Wokeness slipping toward caricature, November 16, 2021

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Remember when "political correctness" was a serious term?

Not all of us do. We’re going back 35 years, and it only lasted around 15 minutes.

Political correctness wasn’t just about softening language to protect people's feelings, as it was later branded; it was a descriptive term used by 1980s liberal activists for opinions they considered axiomatic.

Once the "PC" label was stamped on an idea or statement, debate on the topic was supposed to stop. A historical verdict had been rendered from on high.

The "Moral Majority is neither," someone might quip. "That’s politically correct."

End of discussion. That was the idea anyway.

In time, of course, PC became a catchall for everything left wing and snow-flakey in the eyes of the greater public. Then it became a punchline. Those who insisted on using the term into the 1990s, straight-faced, could have profited as carnival dunkees, so broadly were they ridiculed by that time. Step right up. Three throws for a dollar.

Wokeness today is approximately where political correctness was in the late ‘80s. It’s slipping irrevocably into caricature land, and it’s worth exploring why.

As superficially presented, wokeness was hardly frightening. It asked individuals — say, me — to acknowledge what I’ve always known: 1. I was born with greater privileges than many (all Americans are); 2. I have a moral obligation to help the less fortunate; 3. I should always try to put myself in other people’s shoes; and 4. I should not discriminate in ways large or small.

Sounded a lot like Christianity, Judaism and Islam. If wokeness had ended there, it would have been fine by me. But it didn’t.

Where the great religions focus on personal redemption, wokeness wandered into hard ideological collectivism centered around critical race theory. Becoming woke meant more than gaining awareness of other people's circumstances; it meant accepting a racially predatory narrative of American history, past and present. It also represented one’s willingness to support radical government solutions to right the alleged systemic wrong.

That’s a whole different thing.

Wokeness’s definition evolved yet again. Progressives championing other causes adapted the nomenclature, and, as with political correctness, it became a blurry catchall for everything espoused by the wider left. Irresistible fodder for lampoonists, and where things stand today.

While it’s reassuring to see a divisive philosophy rejected by much of the public, to the point where it’s becoming the butt of jokes, there are salvageable points from the ethos behind the movement. There’s plenty of room in this country for greater empathy among residents of various backgrounds, for instance.

I recall trying to hail a cab in 1990 near City Hall in Manhattan while accompanied by two Black colleagues. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why no taxi would stop for us. My associates laughed. It was an everyday occurrence for them, but a stark insight for me.

I wish I had had the courage to ask my traveling companions that day to consider what the passing cabdrivers were thinking, as empathy needs to go all ways to truly get to the bottom of things. Were the drivers racist or afraid of young African American men in a crime-ridden city? Is that the same thing? Let’s discuss.

But that’s where the left gets silly. Those aren’t conversations to be had. They wouldn’t be woke. They wouldn’t be PC. And so we go in circles.

Opinions expressed by William F. B. O’Reilly, a consultant to Republicans, are his own.