March 26, 2025 - Where There's Woke - Thomas Smith
42:56
WTW79: Being Woke Is Good, Actually
Representative Jasmine Crockett made an offensive joke about Governor Abbott's disability. The right pretended to care all of a sudden, and it seems that much of the left has decided they don't care. What should we, the woke police, think about this? How should we react? What should we expect from Democrats and each other? **If you enjoy our work, please consider leaving a 5-star review! You can always email questions, comments, and leads to lydia@seriouspod.com.**
What's so scary about the woke mob, how often you just don't see them coming.
Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism and you see woke principles being pushed.
Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic hands down.
The woke monster is here and it's coming for everything, everything, everything, everything, everything.
Instead of go-go boots, the seductress green M&M will now wear sneakers.
Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke.
This is episode 79. I'm Thomas Smith and it's a solo effort this time.
That's because I really need to get some thoughts off my chest.
I do this from time to time, mostly on serious inquiries only.
But I'm doing this one here for a couple reasons.
For one, just the way the schedules are working.
SIOs, we have other drops planned.
And on WTW, we are a little short this month, so I'm putting this over here.
And then secondly, it actually just directly has to do with wokeness and something I've been thinking about for a long time, ever since the election, I guess, because what we did is we took...
An election that was actually quite close, was not a landslide by any means.
In terms of votes in the Electoral College, it was, I don't know, what, a couple hundred thousand difference between a win or a loss for Kamala Harris.
And from that one data point, which was what happened on Election Day, how the Electoral College would go, and I guess how the popular vote went on Election Day, to be fair.
From that data, that one sampling that we do every four years, We decided a whole bunch of stuff.
It feels like the country has decided down with wokeness.
That means down with the trans stuff, down with the woke stuff.
We're moving on.
We're moving past that.
All because a couple hundred thousand voters in swing states, really.
It doesn't make any logical sense.
Now, people will make the case, and I'm sure you could make a case that it might make electoral sense in some ways, but I also don't really know that that's necessarily true.
I think there's ways to talk about this stuff that could change the perception somewhat without actually changing your underlying policy or the people you support.
But also, I guess I just wanted to say wokeness is good, actually.
Like, actually being woke for whatever that really means, which I think means being considerate, making an effort not to say offensive words and insult people based on immutable characteristics.
I think wokeness is having...
A proper perspective on history and not a whitewashed America-centric hero story history.
I think wokeness is a lot of things.
Unironically, I think wokeness is good.
And I think we're at a real crossroads because this last election was a chance for a lot of Democrats who didn't really support trans rights to finally say, ah, we shouldn't do that.
Looks like they won on that issue.
Darn, everybody.
Let's not support that anymore because you know the voters, they decided.
And I'm honestly not sure where this will go.
I think it's going to depend a ton on who tomorrow's Democratic leaders become.
But the reason I'm speaking to you right now is that Jasmine Crockett gave us, I think, an example that I really want to talk about.
An example of why actually wokeness is good and we shouldn't do that.
We shouldn't abandon the idea of being considerate, abandon the idea of trying to...
Clean up our language a bit just as a society to the best we can to try to stop offending people.
I do it every day and I'm imperfect at it every day.
And I want to just put my voice out there defending the idea of wokeness as being considerate and as a good thing.
And I want to talk about what happened with Jasmine Crockett, what she said.
And I want to talk about what I think Democrats should do, what I think our response should be.
That's all I can do with the voice that I have.
You know, I don't have any control over anyone else, but for me, I am dismayed at how many people, I guess, don't really believe in the ideals they say.
Like, for example, California Governor Gavin Newsom doesn't really feel like...
I don't feel like he believes in anything much, really.
I'm sure he believes in some things.
I'm sure he has left views, but it sure seems like he's willing to abandon them at a moment's notice.
And I guess I just feel like a crazy person being someone who comes to the positions I come to through reasoning and consideration and empathy.
And then I stand up for those positions and I advocate for those positions.
And it seems like a lot of people also are until they aren't, until it turns out, oh, maybe we're just saying stuff that they thought made people feel good or something, or made people like them.
It's not good, and I just want to plant a flag right now using this kind of event to talk about that dichotomy of reaction.
So that's what we're going to talk about.
We're going to talk about Jasmine Crockett.
