Welcome once again to Fandango’s Provocative Question. Each week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration.
By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.
What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.
Today’s provocative question is about the word “woke.” A conservative writer was recently asked during a televised interview about her new book to define the term “woke.” The interviewee had a brain freeze and was unable to explain the meaning of the word. So I thought I’d toss it out to you, my provocative question readers.
What does the word “woke” mean to you? Is being “woke” a good thing or a bad thing? Do you consider yourself to be “woke”? Why or why not?
If you choose to participate in Fandango’s Provocative Question, you may respond with a comment or write your own post in response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments. But remember to check to confirm that your pingback or your link shows up in the comments.
This, That, and the Other 
I’d also like to know what is the prevalent/ modern meaning assigned to this word.
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Depends upon which side of the political spectrum you live in.
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Yes, that’s the most confusing thing. 😅
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You woke me to ask that? 😁
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This morning I woke up from a good night’s sleep.
I was quite happy about that.
I think I’ll do it again tomorrow. 😁
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To me, it means that you think you know what is best for everyone, and what you think, everyone should also think, do, and say.
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So to you, being “woke” is negative…a bad thing?
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As is so often the case, a word or concept can fit fleetingly in a general society in a positive sense. A catchy saying you’ve shared that seems pretty true is that things become rackets even if they were good. Nevertheless, I said in one of your comments sections (I think the most recent one on Christian nationalism) “Wake up, sleeper.” This is quoting from a prophet in the Tanakh. So there is always meaning in that, for me. In terms of progressives, however, most don’t go with the terminology in question any more. I tend not to use it to indicate political progressiveness (and I am progressive). There was an intersecting “moment” in history when true political progressivism was peeking into our daily consciousness and I was getting a clue about actual waking in the Bible. (I don’t use “progressive” interchangeably for Democrat.) But, I’m not devoted to rejecting a genuine application of woke either. The negative aspect of woke so-called is picking a “side” that seems to be the accepted one, but without thinking it through or understanding or “getting” what is really going on… often (intentionally or unintentionally) neglecting important considerations — now actively deflecting from important considerations.
https://fivedotoh.com/2022/11/16/one-liner-wednesday-paved-with-good-intentions/#comments
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Yeah, I should add that Republicans use the word for deflection as well (and gaslighting and pickpocketing and more). The solution isn’t just to say I ain’t woke.
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Fred Block: The Tenacity of the Free Market Ideology
Fred Block discusses his book “The Power of Market Fundamentalism,” which extends the work of the great political economist Karl Polanyi to explain why free market dogma [pretending we have such] recovered from disrepute after the Great Depression and World War II to become the dominant economic ideology of our time.
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I may start using “left” as more descriptive of myself or my hopes or leanings than progressive is. Progressive isn’t bad or to be avoided, though. (But then what word can be recommended to be used as describing the method of taxation [which I totally prefer] for which the word has been used?
https://simplypsychology.org/carl-jung.html
… in Jung’s book “The Undiscovered Self” he argued that many of the problems of modern life are caused by “man’s progressive alienation from his instinctual foundation.” One aspect of this is his views on the significance of the anima and the animus.
Jung argues that these archetypes are products of the collective experience of men and women living together.
However, in modern Western civilization men are discouraged from living their feminine side and women from expressing masculine tendencies. For Jung, the result was … full psychological development [undermined for] both sexes.
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At my age, woke means getting up in the morning.
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Ha!
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Here is my submission.
https://theinkwelljourney.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-nuances-of-being-woke.html
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Yes, I believe it is. But then, I’m an “ignorant” Southerner, so what can I say? We’re all uneducated and uninformed.
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I believe being “woke” simply means having a heightened level of awareness and sensitivity to social and political issues. I don’t think that there is anything inherently evil in that. But I also don’t understand how people can claim to be “anti-woke.” Or, as you are, be defensive about the word. Why do you think that being aware of and attentive to important social issues is a negative thing? Is it just the word “woke” and how it’s been politicized that you find divisive?
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Yes, I think the word “woke” is divisive.
