Woke

I used to watch The Drum regularly.  Most nights I would watch it, but I had not for a number of months.
Recently I watched it again, and they were discussing a topic it seems many of us talk about these days.  The power of Social Media.  Specially, they were discussing something I had never heard of before and that is the “Woke” movement.  Apparently, there is someone from the US visiting and they discuss it in their talk.  They seem to come from an angle that it is good but it has problems.  The term woke is often used by African Americans and they think that is where it originated.  We use the term in sentences like “they were asleep and then woke up.”  That sentence really encapsulates the meaning of the word.  To be “woke” is to be aware and have formed your own conclusions on a matter based on the evidence presented.  It is not just believing something because my daddy believed it, as did my grand-daddy.
I though some really good thoughts were presented.  The lady giving the talks in Oz’s problem was that Woke people are not affording the same luxury of asking legitimate questions as they were afforded.  In other words, someone may ask a legitimate question because they just don’t know, and get ridiculed.
Someone else made the point “we need to relearn tolerance.”  The consensus seems to be I can express any view as long as it is the prevailing or accepted one.  The presenter shut down their Twitter account because they expressed a view that was seen as unacceptable and was so slammed for it, they determined having the account was not worth it.
Sure it can be hard to discern who is legitimate and who wants to be nothing more than a trouble maker.  Generally, just engaging them is enough, as what is inside will come out.  Folk like that need to be excluded.  remaining civil can be hard enough without trouble makers stirring the pot.
Someone who was from the left made the comment that “the left needs to learn how to have fun.”  I saw a lady on the same day express something that may have been right, but her face tod me she was obsessed with injustice to the exclusion of anything else.
Personally I feel I could focus on injustice for a life time to the exclusion of all else.  Certainly, where I can see it, and feel to do something about it, I will, but I need to maintain a balance for my own sanity.
Another term I heard for the first time but is apparently being bandied about is “virtue signalling.”    It is basically saying look at me I’m virtuous because I come from a good moral position.  They are virtuous because they parrot the status que. 
A lot of the problems we see are real and entrenched and need to be dealt with.  I do wonder though, if we would have been experiencing the same problems if we had stuck to love your neighbour as yourself.  I know I do not like being shot down, and I don’t think that others like it either.  Mostly that is enough to stop me doing it.