She's a representative from Texas.
You probably know her.
If you don't know her by name, I'm sure you'd know if you saw her.
And she made a comment about Governor Abbott calling him Governor Hot Wheels.
And Governor Abbott, of course, being wheelchair-bound.
Obviously, that's offensive.
And I want to talk about it.
I want to talk about the reaction.
I want to talk about what I think the reaction should be.
So that's what we're going to do.
Before we do that, we'll take our quick break.
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Like, we are working on a big series right now.
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We're working really hard on that, and that is taking attention away.
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All right.
After this break, we'll get into it.
So I think it's best to just start with the comments, start with what actually happened.
So I'll just hit play here.
North Texas is causing controversy over recent comments she made about Governor Abbott.
Fox's Stephen Dial explains.
Well, as Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett is being called out by other elected officials for her comments last Saturday at a human rights campaign event.
Y'all know we got Governor High Wheels down there.
Come on now.
And and the only thing hot about him is that he is a hot mess.
Referring to Governor Greg Abbott as Hot Wheels, Abbott was partially paralyzed when a tree fell on him decades ago.
I'm going to move on.
I'm going to move on.
And after that, she took to X to kind of post her explanation.
She said, quote, I wasn't thinking about the governor's condition.
I was thinking about the planes, trains, and automobiles he used to transfer migrants into communities led by black mayors, deliberately stoking tension and fear among the most vulnerable.
Literally, the next line I said was that he was a hot-ass mess referring to his terrible policies.
At no point did I mention or allude to his condition.
So I'm even more appalled that the very people who unequivocally support Trump, a man known for racially insensitive nicknames and mocking those with disabilities, are now outraged.
And then she added another one.
Keep that same energy for all people, not just your political adversaries.
Finally, this is yet another distraction.
Instead of obsessing over and hanging on to my every word, maybe my political foes should focus on doing the work of the people who elected us to improve their lives.
And she also attached an article, Texas has spent more than $148 million busing migrants to other parts of the country.
And so here's the thing, that explanation is not credible.
That's not what she meant.
There's no possible way that's what she meant.
That's a lie.
It's frustrating.
It's a gaslighting lie.
She said Governor Hot Wheels, and now she's trying to say that it was because of the planes, trains, and automobiles.
I mean, to say nothing to the fact that, sure, planes technically have wheels, but they're not the main part you think about with that.
But it's just not credible.
That's a redirect.
It's a gaslighting technique.
It's something that I think is part of politics now, and certainly that's all Trump does.
So I get it, but it's disappointing.
And if you take a look at the reaction on Reddit, which, you know, I don't know where to get a good indicator of people.
If I go to Twitter, it's going to be, or X, it's going to be right-wing hell.
If I go to YouTube, it's right-wing hell.
If I go to Reddit, it's pretty left.
I don't think there's anywhere.
Honestly, I'm just realizing this now.
There isn't really one place you can go to get a cross-section of America because that's exactly what America doesn't do anymore.
We don't all go to one place.
There just isn't a place.
So this is admittedly going to be, it's in Reddit slash r slash politics.
And also there's another subreddit I'm looking at, but all the comments tend to be the same of thing.
I'll just grab a few.
Abbott can stand up for himself.
Oh wait, more double standards for you then.
Jasmine Crockett will fight for handicapped people's rights, but conservatives and some Democrats will hold her to a completely different standard when she attacks the party that elected a guy that told his relatives to let his handicapped nephew die.
He calls wounded warriors suckers and losers and uses their graves as PR stunts.
He's cutting off resources that that handicapped people need through this doge dodge.
Another one.
You know, this one.
Nah, fuck that dude.
Another top comment is just a quote.
I'm condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them.
Then some more here.
Watch the selective outrage.
This is exactly the type of thing that Trump would say, and they worship his insults.
And it's a lot of that.
It's a lot of, oh, now you care about this stuff.
I don't care.
We're not doing it.
You know, remember Trump mocking the disabled reporter?
I sure do.
Here's one that gives me a chuckle.
The pearl clutching will be intense.
I mean, name-calling and racist slurs are just for the GOP.
Which I would say, yes, I actually...
Agree with that.
Do you want name-calling and racist slurs to be our thing?
Does that imply that?