In my opinion, overly woke people tend to blame “white men” for every bad thing that’s ever been done in the history of man. Woke thinks our children should be introduced to sexual topics they don’t have the maturity to process. Woke judges our historical figures by today’s standards instead of recognizing they were a product of their time, just as we are (In twenty years, people will be appalled by some of the norms of our time). Woke wants to push green energy too quickly, which will cause millions of the poor who can’t afford it to starve; but since most of these poor are in third-world countries, who cares? Woke believes women never lie about being sexually assaulted. Woke thinks there are god-knows-how-many different genders, that men can get pregnant and have periods. Woke shouts down people who have a different viewpoint, because their voice is the only voice that should be heard. Woke is too coddled, and God forbid, should civilization collapse, would be the first to die because they would wait for someone to come take care of them instead of getting their shit together and taking care of themselves. I could go on and on, but will stop here.
And I wish to add, many people who say they are woke, really aren’t, but are afraid to admit they have reservations about what is being pushed for fear of being canceled.
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Woke believes women never lie about being sexually assaulted.
Until it’s inconvenient (or in the way) to believe that.
We could contemplate whether that’s really “woke.”
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Ana Kasparian: ‘Don’t Ever Refer to Me
as a Birthing Person’. Transphobic?!
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Woke thinks there are god-knows-how-many different genders, that men can get pregnant and have periods.
“It Should Be Illegal to Be as Wealthy as You.” | Heated Tax Debate
His use of the word “illegal” was hyperbole; amends the statement.
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This is a messed up post by me. I meant to put the video down at the bottom of the comments as separated from the gender/sex topic. Obviously, I needed to remove the first line (above the video).
Another note for anyone who hasn’t been reading along: it hadn’t been posted through yet (had gotten hung up in moderation or trash) at the time JAI asked my point; nor when I answered (9:27).
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Would Sam Send Himself to Jail?
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Jon Stewart forces economist to admit capitalism screw us all
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The Dark Reason The Rich Hate Democracy
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Boy… we used to have more patience, ability to concentrate, or attention span than now. I’m including this because I think the above (Thom Hartmann) brief history missed a major facet of reality.
The Two Income Trap and the
Collapse of Middle Class America
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… Jon Stewart & Deputy Secretary
of Defense Kathleen H. Hicks (full)
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Jon Stewart Reminds
Everyone 😏
that He’s a Legend
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PQs181&208: How are you doing? Seriously, are you okay? Feeling good? Just okay? Not so great? Why do you think you’re feeling the way you are?
Minute 12:25 ‘mental distress’ and
Why. At the end I like how he says an
attitude of simply ‘you’re faking’ doesn’t
help. Which is NOT to say it’s always TRUE.
Additionally, I want to say that the hypotheses
of does autism lead to gender issues or the other
way around – don’t either need to be genetically so.
Psychiatrist on ‘mentalizing’: Autism and Gender
Dysphoria/variance/identity disorder Highly Linked
{Not all psychiatrist are so interested in conversation.}
{I’m going ahead with this, here, because there are people
I like and agree with a lot who are out of their depth on this.}
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And your point is?
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This is a complex topic that we haven’t before untangled. Both, the woman who said, the quoted, ‘I’m a woman’ and the woman criticizing her are people I like — both progressive or woke. (Neither is stuck in neoliberalism or neoconservatism, which I see as basically the same thing with different window dressing.) Kasparian has repeatedly defended trans concerns. (She has, at times, been wrong in her factual intake. Not intentionally wrong in what she has said. Wrong in a way that I’d guess you and I would agree on, that she was incorrect.) I’m sure she has no intent to be transphobic (and I’d say the answer to the question in caption is no… based not only on sentiment). Some subject matter requires details we never would’ve imagined; goes for someone pro-gender-affirming and someone not.
I could go on, but it would get boring to hear it from me.
Woke thinks there are god-knows-how-many different genders, that men can get pregnant and have periods.
