My Definition Of Woke

 My definition of woke:

Woke first broadly meant, “I woke up to injustice.” It morphed via progressives into a structural analysis of (late?) capitalist society based on hierarchies of power—oppressors on top, oppressed at bottom. 

Oppressors use all of society’s mechanisms to maintain their power, all of which is captured by the apparently concrete idea of “whiteness.” (Such naming shows woke’s preoccupation with abstraction and its reification.)

Woke sees the start of liberating consciousness and truth in the “lived experience” of the oppressed—so marked by their low caste, racial identity, and both deviating gender identity—what you want to be is who you are— and deviating sexual preferences. Superior understanding comes from the weight of oppression.

Woke wants to undo these hierarchies by any means, though it rejects liberal democratic values as but power’s illusive way of perpetuating itself.

One mark of success will be equity’s triumph over equality, when, put in formulae, equality of outcome replaces false equality of opportunity, under which reigns the lie of merit.