And so I want to say right away that I get it.
There is no sense in which what she is saying is anything akin to, is anywhere on the same scale as anything Trump has done, said and done.
Trump has actively harmed disabled people to degrees that we can't.
We've talked about in opening arguments.
They're going for the disability rights.
They're going for it on a scale that we can't even believe.
Greg Abbott himself has been a big barrier to a lot of disability rights in Texas.
So there's no sense in which Jasmine Crockett is like substantially in the wrong and these other I don't think that matters.
In this instance.
I think there are a lot of people coming from the point of view, and I've read some of their comments, and this is all over, of, hey, they do this, we're tired of going, when they go low, we go high, and what does it get us?
Time to go low.
I get that.
I actually do 100% get that.
There's also people who are saying, the wokeness, the word policing, that's what got us here.
People don't like that.
Let's, you know, abandon all that.
That I don't agree with at all, but I get why people are saying it.
I get why people are saying it, but I don't agree with it.
But the problem with the they go low and we go low now and he deserves it and all that stuff, all that stuff, the problem with that is it doesn't make any fucking sense if you actually care about disabled people.
If the reason that you, and I'll just speak for me, if the reason that you were avoiding language that's offensive to disabled people when you can, nobody's perfect, You know, but making an effort.
If the reason you're doing that is because you don't want to hurt disabled people's feelings, this sure doesn't make a lot of fucking sense.
I mean, just substitute it in with calling a gay Republican the F-slur for gay people or a black Republican the N-word.
Would that make any sense?
Would you be like, oh, yeah, but, you know, when they go low, we go low.
So, like, that's what we're going to...
No, that doesn't make any sense.
We don't use those words because they're offensive.
It's not because that's some points you're scoring against the person.
And I think this betrays that people are, in their minds, thinking one thing and saying another, which I don't think is a good thing.
I mean, to some degree, we're all going to do that.
But here's what my goal in life is.
It's to get the things that I'm able to say publicly to match the things that I'm thinking in my brain as much as I can.
I'm not talking about revealing private stuff.
I just mean, in terms of my opinions.
The things I say, like, protect trans children, like, let's do our best to be good with language, to be kind to people, to not offend people.
I say those because I believe them.
And it does not make sense to say, oh, okay, but now that we don't like this guy and he deserves it, we get to not follow those little rules, right?
Now we get to say stuff that is offensive to disabled people because we like doing that.
That's what that sounds like to me.
Or, I mean, if not that, just you're inconsiderate, you made a mistake.
Which is, by the way, ultimately what I want to say about Jasmine Crockett is I don't have a great problem with Jasmine Crockett.
We'll talk about that in a minute.
I think she made a mistake.
And I think there was a way to handle this that is both considerate, doesn't really play into like the quote-unquote woke police stuff, and is still consistent.
I think there's a way to do all those things.
But when you're in a verbal argument...
And when you're in a rhetorical contest like we are, and when you're in this political fight like we are, I 100% agree with the idea that we should stop playing nice.
100%. And yet, no part of me wants to then say, okay, so now we can insult disabled people and maybe minorities and trans people.
Like, that what?
To me, that literally does not compute.
That doesn't connect as an idea.
And I'm not trying to claim any holier-than-thou thing.
I think this is a product of the fact that I was raised pretty badly as a conservative and I was very not considerate of things.
And then as I grew up, as I met people in college, as I met different people and realized, oh, I don't want to...
Call people gay as a negative thing because, hey, here's gay people.
They're just people.
That feels like shit.
If the thing you are, your immutable characteristic is used as an insult, that feels shitty.
That's just not a good thing.
I don't think it's nice.
I don't think it's good.
And so I began that process of like, oh, okay, I better work on that.
And it's not easy.
And I think that...
We should 1 million percent be forgiving of mistakes and allow people to grow.
Otherwise, I wouldn't be here.
If we didn't let people make mistakes, if we didn't let people change, then where would I be?
I would still be a conservative in a shit town.
Who knows?
You know what I mean?
So it's not about that.
It's not about being perfect.
It's not about being better than anyone.
But I do want to say that I feel crazy lately that that process that I've undertaken, and it's a lifelong process of thinking, hey, It's not good.
It's not – here's the thing that I'm doing that I worry now that not enough people are doing.
