But if you scroll through social media, you’ll note these words are used so often—and to refer to such a wide variety of situations—they often cease to mean much of anything. But if that’s what wokeness means to its most feverish detractors, it’s often used by less militant types simply to describe things they don’t like. The most accurate predictor of your opportunities isn’t your intelligence or work ethic but where you’re born. It seems like what Galloway actually means to say is that fresh workers should roll with the punches rather than crater in the face of discouragement. That’s fair enough, but casting real efforts to create a better, more equitable work environment—through, say, unionizing—as bandwagoning wokeness only sets back the effort to enact meaningful institutional change.

Source: The Nation June 15, 2021 19:52 UTC