A Few Woke White Men

Are white women more open to becoming wokified than white men?

If you’re not sure what ‘Woke’ means in this context, a quick delve into Merriam-Webster should help you out:

Stay woke became a watchword in parts of the black community for those who were self-aware, questioning the dominant paradigm and striving for something better. But stay woke and woke became part of a wider discussion in 2014, immediately following the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The word woke became entwined with the Black Lives Matter movement; instead of just being a word that signaled awareness of injustice or racial tension, it became a word of action. Activists were woke and called on others to stay woke.

That is a question that was posed on Facebook this morning by a black male friend of mine to a white female friend and it got me thinking.

So i posted this status and then logged off Facebook to see if any conversation would happen without me…

Black friend made a comment on another post: Why does it seem to be white woman getting it more than men?

Interesting comment and if i think of white people who largely ‘get it’ the first five that spring to mind are women and then out of the next ten maybe three are guys… so that really does seem to be true in my online lived experience.

Also, the majority of men who have given me the hardest of times in conversations of white privilege and reconciliation and reparation tend to be men and it tends to be quite aggressive maybe because of that.

At the same time, as i am pondering these things, the people i have seen some of the biggest change in are men. Three men come to mind who pretty much did an about turn when it came to things of race. One moment they were wielding the #AllLivesMatters tag or asking why James Bond needs to be black [Can’t they have their own spy?] or defending how much they have worked hard to be in the place they are today and the next moment they were sending me video links and articles and challenging their friends and talking about the issues themselves. Whereas with most of the women who come to mind [and like i said it definitely easily feels like the majority] it feels like they were always there or there about and just got better or learned more or needed to make smaller jumps.

The Pyramid of Privilege

As my friends pointed out in the conversation, white men sit on top of the pyramid, so that might have something to do with it, because there are quite important conversations about men and women that need to be had [and i have been giving those a lot more focus in the last year whereas before i was predominantly focusing on the race and diversity vibes]. And for me as a white, Christian, able-bodied, heterosexual male, i pretty much tick all of the boxes of privilege that are available. My age is slowly going to pull me out of one of them in a couple of years [breathe!] but those things are real and need to be addressed and so perhaps it is that there is more to be defensive about as a male?

i would love to hear some ideas on this and maybe we can chat more about it on a Facebook Live or something. Share some thoughts you have in the comments based on your own experiences? Have you noticed a difference between the number of white men and women who have come to the Woke Party? Do you have any possible explanation for this? Any thoughts on what is needed to see greater awareness take place in men? Come and share your thoughts…

[To read the thoughts and comments from a number of you, click here]