And I'm sorry to put it that way, but it feels that way.
When I decided – I'm just going to take that first example.
When I was in college, it's a very – I've talked about it before, but it's a very visceral example to me.
I was raised with that language where calling someone gay was a negative thing.
We did – it just – if you were a kid in the 90s and early 2000s.
I think you would be lying, especially if you're a boy at that time.
I think you'd be lying if you said that wasn't the language you used.
It was ubiquitous.
It was literally everywhere.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think it was.
I think people would be surprised.
Even movies at the time have that in there, and now it's shocking.
Anyway, that was the language I was raised with.
And when I went to college and I met some gay people doing theater, I accidentally said that around...
A gay friend of mine, for the first time, it's not like I said it all the time, so it just didn't happen until this one time it happened, when I just spit it out.
I was like, oh, that's gay.
And then I made eye contact with him and realized, oh man, I'm never saying that again.
That's not good.
I just realized that.
And so here's the thing, though.
Here's the thing I want to add to that, that I think and I worry that people aren't doing.
In addition to thinking, oof, I should never say...
That's gay as a negative anymore.
That's not good.
That's one thing.
I also undertook an effort of like, hey, also, I probably shouldn't have that negative connotation in my brain.
Like, I should probably do what I can, which is, you know, it's not like we're all under 100% control of our brains, but I think we should do our best.
I should do, and that applies to everything.
That applies to all the things that are politically incorrect, that are insulting, that used to be acceptable.
You know, disability jokes, whatever it is, racial jokes, whatever that stuff is, I decided, oh, I should probably try to stop thinking that.
Like, I should not associate being gay with being wrong somehow.
Like, beyond just, oh, I need to not use that language.
I need to not just say the thing out loud, which is one good step.
That is good.
But if all you're doing...
Is not saying the thing out loud, but you're thinking it all the time?
If you're thinking that, you know, like different racial groups are inferior, if you're thinking it all the time, but just not saying it, what is that?
Is that any better?
It's almost worse.
Then you're like hiding the fact that you're a bigot and maybe even appearing as a trustworthy person to people of color, but all in all, your mind still has all these negative connotations.
And so, and I get a lot of that.
A lot of that might not be under control.
There's going to be subtle biases.
There's going to be internal biases.
Sorry, implicit biases.
That's the word.
There's going to be implicit biases that are going to be hard to shake.
That's being a human.
That's our society.
That's going to be true.
But we can do our best.
We can do our best to just not have those associations.
And so I think it is revealing.
So here's what I want to say.
There's no amount of angry that I could get at anyone.
Who is in any sort of demographic that is, like, whether it's gay people, whether it's trans people, whether it's black people, there's no amount of mad that I can get at an individual with that immutable characteristic that should ever cause me to say, you know what?
Racial slur.
That just shouldn't compute because that shouldn't be a negative thing in your mind.
You should do your best to not just remove the part, I guess I'm just talking a white...
People like me, maybe.
I don't know.
But this is what I undertook.
You should do your best to not just not say...
The offensive thing.
You should do your best to not think that black people are inferior.
You should do your best to not think that a racial slur is a good idea.
It's like a good insult.
Because what you're doing, the important reason why we don't say these things and we shouldn't think these things is because this isn't some own of Greg Abbott.
Here's the thing.
I even think it's okay if you want to make jokes that involve references to disability or references to other things.
People may disagree with me.
I think that's fine.
I made a joke about the fact that what Greg Abbott has done, I wished that when Greg Abbott undid disability rights that they'd get rid of the ramp and he wouldn't be able to get out the building.
Now, that's a joke.
I don't really want that to be true.
I want him to...
Maybe that's not a good joke to make.
And so the comment is, I would like him to realize that that affects him.
That's the target of that joke.
The target of that joke is actually Greg Abbott and the fact that he is undermining the very rights that he should want.
And let alone that other people also need and want.
That's at least my clumsy target of the joke.
When you call someone Governor Hot Wheels, the only joke is that he's in a wheelchair.
And I feel like a crazy person for having to say this.
There is no joke there.
There is no joke other than this guy's in a wheelchair.
Like, if the unsaid thing that makes a joke funny is, wheelchair, that's...
Not a good joke.
That just means the thing that you're laughing at, that you find funny, is disability.
