Sure, ‘Woke 1’ had its issues – but we have far bigger problems on our hands | Arwa Mahdawi
The Guardian · L · trust 36/100
‘Progressives also shouldn’t play into their hands by talking about Woke 1.0 instead of focusing on the dire state of the country right now.’ Photograph: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images View image in fullscreen ‘Progressives also shouldn’t play into their hands by talking about Woke 1.0 instead of focusing on the dire state of the country right now.’ Photograph: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images The Week in Patriarchy US politics Sure, ‘Woke 1’ had its issues – but we have far bigger problems on our hands Arwa Mahdawi AOC’s remarks about past excesses have been ripped out of context. Progressives shouldn’t get roped into this sideshow
T here is probably no word that has been more used and abused in the last decade than “woke”. It has been rendered completely meaningless, but it refuses to die. Indeed, it has now taken on new life: in the past week, there’s been a flurry of headlines about “Woke 1.0” or “Woke One”. If you haven’t seen the phrase pop up in your newsfeed yet, it will soon.
So what is this cursed phrase? There’s no official definition, but the term is largely being used to refer to the period between 2018 and 2021 when social justice language was at its peak in mainstream culture. Certain progressives, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have started to use “Woke 1” disparagingly, as a way to distance themselves from that period and signal that they stand for a new form of left-leaning politics that is more palatable to centrist Democrats. “Woke 2”, I suppose.
We can blame the New York City councilmember Chi Ossé for coining the phrase. Back in May, he wrote on X : “Woke 1 was crazyyyy.” This was in response to someone reminding him that, in 2021, he’d said: “A cis white man should not be the next speaker of the Council.”
Not that many people paid attention to the May post. But then Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quoted it on a recent appearance on ABC News’s This Week when she was asked about some statements the Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong had made. In 2020, Hong, who lost this week’s gubernatorial primary, tweeted that Thanksgiving should be cancelled. She also posted about defunding the police. AOC responded to a question about these “controversial” tweets by saying Hong had moved away from these positions.
The congresswoman then noted: “I have a local city councilman that has this saying: ‘Woke 1.0 was crazy.’” After laughing at the phrase, Ocasio-Cortez went on to add: “During the pandemic, the doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place. And I actually think that the discussions that were had in that time were quite fruitful … I think that, you know, during lockdown, of course, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today.”
When you look at AOC’s full quote about Woke 1.0, it’s pretty reasonable. However, it has been ripped out of context and is being willfully misinterpreted by some people to suggest that Ocasio-Cortez thinks the excesses of that period were funny.
Stephen Miller, for example, almost exploded on air after Fox News’s Will Cain played a clip of AOC talking about Woke 1 to him on air. Miller ranted for almost five minutes about how woke policies resulted in a “historic increase in murders”. ( Gun violence surged in the US during Covid, but that wasn’t because of protests or because some people wanted you to say “folx” instead of “guys”. It was for myriad reasons that we are still trying to understand but include school closures in low-income areas.)
Miller added : “We’re all going to have a good laugh about that? ‘Sorry your husband was murdered.’ ‘Sorry your mom was killed.’ ‘Sorry your loved ones are six feet under the ground now.’ We’re going to have a good laugh about that? It’s sickening, it’s disgusting and the thing is, [Woke 1.0] never stopped.”
The Atlantic, meanwhile, published a piece headlined “The Democrats Can’t Just Laugh Off ‘Woke 1’”, which argued: “Republicans have no incentive to let them forget past excesses.”
Maybe not, but progressives also shouldn’t play into their hands by talking about Woke 1.0 instead of focusing on the dire state of the country right now. This isn’t to say we can’t learn from past mistakes. I think we can all agree that there were some embarrassing excesses between 2018-2020. There was the time, for example, when a Mexican American San Diego Gas and Electric employee got fired because someone thought he was doing the White Power symbol with his hand. All he was doing was hanging his arm out of his truck and cracking his knuckle . There was no evidence to prove he held white supremacist views, there was just a baying mob on Twitter.
Was that incident bad? Yes, of course! Was some of the earnest discourse from the time cringe? Absolutely! But just take a minute and look around, why don’t you? The president of the US is monetizing his position in an unprecedented way . Pregnant women are dying preventable deaths because they can’t get access to safe abortions, and immigrants are being snatched off the street by masked thugs. Freedom of speech is under attack, and you can get deported for talking about the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Getting upset right now about Woke 1 is crazyyyy.
Do take the time to read this shocking piece in the Nation by Maryam Tahmasebi, who is currently in ICE detention with her family because her mother-in-law was a translator for the Iranian hostage takers back in 1979. Tahmasebi and her husband are both professors and legal residents without so much as a traffic ticket on their records. They’re now locked up in separate facilities. Their son, who has been a legal resident of California for 12 years and wasn’t even born during the hostage crisis, was also taken from his school in handcuffs. He’s in a facility with his mother with no end to their detention in sight. “This is bloodline punishment,” Tahmasebi writes.
That’s according to a UN Women analysis that…
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