What’s so bad about being woke? | Opinion

“Wake up, Albright!” That was my baseball coach, shouting at me and interrupting my teenage daydreams of becoming the next Mickey Mantle, as a line drive whistled past my ear at first base.

I suddenly started to pay more attention to the game.

My dad also counseled wokeness. “Get up, son. Time for the 2 a.m. trot line run!” You see, my dad believed those catfish, his preferred quarry on that lake line, wouldn’t wait a few hours for me to open my eyes. “And don’t forget the blood bait,” he’d remind me as I stumbled out the door, silently cursing all catfish.

Then there was my Army drill sergeant. “Wakey wakey, young gentlemen,” he’d say softly, turning on the barracks lights as he tiptoed in. “It’s time to resume our daily cultural and arts training!”

Hmm.

Maybe those weren’t his exact words or tone, come to think of it.

But you can believe me when I say he left no doubt that he wanted us wide awake, and pronto.

Of course, I jest. Being awake and being woke have come to mean widely different things now. And it seems as if a big segment of our population, particularly those currently at the highest levels of government, frown on what they call wokeness.

But are the terms really so different? If we are truly awake — or woke — our eyes and ears are open to all that we can perceive. And that’s a good thing. We base our actions on those perceptions.

In the years before the Civil War, a group of young men perceived an evil stalking the land. They probably would have been thought of as a “woke” group then, if the term had existed in its current context. In fact, they called themselves the Wide Awakes, and they marched and demonstrated in support of the election of the Republican candidate for president, Abraham Lincoln, and the preservation of our union.

They believed voters should be awake to the dangers presented by the deep divisions in our country. They believed that slavery was evil and wrong, and that our union was worth preserving.

As we know, Mr. Lincoln was elected, and our union was saved, though at a terrible cost on both sides. Thousands of those idealistic young Wide Awakes gave their lives in the effort, as did Mr. Lincoln, though not before he asked us to summon our better angels in support of a noble and just cause.

We did that then, and we did that later, too, in world wars where there were compelling reasons to risk American lives in pursuit of a greater good. My dad was among those latter-day Wide Awakes, serving during World War II in Europe.

During the turbulent 1960s, many of us were woke enough to advocate for civil rights. It just seemed like the right thing to do — and that remains a work in progress.

But now, it seems the term “woke” has fallen into disrepute. Some connect it with political correctness. Others see it as a pretentious doctrine associated with liberal intellectuals.

Yes, “politically correct” dictums can often be absurd. And some liberals come across as thinking they’re intellectually elite. (So do some conservatives, for that matter.)

I’d like to reclaim the woke title for the great majority of us who are awake to the dangers facing this country both from the far left and the far right. Those who would lay waste to our Constitution, our judicial system, our schools and our health networks — often in the name of extinguishing wokeness — know exactly what they’re doing.

So I would like to tell them this now: We know what you’re doing, too.

We’re wide awake, and your actions will have consequences.

Terry Albright is a retired journalist who worked on The Star’s metropolitan and universal desks.