That's what that means.
And we can have all kinds of agreements and disagreements about where's the line in humor.
And I'm actually like, I'm open to being wrong about that.
I'm open to having disagreements on it.
I've come to the point where I think that as long as I feel like someone's a good person and their heart's in the right place, I think you can touch on certain issues as features of a joke, but not...
As the only punchline of a joke.
That doesn't work.
I think we should be more open to joking and having different traits and disability and whatever.
We should be more open to having that be a feature of a joke because I actually do think it enables more bonding, it enables more collegiality, just more human connection among people to be able to include...
All kinds of traits, whatever it is, again, as an element of a joke.
But not as the only thing that's the punchline.
Then that means you just think that thing is funny or bad to be.
That immutable thing is funny or bad to be.
And that's just not a joke.
That's just bigotry.
And so I just, I can't...
So it's really frustrating to see so many people...
Take this example and say, well, but he deserves it, though.
Like, he deserves it.
And somewhere he can stand up for himself, like, furthering the thing.
Why is that funny?
He can stand up for himself.
Why is that funny?
Because he's disabled.
That's the punchline of the joke, is that he's disabled.
And look, if you think that's a cool joke to make, then, like, I disagree.
And the thing is, people get so sensitive.
The real...
Sensitive people.
The real, you know, quote-unquote woke, you know, crying, yelling kids, whatever, is anyone who gets criticized as being inconsiderate.
Those are the people who are actually the most triggered in all of the land.
It's just true.
Anywhere you go and you say, well, I mean, I just don't think that that's cool to make that show.
Oh, okay!
So you think, like, that's where you get the biggest crybabies.
The biggest crybabies in the world are actually the people who, when you just give any sort of hint of criticism of them for being inconsiderate or for saying something racially insensitive, that is, that's the actual quote-unquote wokeness.
Like, the enemy that people have in mind when they think of wokeness, the crying.
College kid, the way too sensitive, whatever.
That's actually them.
That's who is way too sensitive.
Whereas if we could live in a world where people are just a little bit more able to take criticism, you know, or just understand that people make mistakes.
Again, people make mistakes.
Like, I get it.
I mean, the times that I've gotten, you know, people write in like, hey, the thing you said was incentive.
Like, yeah, I get the feeling of, oh, man.
That feels like you're attacking me.
I get that.
But we should do our best to not feel that way.
And getting back to what I was saying, the key problem is the splash damage.
The key problem with these things is it's not about Greg Abbott, quote, deserving it or not.
It's not about Trump.
It's not about the Republicans.
I'll get to that in a minute.
It's not about any of that.
It's that when you make a joke like Governor Hot Wheels and everyone wants to laugh and everyone wants to say, oh, yeah, look, they deserve it.
He deserves it.
He sucks.
He should stand up for himself piling on the jokes.
What you are signaling to is to other disabled people that you think their condition is something to joke about or is a negative.
That's just signaling that you don't actually believe the things you espouse.
You just were holding your tongue.
You just were biting your tongue.
And that must suck.
I think that must suck.
And apply that to all kinds of groups.
It must suck to feel like Oh, I thought this group of people was cool.
I thought this group of people was maybe considerate and didn't associate my immutable characteristic with a negative and didn't think that way.
But now, when it's convenient, now I've learned that it's more that they like saying those things and they just want to have a target for it.
They just want to feel like it's someone who deserves it.
But that means they still think all those negative things about me all the time.
They're probably thinking every time they meet me.
They're probably thinking these negative things and just not saying it.
And I just think that sucks.
And I think we ought to do our best to make what we say match what we actually think.
Now I just want to talk about the reaction and how I think we could do that differently and how we should do it differently.
This does not mean that I think that, again, Trump is anywhere in comparison at all.
This is not anywhere near that.
This is not anywhere near as harmful in terms of the power Jasmine Crockett has relative to the power Trump has when he's actively undoing disability rights and fucking people over.
I just want to make clear, there's no equivalence there.
It's almost like, honestly, I think the main message I have is that that's irrelevant.
I pretend none of that exists.
Again, if you look at it from a point of view of actually Caring about the things you say and the people and the groups of people you care about, all that just doesn't really make sense.
Like, it doesn't even really make sense that people are bringing it up.
