Photo credit: Benson Kua
My LGBTQ POV is proudly sponsored by Dr. Stephanie Murphy, DDS. Dr. Murphy's practice philosophy is to treat her patients the way she would want members of her family to be treated. She looks forward to taking care of you and your smile. Read past columns here.
Nowadays, if you’re LGBTQ and paying attention, you probably consider yourself woke. Being woke is that state of conscious awareness of social issues, especially of injustice and racism. The roots of woke may be found in the Black vernacular as an expression of vigilance and is said to be taken from a 2008 song lyric by soul singer Erykah Badu. Like many things cultural, it has been recently appropriated and integrated into the broader activist lexicon. Especially since the murder of George Floyd on May 25, woke-ness has become the impetus for the mass street protesters and de rigueur for anyone else who wishes to join the fray.
It’s a pity that many in our community have only recently awoken from their complacency. But, be that as it may, better late than never, I suppose. The problem is the exuberant energy that comes with suddenly being woke can be misdirected. One case in point involved a friend who, early in June, had shared an “All Lives Matter” meme. He wanted to point out the continued tone-deafness of some to the real message of “Black Lives Matter.” He got slammed, of course, in an ugly trial by his woke Facebook “friends.” When I noticed his post it had already received dozens of vitriolic replies. I called him to delete it, which he immediately did, but not before someone had taken a screen shot and distributed it further. Then I was accused of racism when, in a column I wrote about an upcoming drag performance, I neglected to mention the names of the show’s MCs. They happened to be people of color. Ergo…
Lashing Out (Without Forethought)
Granted these are tense times and people are prone to lash out without much forethought and perhaps my friend, who lives by the mantra “be kind and love one another,” was a bit naïve to think his social media post would be interpreted as he intended. As for my sin of omission, I had never met the queens involved and had no idea they were of one color or the other.
But these events pale in comparison to the assault in Madison by BLM protesters on State Representative Tim Carpenter, who is gay and a supporter of the BLM protests. Responding to the arrest of a Black man, some (who appear to be white) fell upon Carpenter because he took a video of them. They could easily have killed him. Later, apparently for the sheer revolutionary lark of it, the demonstrators toppled statues of an Abolitionist and Wisconsin’s allegoric “Forward,” a symbol of progress and devotion.
This woker-than-thou phenomenon was summed up in a recent social media post of a Milwaukee BLM march video in which a white woman was hysterically screaming at a cop. The poster, who is Black, added the comment “She’s not helping.”
The other side is doubling down as well. The White House itself is playing on the angst and anger of its base to frame the protesters for social justice as, according to the regime’s rhetoric, a mob of anarchists and rioters. And, speaking of appropriation, Republican 2020 presidential campaign merch now includes an “America First” t-shirt with a Nazi style spread-winged eagle. In this case, rather than perched on a wreath containing a swastika, the classic eagle is shown atop a circle holding an American flag.
At this point, the BLM movement is effecting positive change for all marginalized Americans. I would hate for it to be distracted and derailed by undisciplined woke allies, queer or otherwise.
My LGBTQ POV is proudly sponsored by Dr. Stephanie Murphy, DDS. Read past columns here.
