I’ve been thinking about this post for a while now, but couldn’t seem to find my way in, to find my first line. Too many thoughts tumbling over each other. Too much to say. Then this morning, a quote honoring the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko passed through my feed. Poetry distills truth and in four simple lines, Taras captured all those arguments running circles in my mind.
It’s terrible to lie in chains,
To rot in dungeon deep,
But it’s worse, when you are free
To sleep and sleep and sleep.
Born on March 9, 1814, Taras Schevchenko is Ukraine’s National Poet. In 1847 he was convicted of promoting the Independence of Ukraine and exiled. More than a century later, his countrymen continue to fight for Independence, for the right to be free.
Since our inception, the United States has been considered a beacon of freedom. Yet there are politicians today who would prefer we sleep and sleep and sleep. Their attack on the woke culture makes no sense to me. How could being awakened ever be considered a bad thing? Who would want to go through life asleep? Never to see a sunrise. A sunset. A rainbow. Never to notice the gradual greening of the trees after a long, cold winter; never to see that first crocus bravely peeking through the earth, or to hear the robin’s sweet song and be greeted with the intoxicating scent of lilacs.
Being awake means being alive. Ever-changing. Ever learning. Laughing. Loving. How could that ever be offensive?
Some believe that only those who look like them, act like them, believe what they believe belong in this land of the free and home of the brave. They vilify others by tagging them woke as if there were something wrong with having one’s eyes open.
What is the opposite of woke? To sleepwalk and stumble in darkness? To cause more brokenness and pain?
I simply do not understand using the word woke as a label of derision. If those considered woke are those who see suffering and try to ease it; or those who recognize mistakes and work to fix them; who acknowledge and accept differences, celebrating the fact that in the land of the free and home of the brave, each of us has the right to read and wear and love what and who we want, then I hope to be labeled woke and will wear my label proudly.