There are two basic sex sets biologically speaking, but a number of complex permutations and resulting ascertainments of gender. To give you an example, it is a historical fact that there was a “woman” (the person is still living last I checked) who has given birth more than once (but who additionally had miscarriages and adopted at least one child) who was born intersex and was put on feminizing hormones as a child. As she got older, after being a mom for quite a while, she realized that continuing to take the female hormones was going to be disastrous to her overall health. She had to sort of feel her way through this situation (or seek names via word-of-mouth) as the doctors (most of them) are ignorant or stubborn (besides found in a few different specializing fields). She — I mean he — now has some kind of vaginal estrogen, but has otherwise masculinized subsequent to not systemically supplementing with the hormones she never chose as a child. He had to discover his own self perception. Some people would decide to go with ”they” rather than “he” after all that (or even to be the bearded lady). As stunning as it might be to us to learn of such a situation, he has every moral right to pick the pronouns desired. When this person was a baby, the parents could have gone in at least two other directions, one of which would have been to put the child on masculine hormones. There are now parents who decide to do neither and face the fact of intersex existence. And let me hasten to add that being intersex doesn’t necessarily need to have anything to do with being trans.
That doesn’t describe everything going on in the area of
trans topics. There is a whole lot more that can be
said — but that’s probably enough for now.
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I agree that this is a complex topic, which is not surprising since human beings are complex animals. Hopefully, in time, it will get sorted out to most people’s satisfaction. But for now, there’s a great divide, and great hostility between people with differing viewpoints, especially between those who believe in providing gender affirmative care (specifically puberty blockers and surgery) to children, and those who wish to wait until the child is an adult so they can make a mature, informed decision that will affect the rest of their life.
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Ana Kasparian has said no surgery was being done on kids (and she thought that was true). She made a correcting statement — not in the video above but at an earlier date — that she meant no “bottom surgery” had been done on kids (and she thought that was true and I’m not sure if she’s figured out, yet, there has been I think one case of bottom surgery [which involved more than one surgery because it was intolerably done the first time*] in the United States on one seventeen-year-old). * I think the whole thing is nearly insane. No one has said this individual was intersex, incidentally.
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Marleen, as I’m sure you know, puberty blockers can cause sterilization, as well as life-long health problems. I don’t think these should be given to minors, nor top or bottom surgery performed on them. In my opinion, it’s akin to child abuse. Let them grow up and mature before they choose to implement irreversible changes.
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I’m pretty sure the definition of trans is about feeling or identifying differently from what was assigned on the certificate at birth. I’ve been wondering if we’re still trying to hide intersexual biology — actually occurring in nature — as has been going on for like a century (and more but I mean in the medical world). Most of the time, there was no discussion of transitioning, because what had been done at birth (besides an assignment as checking one box out of two on paper) to make the baby look more of one sex (surgery) wasn’t shared for self-awareness. It wasn’t unheard-of for the surgery on one person to continue through childhood and not be a “resolution” at birth even if they had tried, but it was all hush-hush. There is nothing standard about it. People don’t understand that it’s still experimental. [And now the industry has been expanded to people who weren’t intersex at birth… and therefore, definitionally, are not intersex.]
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You really are jaded, aren’t you? Your statements about what woke people believe is based upon worst kind of generalities. But hey, if that’s the kind of crazy crap you choose to believe, whatever floats your boat. By the way, I particularly liked your assertion that “Woke thinks…that men can get pregnant and have periods.” I hope you were being facetious with that assertion.
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I was not being facetious. I suppose you’ve heard of “birthing persons”, which are what women who have transitioned to men and subsequently get pregnant are now called. And that what was in the near past was called “feminine hygiene products” are now referred to as “menstrual products” or “period products”.
Fandango, I would never accuse you of believing “crazy crap” or call you jaded, a sheeple, an idiot, or anything else people call one another when they disagree. I just stated my beliefs, as you did yours. I did not attack you personally, which I think you just did me.
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“birthing persons”, which are what women who have transitioned to men and subsequently get pregnant are now called. And that what was in the near past was called “feminine hygiene products” are now referred to as “menstrual products” or “period products”.
As a woman, I find nothing wrong with any of those terms. Times, life and language change. These terms are now being used for trans men and non binary people. It’s called inclusivity. Just like gay used to mean happy, now it means people who are attracted to the same gender. It’s not really that hard.