You know, like, I actually find it confusing and sad that everyone jumps to the, oh, but they said, oh, but he said, oh, but he deserves it.
Because again, imagine if it were someone saying a racial slur.
We don't then say, okay, but yeah, but I don't like that racial slur guy, so, like, that's why it's fine.
It's like, no, no.
We've decided, and I think it's a good decision, that some things are not okay to say as insults, ever.
I think there's things that we are, and there's things that are more and less serious on that, you know, and there's different places.
People draw the line and I get it.
And we can have that debate.
And I'm not in charge of anybody else but me.
But when you look at it that way, it doesn't become about like, oh, well, remember Trump, the time Trump made fun of that disabled guy.
What does that have to do with anything?
Like in response to this, you know, in that sense.
Now, it does have something to do with it in terms of, hey, I'm not going to listen to and no one should listen to at all.
Anyone on the right criticizing Jasmine Crockett over this?
Now that I get.
That I totally get.
And I also get that a lot of these comments, a lot of this reaction, is people anticipating that and being mad that there's that false equivalence.
And being mad that, like, now they're...
It is so funny to see how the minute they feel like they can use political correctness to attack a Democrat, then all of a sudden they're all about it.
They're unironically all about, well, I can't believe that is, wow.
Beyond the pale, can't believe they said that.
That's silly.
That's stupid.
But it also puts you in this weird mirror battle where like, okay, but do you care about?
And then they're like, well, no, we don't care about that, but you care about that.
So you should be upset.
And then, but I'm like, yeah, but you don't care about that.
So I don't care that you're telling, like, this is stupid.
Skip all that.
No one should listen to any.
Republican or anyone on the right about this at all.
And here's the good news.
No one does.
Like, there's some minor good news about the fact that we don't talk to each other at all and we have different media and all that is that you could just not give a shit about the MAGA idiots claiming that Jasmine Crockett is the devil for this.
Like, you can just not care.
Now, maybe there's some...
MSNBC panel shows or something where you hear from somebody, fine.
But you could just tell that person to go fuck themselves.
Like, if you happen to be on a cable news panel and you're on the left and the other person on the right is like, yeah, that's beyond the whatever.
You can say, oh, go fuck yourself because you have no opinion on that.
Like, your opinion does not matter.
Like, I've seen what you approve.
Your opinion does not matter.
Literally, their opinion does not matter on this.
And it's yet another reason why I find these These, like, redirects, you know, these, like, these ways of trying to justify what Jasmine Crockett said by pointing to Trump and by pointing to Abbott.
I just find it confusing.
And the other thing is, none of the Trump comments or whatever Abbott does, none of that justifies Jasmine Crockett lying and telling us it's about his planes, trains, and automobiles that he's used to transfer migrants to.
Like, that's just a lie.
Like, I'm sorry, I'm not going to sit here and be lied to.
Like, that's just a lie.
I get it.
I'm not, like, again, I think this should be proportionate anger, and that's what I'm going to get to.
I'm not super mad Jasmine Crockett.
I still support Jasmine Crockett.
But, like, that's a lie.
She said a thing that sucked, and that's a lie.
And I'll just live with that, because whatever.
But what I wish she would have done, what I wish she would have done...
Is instead of the tweet that she did that just lied to our faces and said it was about something it wasn't, I wish she would have said, oh, hey, you know, I screwed up.
I made a comment that I shouldn't have.
And I apologize.
I'm not apologizing to Governor Abbott because fuck that guy.
He undermines disability rights.
He is absolutely a demon.
Go as hard as you want and fucking curse him out.
Insult him in all the ways you can think of that aren't.
Insulting someone based on their immutable characteristics.
Go ham.
That is fine with me.
But Jasmine Crockett could have said, hey, I want to apologize for anyone else who's disabled who might have taken that as an insult to their immutable characteristics, to their disability.
I just want to say sorry about that.
I do care about you.
And I shouldn't have said that because I don't mean that.
I don't mean to insult your disability.
But let's get together and go after the real villains here.
Someone who was actually Actively undermining your rights, Greg fucking Abbott and these douchebags.
Like, apologize to the bystanders.
And then what we ought to do as the left is be like, fuck yeah, great!
That's what we ought to do.
