About wokeness

Portside -  “Wokeness” is what folks on the political right love to declare themselves as being against these days. But, what is it, really, that they oppose? The term “woke” was derived from African American Vernacular English meaning alertness to racial prejudice. For those who have used the term positively, something I am not sure anyone actually does anymore, its meaning evolved to encompass awareness of other social inequities and forms of oppression such as sexism, misogyny, white privilege, the oppression of any minority person or community, and human and environmental predations of exploitive corporations. This is sometimes called “intersectionality,” another term that is often denigrated.