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As a woman, I do not like the fact that men who have transitioned to a knockoff of a woman insist that they are “real” women and should be treated as such in all things—such as competing as a woman in sports. I don’t mind referring to a “Bruce” as a “Caitlyn”, nor calling him a her if that is their wish. But I will never bow to the mob who seem to think a person can identify as whatever they wish to be on a particular day—man, woman, cat—and we should all go along with it. I believe there are true cases of people’s minds and bodies not aligning, but it’s now reached epidemic proportions, something like a fashion trend.
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And if it is nothing more than a fashion trend, like all fashion trends, it will pass. In the meantime, relax. You do you, let others do them.
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I will do that. Thank you for your sage advice. I will comment no more.
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You sound completely delusional.
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Well said.
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Yes, I called you jaded, but not “a sheeple, an idiot, or anything else people call one another when they disagree.” I describe myself as jaded when it comes to American politics and the bleak future of democracy in this country. As to “birthing persons,” no, I’ve never heard that phrase as what you’ve described. Only in the context of women as vessels to carry and give birth to babies in the context of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
With respect to the “crazy crap” you believe, that was in response to your writing, “Woke thinks…that men can get pregnant and have periods.” Your reference to woman who have transitioned to men “and subsequently get pregnant,” must be extremely rare and exceptional. So in my opinion, for you (or anyone) to broadly state that woke thinks men can get pregnant and have periods is ludicrous. You’re taking what I think must be an extremely rare occurrence and making a broad generalization about what woke people believe. And if you truly believe that “woke” means believing that men can get pregnant and have period, and you weren’t being facetious, then yes, that falls under the category of “crazy crap.”
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Well, we’ii just leave it as that. But please, research what I stated.
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I will, but I ask you to consider how many of your statements are gross generalities, as if I were to say that Christians are white supremacists, are Holocaust deniers, are Christian nationalist, are antisemitic, are God-fearing, gun-loving, Bible-thumpers, etc. Some are, but most are not. Your characterization of what woke is is about as extreme.
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I’ve found that woke is a term that both sides of aisle agree on. Many leftists happily identify as woke. Some use it as a by word, some use it to boast. Wokeness argues to have a better understanding of history, but it is actually revisionist. It claims to want equality, but creates division, and it denies that there can be any true reality.
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How is “wokeness” revisionist and how does being aware of and sensitive to attentive important societal facts and issues deny a true reality? Isn’t whitewashing history by banning the teaching of CRT, by denying racism, by removing mentions of LGBT the real revisionism, the real denial of reality?
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Wokeness is revisionist because it’s goal is to rewrite history and find oppression in every corner of United States history. But riddle me this, what country could or culture is there in history where a victim group could go to the powers that be and demand an apology? And why is that?
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You are mistaken (or some semblance of that). The idea is to see history and the present and improve in general or even set something right for somebody. Wokeness didn’t begin in America. Nevertheless… on the topic of the United States, there has been oppression in pretty much every corner. Continually breaking treaties with the original caretakers or beneficiaries isn’t really salved by apologies. And oppressors tend not to catch on (morally or intellectually) when the oppressees are merciful to them, nor when there’s simply nothing the oppressee(s) can do about a matter. Likewise when we add an anti-wokeness brigade wanting the Confederate fight not to be seen as having been about slavery and wanting to continue celebrating the rebellion, parading around emblems of bitterness for not appreciating their nifty ways of exploiting or having exploited others and the expression of apparent non-oppression through rape and selling and so forth. The Reconstruction was interrupted and overridden, but there still aren’t enough concessions or denials or deferences to please the kind who wanted to begin from the head start. We were being told to shut up back in the sixties, when civil rights had not properly commenced and then had barely gotten going. But why have there been any oppressed persons or groups seeking redress and telling about it? Because enough people wake up to make a difference. Let us also notice the continued wish to take advantage of thise vulnerable, while we can put rules of the road forward to stop abuses as best we can write up and adjudicate or communicate. Now, I’m not saying I’m very hopeful about this, as we tend to worship the wealthy. But I’m not going to stop saying that, no, as for me, I don’t want to be complicit in rolling over for larger and larger winners taking all.