You know, because there are people who think, and I get it, that this election was a referendum on wokeness.
I don't think it was as much as people say, but there's a certain extent to that.
I get it.
But even if you think that, the thing we need to do, this is what I just have to get off my chest.
The thing we need to do is not to say, oh yeah, anything goes, let's use racial slurs and insult disabilities.
That's not it.
The thing that people fear about the woke police, in quotes, is the quote-unquote cancel culture and the idea that you'll be canceled for making a mistake.
What we ought to do is signal extra that it's okay to make mistakes.
That's what we ought to do.
If something is a genuine mistake, now, if it's revealed that, you know, actually you have a, you know, if some politician has a clan hood in their closet, that's not a mistake.
Like, that means you're revealed to be a horrible person.
If it's something like that, where someone's revealed to be awful, that's a different story.
And that's the problem we face.
And the reason that we do Where There's Woke is so often those two things are confused either on purpose or accidentally, where someone is actually revealed to be a real piece of shit.
They issue a terrible apology.
And then everyone's like, what?
Apology not accepted.
You're a piece of shit.
You didn't even apologize for the right thing.
And then they say...
You just should never apologize.
They'll never accept it.
It's cancel culture.
That's all bullshit.
That's a big thing we're facing here.
So what I want to do as just my small part and what I think we ought to do on the woke left, in quotes, is say, yes, we actually should be considerate in this way of our language.
It wasn't really cool to call him Governor Hot Wheels.
But for people who make mistakes, hey, apology accepted.
I get it.
I mean, maybe it's not my place to accept that apology because I'm not disabled in that way.
But, like, I, for one, for my part, think we should just accept when people genuinely make a mistake and apologize for it and move on.
And that's the thing we could adjust.
If there's a thing we need to change, and I'm not really convinced that we do just because I think so much of this is manufactured outrage, I think...
A lot of this is not real, but to the extent it's real.
To the extent that this election was a referendum on the censorious left or whatever, you know, the woke police, the word policing left.
Okay, to whatever extent that's true, the answer is not, okay, so anything goes words-wise.
The answer is to be easier on people who say the wrong words and to make it a process of learning and growth and positivity and not a process of trying to cancel anyone.
I think that would be the good effort.
Now, I want to emphasize for the fourth time, I don't really know that this is actually a problem because I think so much of this is just made up.
But again, to the extent it is, that's what we should do.
We should take it easy on people who make a mistake and we should do our best long-term to create an environment where it feels less like you're going to be attacked so hard for making mistakes.
And then I think that's a feedback loop.
I think what happens is...
People get more and more afraid, so they apologize less and less, and then people get more and more mad because of that, and then we're not apologizing.
Then it's like we're not speaking to each other.
If we start to create an environment where apologies that are genuine and mistakes are forgiven, where that all goes down easier, then I think that feeds on itself the other way, and it's like, oh, whoops, made a mistake.
But I get it.
I get that this is probably idealistic because of the political environment we're in.
But I think that...
The thing that I said Jasmine Crockett should have said, I think that would have been fine.
I think that would have worked out completely fine.
Instead, she's decided to gaslight people and to tell a lie.
And, you know, here's another thing I think we ought to deal with on the left is we live in an imperfect world and we live in a politics that's broken.
And so I am not going to let this mean that I don't support Jasmine Crockett.
I'm not going to let this mean that I attack her.
But I do wish she would do better.
And I do wish that everyone who heard those words and then had the knee-jerk reaction to either double down, make another disability joke, or say it's fine because Trump, I wish those folks would have said, yeah, hey, Trump's worse, but also, you know, this wasn't cool.
Like, we should probably not use insults like this.
You know, that's what I wish.
That's my little wish in my heart.
And I don't know if there's any chance.
That anything I say makes any difference, but that's just, I just had to get that off my chest because I really feel that deeply that I worry, I just worry every time I hear people say like, well, you can't say anything anymore.
Then what are the things you want to say that you're not saying?
Like that worries me, you know?
And I think, I guess if there's a lot of people out there who have actually been doing that, who have thought what the social progress meant was Okay, we'll just like, we'll think all the bad things about the others, the outgroups.
We'll think all those things.
We just won't say them.
If that's what you've been thinking this whole time, well, shit, I can see why that has been uncomfortable for you.
