Dakota Beacon

“Go woke; go broke” may tickle the ears of many people longing for cultural stability. But woke, as a movement (and it is a movement) foisted by the left upon the majority, effectively normalizes the abnormal.

The drift wokeward substitutes the surreal for the real. Any point of reference described by our language in the past requires replacement in order to change our thinking. It goes beyond just playing with words. If “words are violence” then free speech is dead. American wokeness (what other nation is woke?) has increasingly settled over our nation as a concerted threat to our culture.

Once upon a time political correctness preceded our contemporary word salad. Over time, however, political correctness morphed into what we now call wokeness. Politically correct perversion of language is neither natural nor complicated. American popular culture resisted the unnatural jargon initially, but it stuck with higher education and administrative government where activists essentially control the institutions. Political correctness, and now wokism, not only masks the reality described by clear language, it also contradicts the underlying meaning of words.

Political correctness, and now wokism, demands commitment to a set of opinions. It contorts language in an attempt to reconstruct reality along leftist lines promising to fundamentally transform America and the world. Accordingly, American culture is accommodating FORCED change by the left.

What follows recounts the blueprint of a major facilitator of woke forced change. Equity in the Center (EIC), a nonprofit organization and major recipient of philanthropic money, “…works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems in the social sector to increase racial equity. We envision a future where…organizations advance race equity internally while centering it in their work externally.”

In its own words, “‘Awake to Woke to Work’ is the culmination of EIC research [“research” used loosely] which illustrates in detail how organizations can move…by activating specific organizational levers. ‘Awake to Woke to Work’ provides insights, tactics, and practices [that] social sector organizations can and have used to measurably shift organizational culture, operationalize equity, and move from a dominant organizational culture to a Race Equity Culture.”

An essential read offering depth and clarity by EIC may be Googled at (https://adawaygroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Awake-to-Woke-to-Work.pdf). Intended for use in federal, state, and local governments; academic institutions; and businesses and industry; this agenda specifically lays out the liberal attack on American culture at its best. Check out the link!

As an aside, search the internet for dictionaries and lexicons of woke words. When found, they amply define “equity” but hardly mention “equality” at all. Equality means providing the same freedom of opportunity for everyone. Everyone starts at the same point but no one can be guaranteed the same outcome. Equity, on the other hand, means guaranteeing the same outcome to everyone especially those labeled “minorities.” Redistribution of wealth from the haves to the have-nots is the start point and continues toward a guarantee outcome. On his first day in office, January 20, 2021 President Biden codified “equity” in Executive Order 13985. He reinforced his intent on February 16, 2023 with Executive Order 14091.

Previously we express our observations in plain language. Today, the left uses the same observations to indoctrinate using wokespeak. In the December 29, 2020 issue of National Review, Victor Davis Hanson (VDH) wrote an interesting piece on the left’s new terminology. “What was yesterday’s orthodoxy is today’s heterodoxy and tomorrow’s heresy.” What follows are a few examples of word meanings generated in the late 20^th century or early 21^st century.

           -- Systemic racism. The term was seldom, if ever, used before the 1990s. VDH: “…[systemic racism] belongs to this newer family of intensifying…epithets…that otherwise is hard to see, hear, or experience. When one cannot point to actual evidence of ‘racism,’ one can simply say that it is nowhere precisely because it is everywhere...like the air we breathe…but often can’t see or feel.”

           -- Hate speech. Another term unknown before the 1990s. VDH: “Most of the incendiary ‘free speech’ protected under the First Amendment is in actuality ‘hate speech,’ and therefore deserves no such protection. If America were a properly woke society, then there would be no need for the First Amendment.”

           -- LGBTQ. In use only since the 1990s. VDH: “This is currently the most widely used woke sobriquet for the homosexual and transgendered communities…although almost no one can agree on what the letter Q actually stands for.”

Hanson’s National Review article (the last he wrote for National Review subsequent to President Trump’s election) may be found on the internet at (https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/a-guide-to-wokespeak).

Question: Given the rearrangement of the American language into the word salad of wokespeak, is there any culture we can use as a template that successfully navigated such silliness?

I thought not.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).