that has an effect over time. Put simply, what happened to me yesterday affects me today, and to fix what happened yesterday we must account for where I would have been had the thing not happened yesterday.

As an example, say there was a group of men standing around waiting for some work, and someone pulls up and says "I have a great paying job for everyone who wants it today, but not if you're black". So all the white guys get a job for the day and the black guy doesn't.

I'm sure we can all agree that this is straight up racism. All well-meaning people want to fix this racism. So the person in charge of the job center makes a new rule: "From now on, jobs are first-come-first-served, regardless of race".

The person in charge has now "solved" the racism problem, or so he thinks. This is a "non-woke" solution.

But has the problem been solved?

At first glance, tomorrow everyone will have an equal chance to get a job. But today the black guy didn't get work, so he didn't get to eat, so he's very tired, and also because he didn't make any money he defaulted on his rent and got kicked out of his apartment. So tonight he sleeps on a park bench, and doesn't get much rest, and arrives late tomorrow and doesn't get a job either because he's late.

So tomorrow, there's a new person in charge, a new “woke” person. This "woke" person sees that even though the cause of the discrimination has been fixed, the effects of the racism have not. So he makes a new rule that black guys get to go to the front of the line. It's positive discrimination, to try to make up for the damage that was done by the racism. (Again, racism that isn't the fault of the white guys at the job site)

Now suddenly, A bunch of the white guys at the job site who aren't "woke" are complaining about reverse discrimination... now black guys get an advantage just for being black!

It feels horribly unfair, because we already fixed the problem! And now everything should be totally fair under the law, and if the black guy wants the job he needs to just work as hard as everyone else.

But there is really a second definition of “woke”.

Now we have some white guys who are the victims of the "system", and they feel victimized.

So the white guys go on social media and start talking about how unfair the system is, and out of nowhere they get attacked by this guy who looks like a hippie out of central casting who informs all the white guys that they are the real racists.

And this hippie guy is telling all these white guys that they are super privileged and why can't they just let this black guy go to the front of the line... meanwhile the hippie guy is some rich asshole who doesn't even have to work for a living.

And now we go a level deeper because this is the shadow. The shadow is the part of all of us that we have decided that we are definitely not that thing. And so it lies repressed and instead we run around in the world trying to eradicate that thing from the world.

And so this rich hippie guy spends all of his time telling poor white guys that they're privileged, when he's actually the guy who's really privileged and won't admit it.

Meanwhile, the white guys at the job site are tired of the shit and listening to this asshole "woke" white hippie guy.

And the next day this guy, Gerald Frump, walks onto the job site and he tells all the white guys at the job site that if they elect him as the new job site leader that he's going to make the job site great again, like yesterday back when everything was fair and even.

And these guys are pissed, and understandably so, because reverse discrimination isn't fair.

So, Gerald Frump does away with all of the positive discrimination policies.

And the next day, someone pulls up and says “I've got some really great paying jobs, but only for people who got to work yesterday, because experience is important".

So all the white guys get to go work because they worked yesterday, and the black guy doesn't get work again today because he didn't work yesterday, and everybody thinks it's totally fair because why should a black guy get a job ahead of a white guy when the white guy has more experience?

And the black guy goes and tries to sleep on the park bench again, and shows up tomorrow.

And the cycle repeats.

And we don't know how to fix this. And I'm afraid Gerald Frump doesn't either.

So, what is woke?

Woke is the best, good faith, solution that some of us have to try to fix a problem that keeps coming up, and it's also obnoxious leftist hippie guys who won't do their inner work.