It’s no secret that the conservative movement’s attack on “wokeness,” their appropriated misnomer for virtually any awareness of social inequality, is contrived.
Anyone surprised that the Republican Party would try to repurpose Black slang meant to denote intellect and cultural consciousness into something nefarious clearly hasn’t spent much time watching the GOP in action.
Personally, I’ve found comedy in the fact that white conservatives embraced the term years after it seemed to have reached its zenith in the Black lexicon. As many Black people can tell you, “woke” was dying as a relevant cultural term long before white conservatives came along. And even now, Republicans use the term to describe such a broad range of subjects that it’s essentially useless as anything but a dog whistle telling conservatives not to like something.
I thought Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., described this tactic beautifully Wednesday when he referred to it as a “smoke screen” used by Republicans when they want to slash funding.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) goes off on the GOP congressional budget:
“Call everything woke and then try to cut its funding seems to be the strategy. Housing: woke, chop it in half. Public schools and job training: woke, slash it … The 'woke screen' is a smoke screen.” pic.twitter.com/1HZComSXfp








