AntiWoke

We’ve become a nation that worships ignorance.

 

WOKE – is defined as being “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)”…or, for those who maintain more than a shred of empathy, accepting and acknowledging the systemic racism sustained and perpetuated by far too many Republican officials.

 

Florida Governor DeSantis’s proposed “Stop Woke” law would prohibit sensitivity training in the workplace or instruction in the public schools concerning any discussion of issues of racism that might make employees or students feel guilty about historic atrocities like slavery and the holocaust. 

 

The governor seems to believe that he can excuse his own blatant racist biases by mandating laws that make rewriting history public policy. He has stated that “white” citizens should be protected from feeling responsible for the sins and barbarities of their ancestors who enslaved millions of Africans, displaced and slaughtered countless Native Americans, and gassed six million Jews in Germany during the Second World War. 

 

In addition to denying accepted and well-documented history, his proposed legislation includes mandates to ignore truth, facts, and science and suggests that anyone who acknowledges the cruelties of our forefathers is somehow usurping the rights of white citizens who continue to embrace those prejudices today. Hate and intimidation are permissible and accepted in his Republican Party, as long as those cruelties are aimed at anyone who isn’t a white male bigot.

 

While the religious right has always been adamantly opposed to racial equality or minority rights and benefits of any kind, they became a political force when Billy Graham delivered the evangelical vote for Nixon more than a half century ago. The 1979 Republican crusade to prevent Jimmy Carter from serving a second term demonized abortion for the first time, creating a potent issue to rally the radical Christian community as cover for their real motive – shielding segregated schools from integration.

 

Their completely contrived campaign evolved over decades to become the unifying identity for the base of the current Republican Party. That perversion spawned the seating of hundreds of unqualified bigots on the federal bench and the induction of six fanatical justices, who have corrupted our current Supreme Court and demonstrated their determination to accommodate the demands of minority zealots to repay the delivery of millions of votes and billions of dollars in contributions to the Republican Party.

 

In addition to state directives skewing reality in public education, school board meetings have devolved into violent confrontations initiated by agitators, who are not parents of students in those schools and don’t even live in the districts, demanding parental oversight of books and curriculum. Public librarians are being intimidated by antagonists, sent by well-funded radical right-wing groups, demanding the banning of books based on race, gender, and homosexuality. 

 

The First Amendment confers the right of free speech, which includes the right to write and publish. Whether we approve of or accept books that we deem to be disturbing or controversial, each provides a basis for discussion, for seeing things from different perspectives, and for allowing readers to think and form opinions for themselves.

 

And that’s the point, isn’t it? We have no need for “thought police” or policies that permit a small and small-minded minority of extremists to determine what information We The People (and our children) are allowed to access without censorship or reprisal. One has to wonder whether those who shout the loudest have ever cracked a book, let alone read the tomes they are trying to ban? 

 

Desperate DeSantis and the maggot governor of Texas and all the other fanatical elected officials are trying to score points with their base by demonizing the very freedoms that inspire critical-thinking, initiate innovation, and guide us to be responsible to each other. Pretending that our history is somehow sacrosanct or that our ancestors were saints who committed no sins and made no mistakes is to invite the repetition of the most vile episodes in our evolution.

 

So, those who wear the mantle of “Woke” do so with pride, with resolve to make our world more inclusive, more open, more honest, and more free for everyone. The theocratic fascism being legislated in red states across the country must be defeated and rescinded by the votes of the vast majority of our citizens who still believe in the principles that define our democracy and the very best of who we are.

 

Only you can end our dalliance with American Fascism. Stand up, speak out, and vote as if our future depends on it, because it does.

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 #Elections #Propaganda #Fascism #Revisionist History