This week we bring you two Part Twos from last week and put to rest, for now at least, the 'argument' we're having about 'Woke Culture'.
Her Take:
If there’s one thing that the white guys in my life will agree on it’s that they could live happily-ever-after for the rest of their lives if I’d never again point out that something they’re saying (or doing, or thinking) is coming from a place of White Male Privilege. And I get it.
It’s uncomfortable to have that laid right there on the table like some big, gross, super-white stinky fish and have to contend with it. I’m sure they feel like I’m trying to start a fight but, just ask my older brother, if I’m trying to start a fight with you, you’ll know.
Yes, I’m sure I sound confrontational, but be gentle with me, I’m pretty new to this whole trying-to-be-socially-concious thing. Also, to be fair, I’m dragging my own privilege into the argument. I was raised in an almost totally homogeneous area of Central Wisconsin at a time before it seemed like we needed to seriously consider other people’s rights because there just didn’t seem to be other people. Sure, we saw them on TV and we knew they existed in some fuzzy way because we’d been on vacation somewhere they lived, but when almost everyone around you looks the same, you don’t spend a lot of time critically thinking about what’s going on with people who don’t.
So, there I was, a cis-gendered, straight, white woman in an outwardly, at least, cis-straight-white part of the universe, bissfully unaware that it should be any different.
Then came the internet.
Okay, okay, the internet had been around for a while but, without it, a watershed moment for me wouldn’t have happened. (Right now I’m spending a lot of time writing this sentence in which I’m about to tell you I’m doubting my own memory either because A )I really am or B) I ‘m stalling because I literally just realized that I can’t trace my memories back to time before this moment I’m going to tell you about that I cared about human rights as much as I should have and I’m feeling pretty convicted at the moment.)
The year was 2015. (Crap, that’s not very long ago.) My favorite podcast released this episode about Ferguson, Missouri and I learned about redlining. Much to my chagrin, as I sit here today, this is the first time I can really remember understanding that there are people in the United States with life experiences so drastically different than my own. It blew the back off my skull.
Now, I won’t explain what I learned that day in detail right now, maybe another time. Or maybe you’d like to play a game I invented called ‘Ruin a Party’. It’s easy, you just have to casually ask me if I’ve ever heard of redlining while we’re at a party together. It will ruin that party. Fun!
(Want to ruin more parties? Try asking me about ‘dead-naming’ or ‘victim-shaming’ too!!)
For today my point is that I suddenly, shockingly, learned when I was too old to be learning it that other people have experiences vastly different from mine and that I don’t get to decide how that affects them. I can’t tell them it’s not a big deal, or that they should get over it, or even the ‘ol chestnut that I’m just kidding and they should learn to take a joke, None of that.
My job, OUR job, is to hear what people are saying and validate them, even if we can’t understand what makes them feel that way or it seems really unfair to have to censor ourselves.
Let me bring this back around to the point (finally?). I don’t want to spend a single minute of the rest of my life trying to make White Guys feel bad about themselves, I don’t have the kind of tenacity it would take to break through that almost impenetrable shell of history that has painted them as the heroes everywhere they go. (Ok, that was a little about making you feel bad, White Guys, I couldn’t help it.) What I DO want, though, is to do whatever I can, whenever I can to see the people we all haven’t seen for a long, long time.
His Take:
So, as I was starting to write the follow up to last week’s blog about Todd Phillips’ saying that it’s hard to make comedy in today’s “woke” culture, I got some back-up to the argument I’ve been trying to get across. That back-up came from former President of the United States, Barak Obama. While speaking at the Obama Summit in Chicago, the former President said:
“This idea of purity, and you’re never compromised, and you’re always politically woke and all that stuff. You should get over that quickly,” he said. “The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws.”
Obama also called out what he perceived as a “danger” among younger people.
“There is this sense sometimes of ‘the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people, and that’s enough,’” he said, then offered an example:
Like if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb. Then, I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself because, ‘Man, you see how woke I was? I called you out.’ I’m gonna get on TV. Watch my show. Watch ‘Grown-ish.’ You know, that’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far.”
A big thanks to Barry for backin’ me up. Again, it’s not my feeling that it’s right to tell jokes that make fun of people due to their race or sex or whatever. I DO feel it’s wrong that someone sits there with there phone on, watching a comedian or anyone else, waiting for them to slip up and say something that is the least bit off color or something that could be taken the wrong way. I also feel a little insulted that there “needs” to be a word for that. Sure, there are people that don’t realize that life can be unfair for people who’s skin is a different color, but to assume that “everyone” is like that, and that only certain people are, so you have to describe them by a certain term is kinda….not cool. Okay, you’re probably tired of me talking so I’m gonna bring this to a close. To go back to what the original basis for this discussion was, I think the only person that wins this argument to Todd Phillips. I’m writing this on 11/2/19 and as of today, his Joker movie has made $878 million dollars and it’s the highest grossing R rated movie of all time. So just let me ask you one thing…..BROTHER. WHATCHA GONNA DO WHEN HAYESAMANIA AND THE LARGEST ARMS IN THE WORLD…RUN WILD ON YOU!!!!!!!
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