There's a reason why conservatives won't define "woke"
There's a reason why conservatives won't define "woke"
It's become their code word to condemn Black people, queer people, anti-racists and the very idea of equality. Democrats should fully embrace the term.
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This was the week that the anti-woke went completely broke.
It began with ignorant members of Congress, like Oversight Committee chair James Comer, joining Fox News pundits in idiotically calling Silicon Valley Bank a “woke” bank, and blaming that for its failure.
By mid-week conservative author Bethany Mandel, who wrote an entire book supposedly about “woke indoctrination” of children, could not define what “woke” is during an interview. If you haven’t seen it you have to watch the entire clip. Even Mandel, knowing she was sinking, admitted that the moment would “go viral.” And it sure did, in addition to garnering headlines.
The reason Mandel couldn’t answer — she lamely tried to tweet out excuses later, claiming she was thrown off, and finally offering a word salad of a definition of woke that was quite obtuse — is simple. She’d have been forced to give a quick soundbite that would reveal being anti-woke is being against equality and in favor of discrimination.
Woke is a term that’s been used among African-Americans for decades, always meant as becoming informed, illuminated and activated in the struggle for equality. It began being used more broadly in the progressive movement after Donald Trump’s election. But the term has been taken over in the past few years by Republicans using it pejoratively — as the party is now in the grip of white supremacists — to tar the very idea of equality.
It’s a code word for the GOP meant to disparage anyone seeking justice and fighting against discrimination for people of color, LGBTQ people, women and other groups. It’s become ridiculously broad, too, used to attack anything that Democrats and President Biden do, but also trying to imply that Black people, queer people, women, religious minorities and others in the Democratic base are behind any effort, any policy the GOP loathes.
So the GOP rails against “woke” housing policies, “woke” education policies, “woke” health care initiatives and “woke” environmental programs. Disney is “woke” and so is the rest of Hollywood. Too much of TV is “woke” and so many books are so “woke” they need to be banned.
All of these labels are meant to disparage efforts to fight injustice or to censor what is taught in schools about injustice as well as to censor popular culture. Anti-woke efforts are indeed about stopping equality and re-writing history and denying truth.
And now, this week, we had “woke” banks, as Republicans expanded the use of the term to cover up their corrupt policies. Calling Silicon Vally Bank “woke” because it has a Black board member and an LGBTQ board member is a racist and homophobic dog whistle. And claiming it failed because of that — because some of the people running it were not white men — is ludicrous.
They’ve also laughably tried to argue that because the bank celebrated diversity, held seminars for employees on equality and marked events like Pride month, it was ‘distracted” from its mission, and that that caused its bad decisions. But diversity training is now a hallmark of every corporation, and even News Corp and Fox News celebrate Pride month and have an LGBTQ group holding events. So again, absolutely absurd.
We all now know that SVB failed because regional banks were deregulated in 2018 under Donald Trump, who partially gutted the Dodd-Frank Act, along with Republicans in Congress and some Democrats. The bank no longer had the government performing stress-testing, and it made bad decisions. SVB was in fact a MAGA bank — founded by white men and largely run by white men, Silicon Valley libertarian tech bros.
Tech billionaire Peter Thiel, among the trumpiest of the Trump one percenters, having bankrolled the campaigns of Ohio’s rabid Senator J.D. Vance and failed creepy extremist Blake Master in his Arizona Senate run, actually contributed to the fall of SVB when his Founders Fund pulled all its money out, helping spark a bank run. Thiel was one of SVB’s top five venture capitalists. The bank was founded by former Bank of America managers Bill Biggerstaff and Robert Medearis, two white men.
Notice that conservatives haven’t called the other bank that failed in the past week, Signature Bank, a “woke” bank. That’s because it not only was fully run by white people but as a bank servicing the real estate sector in the New York area it was the go-to bank for the Trump family for many years.
Labeling banks as “woke” coupled with Mandel’s inability to define “woke,” both happening in the same week, showed both the emptiness of this term, and the GOP’s motives in using it as code — as well as why the “anti-woke” campaign will be a dud for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis or anyone else in a presidential election.
The majority of Americans in a recent poll actually said they view “woke” as a positive term, and not a negative one. And honestly, the opposite of being awake is sleepwalking. Who wants our political leaders doing that?
Democrats should embrace “woke” as being informed and educated, and go on the offensive. And they should put the GOP on the defensive, demanding Republicans define woke every chance they get.
DeSatan is against DEI (Diversity, Equality, Inclusion). This means he favors conformity, inequality and exclusion. I hope Democratic politicians expound on this. Is this what Americans believe in -- a nation of either clones or people who are excluded (outcasts)?
I'm from Silicon Valley. James Comer, representative (small R intentional) from Kentucky's 1st district, stated that Silicon Valley Bank's failure is due to it's being a 'woke' bank. Whatever the fuck that may be. A woke bank is essentially a contradiction in terms, what with the banking industries history of redlining and all, but that's not really relevant here. SVB is not a bank that I could even have an account with. It is, or was, a specialty bank essentially for tech industry startups, which I am not.
Let's look at Jim Comer's lovely state of Kentucky. In 2109, Kentucky paid $36 billion dollars in federal taxes. It received $104 billion dollars in federal spending, $68 more than it paid, or $2.89 for every dollar it paid.
Why would Kentucky need so much of the federal tax money paid by the hard working states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Illinois, Colorado, Washington, Utah, Nebraska and California, the 12 Donor states? Note that all but two of those are Blue states. Somebody needs to ask Jim Comer this question. Along with Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul. This hardly looks like any kind of a success story. More like massive failure to me.
On a per capita basis, in 2019, each man woman and child in Kentucky received $12,743 over and above what they paid in federal taxes. For the classic family of 4 in Kentucky, that would be $50,972 more than they paid in federal taxes. That would include James Comer. And this clown is commenting on woke banks. Good thing there are still successful states in this country to pay for his sorry ass. Over 39 years of data I have, Kentucky has never paid more federal taxes than it received in federal spending. And it's getting worse. Kentucky's requirements per dollar of federal tax paid is significantly higher now than from 1981 thru 2005. Kentucky started to jump around 2006 to where it is now, requiring an average of $2.32 from 2015 thru 2019. What the hell is going on in Kentucky? Things seem to be declining rapidly in this former slave holder Red state and all this idiot can do is comment on a 'woke' bank. As Trump stated in his first campaign, 'I love the poorly educated'. Looks like we got a state full of 'em right there.