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The Exasperating Rise Of The “Woke” Right
Make politics sane again.
On June 12th, 2020, at the height of the racial reckoning, Mariame Kaba published an article in the New York Times titled, Yes, We Literally Mean Abolish The Police.
It went extremely viral, though probably not for the reasons she’d hoped.
Over the following weeks and months, Kaba’s piece was quoted, reposted, shared and otherwise exhibited as indisputable proof of the “woke” Left’s insanity.
And it wasn’t just the police.
Gender, whiteness, capitalism, men, miscellaneous statues, boulders, “wokeness” became synonymous with calls to “smash” or “dismantle” things while never quite explaining what to build in their place.
And the most frustrating part is that with a little dose of sanity, those conversations might have led to productive change.
Most people agree that police reform is necessary. Most people prefer police officers who are honest and emotionally stable and can reliably tell their tasers from their guns. Heck, most people have their own story about a police officer who they wouldn’t mind abolishing.
They just don’t think the solution to these problems is to tear down a system that works for millions of people and take their chances with gangs…