Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in Hopewell Junction, N.Y., earlier this week.Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
We are supposed to have moved on from the worst excesses of what is now being referred to as “Woke 1.0”: that period of time around 2020 and 2021 when society, as a collective, appeared to have lost its mind.
This was when, around the time of the Black Lives Matter protests in the U.S. and beyond, a data scientist named David Shor was fired from his job for tweeting out research showing that violent protest can lead to political backlash for the Democrats. It was when a curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art faced public censure, and eventually resigned, because he told staff that ceasing to collect work from white artists would amount to “reverse discrimination.” It was when ESPN fired an analyst before she even started working over homophobic tweets she posted nearly a decade earlier.
In August of this year, Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose politics broadly align with those who held pitchforks for a curator who naively believed his job was to collect art, reflected on this period of time during an interview with ABC News. “Woke 1.0 was crazy,” she said laughing, quoting another lawmaker. Her implication was that both she and society have both moved on and grown up.
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Except there are still whiffs of Woke 1.0 to be found if you look not-too-hard, including at the Baltimore Rock Opera Society, which just fired its executive director, who is white, because she once wore cornrows to a music festival. Or at the Portland Trail Blazers, which, in less than 24 hours earlier this month, hired and fired Braiden Bell, a TV play-by-play announcer, for tweets he posted more than a decade ago, when he was 15.
The tweets themselves are indefensible. In one, Mr. Bell wrote, “Asian people piss me off.” In others, he referred to women as “sluts” and “whores.” Had he written them even a couple of years ago, it could reasonably be inferred that they reflect the type of person he is as a now 29-year-old man.
But 14 years ago, Mr. Bell was at that precarious age where a toxic mix of bravado, stupidity and impulsiveness almost always leads to poor decisions. We’ve all experienced it, and indeed, as a society, we accept that 15-year-olds will do dumb things, which is why they aren’t allowed to drink alcohol, drive cars or vote. And when they do transgress, they typically are punished less severely than adults, taking into account their presumed immaturity and greater potential for rehabilitation. Had Mr. Bell stolen a car and gone for a joyride back when he was 15, he would have already served his time as a youth under Oregon state law. In that sense, the criminal justice system offers more opportunity for rehabilitation for youth than does our informal cultural justice system.
That’s what made, and makes, Woke 1.0 so “crazy,” to borrow Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s characterization. It wasn’t simply the furor with which the public attacked perceived transgressors, or the haste with which punishments were doled out, but the inherent contradiction of the whole find/shame/banish exercise, which was supposed to be about bettering individuals’ social awareness, but left no space for betterment. “Wokeness” is about recognizing racial (and other) privilege, about understanding our own inherent biases, and about acknowledging the structural barriers that disproportionately affect some people more than others. The whole idea is that through learning and growth, we can make a better, fairer society.
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But Woke 1.0 made no allowance for growth – neither past nor present. People were defined by singular statements or actions, flattened into one-dimensional caricatures of themselves. Those who transgressed from accepted dogma were booted from their jobs immediately, without time to actually understand why “reverse racism” could be considered a regressive concept. And those who were fired for historical wrongs were made to wear and serve penance for past indiscretions, even if they could demonstrate they were no longer that person.
Indeed, the moment was all about unlearning prejudices (which is why every company suddenly seemed to have a DEI czar onboard), but no one cared to listen if someone claimed to have already unlearned their prejudices.
Mr. Bell has asked the Trail Blazers to reconsider his termination, saying through his lawyer that he has “owned” what he did, “without excuses.”
“What he is asking,” his lawyer’s letter continued, “is whether a boy’s words from 14 years ago should outweigh everything the man has done since. If that is the standard, there is hardly a person in any organization in America who could meet it.”
Perhaps if Mr. Bell had stolen a car in his youth, his offence would be more readily forgiven. Fifteen-year-olds do dumb things, after all. But because his offence was cultural, he’s being made to wear it, even 14 years on. That, in a word, is crazy.