Don’t Use the W-Word
29th January 2023
What does it mean to be “woke”? If you ask talk show host Joe Walsh, a former Republican politician who’s migrated leftward and now regularly denounces the GOP, being woke “just means being empathetic. And tolerant. And willing to listen. And open to learning.” On the other hand, if you ask writer Wesley Yang—a public intellectual whose politics are decidedly “anti-woke”—the word means “active discrimination to obtain equal outcomes across identity groups, dismantling law enforcement while policing speech and thought, and sterilizing gay, autistic, and gender-nonconforming children.”