Tom Ellis
Apr 8, 2023

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Can you define “woke” culture? If not, you are just as stupid as the other Trumpmorons out there. For your information, “woke” originates in African American dialect as a synonym for what, in the mainstream standard English, we call “awakened” or “enlightened.” Awakened to what? For African Americans, it means awakened to the pervasive prejudice against them that saturates the dominant culture. If you’re not black, you have zero experience of this. So in effect, those who use “woke” as a sneer word are advocating that they prefer to remain asleep—that is, ignorant and ethnocentric.

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Tom Ellis
Tom Ellis

Written by Tom Ellis

I am a retired English professor now living in Oregon, and a life-long environmental activist, Buddhist, and holistic philosopher.

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