Suddenly single, AOC has an epiphany

Who had a smell-the-coffee moment a week ago — me or Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (suddenly on the market after ending a reported two-year engagement)?

Former fiance Riley Roberts is not the only thing she has shown the door.

Also kicked to the curb? What she called “Woke 1,” in an ABC News interview, in which she approvingly quoted a New York City Councilman friend who called it “crazy.” The usual Dem talking heads roared in approval.

An ABC journalist later analyzed her remarks as, possibly, her attempt to reset the table, and move herself toward the sensible center for political advantage.

That is likely, and anyone who doesn’t think the chirpy 36-year-old is not thinking about a Presidential run in 2028 is not thinking. She is actually the leading candidate in some polls.

Very enticing, but not the subject today in the Stu-niversity.

Nope, today’s topic is Woke, one that I’ve been writing about for more than a decade. I have a large collection of bite marks on my back from progressives who said I just didn’t get it.

AOC is wrong about Woke 1 being crazy.

Woke 1 is the original Woke, whose roots go all the way back to the 1920s with Black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey famously using the metaphor of sleep vs. awareness. Black newspapers documented the slang "stay Woke" as a call to remain alert and "not sleep at the post of duty." 

A widely accepted dictionary definition defines Woke as having an active awareness of systemic injustices and prejudices, especially those involving the treatment of ethnic, racial, or sexual minorities.

In other words, “Woke” meant being alert to injustice.

That’s the old original Woke, kind of like original Coke, which everyone liked, versus new Coke, which flopped.

What AOC and others are now rejecting is what the Looney Left expanded “Woke” into — a wide-ranging, straight-from-the-faculty-lounge, crazy quilt of Marxist thought, gender perversion, oppressor/oppressed division, personal pronoun obsessed, identity-drenched, defunding police, opening borders, closing prisons, and using cancel culture and shaming to silence disagreement.

That is Woke 2.

Woke 2 says people can select their gender from the Big Wheel of Fortune, get the DMV to reverse their sex on drivers licenses, men can menstruate, white people can “identify” as Black, merit is racist, as are math and grammar.

Woke 2 exists in defiance of, may I say, common sense. 

It is not in the wheelhouse of the average American, which is why some of those who embraced it (and terms such as LatinX, while deleting mother and father) are treating it like month-old Limburger.

As AOC says, there are terms that were used five years ago that would not be used today. Hooray for that.

Is Woke dead? Probably not. Some will keep the faith, like WWII Japanese soldiers living in caves for decades after their cause was lost.

Three years ago, I explained why I am awake, but not woke.

Since my political North Star is always suspect to some here, I offered commentary from well-known liberal comedian Bill Maher.

“Woke, which started out as a good thing — Woke to injustice, who could be against that?— but it became sort of an eyeroll because they love diversity, except of ideas. . . They have a trail of very bad ideas.”

These ideas don’t build on liberalism, he said, “They undo it. Five years ago Lincoln was not a controversial figure among liberals. We liked him. Now they take his name off schools and tear down his statues. Abraham Lincoln isn’t good enough for you?”

For some, no, Abraham Lincoln was a racist. That’s Woke 2.

And that’s the Woke that future President Ocasio-Cortez ought to be making fun of.