Colin Sheridan: Woke? Try seeing the world from a child’s view

There’s an argument that official Ireland — our governments and legislature — has decided we will be the First Woke Nation

An Israeli tank fired from a close distance at the family car of six-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, and a tank shell directly hit the ambulance that was dispatched to help. The killing of the child and her family in Gaza City in late January prompted international condemnation.

What does it mean to be “woke?” Are you woke? Am I woke? Can the sleeping be woke? The dead? Is it a pejorative term, or something to boast about and be proud of? Is being woke contagious? Is it a flagrant abandonment of old school values, as some would have you believe? A safe place for virtue-signalers to hang out, massaging each other's egos and clipping each other's toenails while aggressively chasing likes and follows on social media? Or, is it something that should be put on the school curriculum so that our kids grow up with a clearer definition of right and wrong, good and evil?

The origins of the term would certainly have you believe being woke is an admirable, progressive, disposition to adopt or be naturally blessed with. The phrase first appeared in the US in the 1940s, derived from the word “awake” and was used to describe somebody who was well-informed on issues of social injustice — particularly racism. In its infancy, it meant being alert to the specific discrimination and systemic harm suffered by African Americans. Thus, being “woke” used to imply one has awoken from an ignorant slumber. More recently, it has been adopted as a ubiquitous label for a wide variety of social movements, including Black Lives Matter, feminism, immigration, climate change, and marginalised communities.