It would be very uncomfortable for me to think one thing all the time and say another thing.
That would be uncomfortable.
I wouldn't like that.
That would feel false to me.
But again, my solution is, well, maybe you should try to not have thoughts of how other outgroups are inferior.
Like maybe you should work on that part.
And not the talking part.
Or both.
But, like, that's the part.
That's how you should make those two things meet.
And so, in closing, I mean, that's why I wanted to talk about this on Where There's Woke.
Because wokeness is good, actually.
It is.
That's why I'm here.
That's why I do this show.
Because the myths about what woke people are and what they do are bad.
Those are fake.
It's lies.
And the actual reality of wokeness, in my opinion, is a good thing on the whole.
It is good to be more considerate.
It is good to care about underprivileged people.
It's good to care about people who have been cast down by society and who have had to live in fear.
It's good to care about those things.
It is good.
Wokeness is good.
You know?
And it's like, I care about these things because they're the right position that I came to with my brain.
They're not because I reacted to someone yelling, some college kid, like they're not, I'm not in a terrified silence, you know, and I just think the people who think that's what happened, the people who think like, yeah, what happened was a bunch of super woke kids got really mad and everyone got afraid and so they just stopped saying anything.
Like if that's what you think happened, then that means you're just kind of an asshole and you never changed how you thought at all.
You still had asshole things.
You still had bigoted thoughts.
But you just maybe thought you weren't allowed to say them.
And that's never been what it's about for me.
When it comes to defending trans people who have been on the forefront, that's not because I want all athletes to be trans and all those straw person arguments about it, all those myths about it.
It's because I recognize that most of the rhetoric around trans people is lies.
The science says that gender-affirming care is good.
The science says that the way we were handling trans healthcare for minors, at least the guidelines, I don't know, but the reality of delivery of coverage, you know, delivery of care, set that aside.
The guidelines were good.
The science is good.
That's all.
I believe in that.
I believe in that because I believe trans people are real, and I believe that the medical science, in terms of the guidelines at least, was pretty good, or at least doing their best.
And that was all correct.
And I recognize that the attacks on trans people and on trans athletes, I recognize that those are bad faith.
Those are not worth treating as good faith.
Those are not worth treating as though they're coming from a place of genuine concern when they're really coming from a place of trying to myth-make and scare people.
Now, I get you have to talk to people where they are and if there are people who have been affected by those myths and are worried about women's sports and...
What trans people being in women's sports will do.
Okay, engage with them on a human level.
But I just mean, broadly speaking, those concerns aren't real.
They just aren't.
They're manufactured.
Broadly speaking, they have been manufactured in order to attack trans people.
And so the answer is not, well, I guess we better abandon our beliefs.
Like, so many people want to throw trans people under the bus because of an election.
And to me, I think if I were to distill it down...
Like I've seen people say trans people cost us this election or trans rights cost us this election.
And I get thinking that, but then it occurred to me right away, wait a minute, hold on.
It's actually more true to say, no, no, lies about trans people cost us this election and lies about trans rights and trans healthcare and trans people in sports, lies about those things cost us the election.
And then when you look at it that way, All of a sudden, it doesn't really make sense to be like, well, I guess I better abandon trans rights.
It's like, oh, wait, the thing I actually ought to do is try to correct those lies.
Like, that's the way you would solve that.
Like, you wouldn't just capitulate to the lying.
Not the least of which, because they'll always have something they do that with.
We need to learn that we cannot give an inch on any of this stuff because it's not real.
It's fascism.
It's reactionary politics.
They want their way or the highway.
They will find some other thing to lie about.
So we can't just be like, well, okay, we'll give up the trans thing, you know, and then that'll help.
No, they'll find a different thing.
Or, by the way, they'll still just say we believe all the same things about trans people, even if democratic leaders did abandon trans rights.
They'll just say, like, how much of Kamala's campaign had anything the fuck to do with trans people or trans rights?
Actually, none of it.
They'll still just say it anyway.
So, fuck it.
Let's actually believe what we say.
Let's actually protect trans people.
Let's actually protect disabled people.
Let's actually not use racial slurs and epithets and insults that are hurting people for immutable characteristics.
Let's just not do those things.
Let's stand up for something, and let's correct lies and call out lies.