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Once again here we have division and setting up of people categorically as oppressors or oppressed. My argument is that it is not because of people “waking up” that we can talk about it and address these things, but that it is because of Christian western values, before those came into play the world as a whole had a much different way of addressing those who voiced their grievances.
So wokeness says this country was “founded on oppressive systems”, but in reality wokeness only has a voice because of the values that this country is founded on. Yes it’s flawed, but when airing grievances from 100, 200, or 400 years ago we do ourselves a disservice. We should be open about these things and confess them, but we always have and I know this because I grew up hearing about them. But the problem with the way that wokeness goes about it doesn’t solve anything because the victim group will always remain the victim and there can never be any amount of money, words, or any other form of reparations to earn forgiveness from people whose very crime was being born white. Keeping score is a very foolish way to live our lives and to run a country. We’re all here now, all living in this country and that’s not going to change. But we can figure out how not to continue destroying the country. Wokeness doesn’t offer that because Ibram X Kendi and Robin DiAngelo need to sell books.
Here’s an exercise you should try, read the authors I just mentioned above, replace the word white with black and vice versa. Ask yourself does this sound racist?
It’ll only take a paragraph or two. I’m not saying that they’re factually false, although much of their work is, I am saying it’s a very flawed view that is based on racism.
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Waking up doesn’t depend upon Kendi and DiAngelo, whatever they say. You logically lead to the unhappy conclusion that this country was not indeed founded as Christian, or the positive thing we want to think “Christian” is.
If:
My argument is that it is not because of people “waking up” that we can talk about it and address these things, but that it is because of Christian western values, before those came into play the world as a whole had a much different way of addressing those who voiced their grievances.
As I said, wokeness didn’t begin in America. It began long before anyone from Europe arrived here. Many people with better ideals arrived after the United States was founded as well. Try reading my later lines — and all of what I wrote — as not Black and white, or versus. It’ll do you good.
I hope.
I do truly see rapees as categorically the oppressed in counter-distinction from the raper. I do see murdered as victims. I do weep for families being torn apart and for offspring being created to yield material wealth for a master. Knowing this has and does go on can influence how we desire to govern.
Further, as I indicated, I will continue to judge those who want to kart the Confederate flag around (unless they are the unwitting children, for example, of such people). And those who insist on bowing to the rich.
I’m glad you think [w]e should be open about these things and confess them… [plus that] we can figure out how not to continue destroying the country.
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You wrote, “airing grievances from 100, 200, or 400 years ago we do ourselves a disservice. We should be open about these things and confess them, but we always have and I know this because I grew up hearing about them.” But ignoring or whitewashing grievances from 100, 200, or 400 years ago we also do ourselves a disservice. And you know about these things because they were covered in history books to an extent. But today’s “anti-woke” movement, personified by Florida’s governor, wants to remove references to such historical events because it causes discomfort. So books that refer to slavery, to the atrocities against native Americans, to LGBT, to the Holocaust, etc. or banning books with those topics, means those matters will no longer be taught or even discussed in schools. Thus tomorrow’s children will no longer grow up hearing about them, being aware of them, or confessing them. They will mo longer be discussed openly and teachers will be fired for even hinting at them. Is that really what you want?
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Or the goal of those who think wokeness is bad is to rewrite history and eliminate any references to oppression in the United States history. This coin has two sides.
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Anybody, whether they like the word “woke” or not or maybe like it fine but don’t see it as helpful — or whether they all out reject the word— can (intentionally or unintentionally) neglect important considerations and can actively deflect from what is important.
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I may have got a little worked up about this topic.
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I woke up this morning. I think that we need to stop using this word in other contexts.
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I just find it funny that the right think it’s an insult to call someone woke, lol. I would call myself woke, but I’m not extreme woke. Like all humans there will always be the extremists. If you get offended by woke, it’s probably an you issue. I hope you weren’t too overwhelmed by the comments, lol. It reminded me of twitter, lol
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I actually find it interesting to read the opinions of people who think differently than me.
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“It’s a Feeling”: Fox Host …
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Briahna Joy Gray: Why I Asked Bethany … to DEFINE …
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I think this word is thrown around too much these days!
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