And how do we teach our children?
Why would anyone choose ignorance over knowledge?
Why do people choose to be offended at the slightest things rather than saving their outrage for the outrageous?
We are in the land of no in-between, no compromise. How are we supposed to teach our children?
The term “woke” was used as a symbol of pride on the left for being hyper-aware and as a criticism of others who weren’t as vigilant about what they said or did.
And then the term was co-opted by the right not only as a derogatory term but a political rallying cry.
In an up-to-date online dictionary, Merriam-Webster.com, “woke” is defined as “aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).”
Among the citations used was “a moral obligation to ‘stay woke,’ take a stand and be active; challenging injustices and racism in our communities and fighting hatred and discrimination where it rises.”
The second definition (disapproving) is “politically liberal (as in matters of racial and social justice) especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme.”
So, where’s the balance?
Across the nation — and as seen right here at home — there have been intensifying debates over race and racism, gender inequities and LGBTQIA+ rights.
This isn’t new.
Gay rights has been a public topic for debate since the late 1960s, for gender inequities back to the suffragette movement early in the last century and for race and racism, the entire history of the nation.
Everything, however, has seemed to congeal over the past year into the woke ethos versus the anti-woke movement.
Woke: Those who demand a full acknowledgement and teaching of the history of racism, sexism and homophobia, among others, in the ongoing fights against these societal ills, in tandem with a hypersensitivity of real and perceived current transgressions (bias, cultural appropriation, etc.) for greater social justice.
Anti-woke: Those who believe that push has gone too far by trying to force too much change in societal norms (gay rights), by unfairly demanding redress of grievances for past generations’ wrongs (racism), and by making all inter-gender interactions fraught (dating, workplace, etc.).
The historical nature of the issues isn’t up for debate.
Sexism and gender inequality were built into the Constitution, were acknowledged by giving women the right to vote in 1920, but it’s still not fixed given the continuing gender pay gap.
The Stonewall uprising in 1969 put a public face on gay rights and after some 45 years of fighting, the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015 legalized the right to gay marriage. Earlier this year, after the decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, one justice on a now supremely conservative high court has said that right should be revisited, putting that progress in question.
As for race? Slavery. Civil War. Emancipation. Jim Crow segregation laws in the South, de facto segregation in the North. The military wasn’t desegregated until an order from President Harry Truman and now it is possibly the most integrated institution in the nation.
Institutionalized racism continued in other areas including housing, lending and employment. Even when “fixed,” they have long-lasting effects. Disparate incarceration rates, including treatment and enforcement by police in some well-publicized cases, have led to nationwide protests over racial bias.
Racism, sexism and homophobia have existed in the past and exist today.
For adults, it is better to be awake and truthful about the sins of the past and their legacies today, rather than to be asleep, to feign ignorance or, worse, try to rewrite the controversial parts of our history. But where is the line for children?
What is hotly debated now is how much we are willing to acknowledge these perplexing issues and how we should teach our children about them. One camp seems to demand action from the cradle, the other to whitewash everything.
How do we impress upon our school children that they should be proud of this nation with its singular history, while acknowledging what the nation had to overcome and is still working at?
Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, for example, were giants in our nation’s history. School children should learn about them early because of their prominence and importance. When should they learn they were slave-owners? How should that be put into context? Examples like this abound throughout this nation’s history.
When do you temper the fact that after telling girls they can be whatever they want to be, that they will face more hurdles than boys and may not be rewarded the same?
How do you make every child feel welcome and equal in school while trying to hide or refusing to acknowledge their and/or their parents’ full identities?
How do we teach our children to be sensitive but not overly sensitive, to understand the differences between intentional and unintentional slights, to know when to be upset or angry and when to use the opportunity to educate?
In truth, adults may need this lesson first, otherwise they won’t be able to find common cause to raise children who are proud of their country and aware of its flaws so they make our union more perfect.
David Nahan is editor and publisher of the Ocean City Sentinel, Cape May Star and Wave, Upper Township Sentinel and The Sentinel of Somers Point, Linwood and Northfield.