“We will never surrender to the ‘woke’ mob. Florida is where ‘woke’ goes to die!”
— Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, 2023
I will start off by saying, I’m glad I live in Colorado, rather than Florida.
For most of my life, I’ve been helplessly stuck an alternating pattern of being awake and then being asleep. First one, then the other.
In all honesty, things are occasionally more interesting when I’m asleep. Most of the places I visit in my dreams are vaguely familiar — sometimes with curiously unfamiliar details — but I’ve also traveled to some fascinating places that may not even exist in reality.
I can’t recall ever visiting Florida in my dreams, and based on what Governor DeSantis told his audience in a recent speech, that’s probably a good thing. He seems to prefer the term “woke” rather than “awakened”, however. A Florida colloquialism, presumably.
Also, while sleeping, I’ve met a lot of friendly women who seem to think I’m attractive. Or at least, not too unattractive. But I always wake up.
I awaken, and find myself in my same old bedroom, here in Pagosa Springs, and the alarm is going off. I get up and make coffee, and think back on last night’s dreams, and find myself wondering why there’s a lack of friendly women in my actual waking life.
Then I go to work. The dreams fade, and disappear.
Then there’s this thing called “woke” that Governor DeSantis talks about, relentlessly. It seems to be connected, in a very loose way, to a term that first appeared in print in The Negro Digest in 1942, referring to support for labor unions — but then got popular among civil rights activists a few years ago.
Politicians in Florida are now using the term to win elections, by threatening to “fight it”.
Seems to me — maybe because I don’t think like a Florida politician? — that the opposite of “woke” would be: “asleep”.
Please believe me, I have nothing at all against being asleep. As I mentioned before, some of my most enjoyable experiences have taken place while I was asleep. At least, I have the distinct impression that they were enjoyable… although I cannot exactly recall the experiences, because they promptly faded from my memory while I was making my morning coffee.
But I do have that distinct impression.
My reason for writing about this stuff? Because I agree with Governor DeSantis. It’s more pleasant to be living in a dream, able to be magically transported to fascinating, sometimes unreal, places populated by friendly women.
Who would want to be awake, in 2023? War, famine, political discord, homelessness, racial strife, hatred, vaccines, potholes, inflation, robots taking our jobs…
Marxism! In particular, Cultural Marxism!
The whole QAnon conspiracy! Just QAnon, all by itself, makes me want to go to sleep and never wake up.
Except I’m afraid ‘never waking up’ would mean I was dead, and that’s not at all what I mean.
I’m glad I’m not visiting Florida in my dreams. But “the woke” is going there, to die.
“We reject this woke ideology… We fight the woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations… We will never surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die!”
Sounds like a lot of fighting going on in Florida.
Most of the time, when I’m awake, I have a nagging feeling that politicians — like the ones in Florida — are trying to distract us from what’s really happening.
Like, they want us to stay asleep, enjoying the unreal but exciting places and events, and maybe visits with members of the opposite sex. With our eyes closed.
Here’s another quote I came across, last week.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., giving the commencement address at Oberlin College in 1965.
“Now there is another problem facing us that we must deal with if we are to remain awake through a social revolution. We must get rid of violence, hatred, and war. Anyone who feels that the problems of mankind can be solved through violence is sleeping through a revolution. I’ve said this over and over again, and I believe it more than ever today…”
That’s one thing I sure as heck wouldn’t want to sleep through: a revolution.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.