The Week in Woke: There’s an app for that
When you find yourself in the depths of privileged despair, you can turn to Google for woke answers.
1. Thou shalt not say “surge” whilst reporting on the border surge
The news isn’t supposed to be all fuzzy-wuzzy and leave you feeling all warm and gooey on the inside. Reporters are to present the news in fact only.
However, that is not the position of the Associated Press, the alleged “gold standard” when it comes to dictating journalistic style. The AP has released an addendum to their Stylebook that instructs reporters to refrain from using the word “surge” when reporting on the border crisis. Actually, reporters shouldn’t use the word “crisis,” either.
AP instructs staff not to say ‘surge’ when talking about surge of immigrants at the border
2. Thou must be woke, even when it is cost-prohibitive
When an independent commission recommends and supports the removal of a statue on your college campus, you’d damn well better do it and fast.
Oriel College, Oxford has declared that even though it had planned to tear down Cecil Rhodes’ statue, there are legal and financial hurdles that may be impossible.
Pish tosh to processes and regulations, say activists. Being woke means taking drastic, unnecessary action without making any apologies.
Oxford college criticised for refusal to remove Cecil Rhodes statue
3. We can be woke, too
My personal favorite story of the week comes to us from the Twitterverse.
In a genius turning-of-the-tables, Dr. Willie J. Montague, candidate for U.S. Congress in Florida’s 10th Congressional District, is applying the rules of neo-pronouns to his opposition of vaccination for COVID-19.
I, too, am a transvaxxite.
4. If thou art white, thou canst have been victimized
A two-decade professor at St. John’s University was allegedly fired for reading a Mark Twain story verbatim.
Hannah Berliner Fischthal explained to her class she was going to read the n-word as Samuel Clemens had written it in his novel “Pudd’nhead Wilson,” published in 1894, because it was historically authentic to the story’s setting.
One student left the virtual classroom and emailed Fischthal, explaining how her use of the word was hurtful and offensive.
Fischthal (a daughter of Holocaust survivors) tried to engage in a dialogue with the students, explaining her family also suffered discrimination and torture. This was to no avail, as she is no longer employed by the university.
St. John’s professor allegedly fired for reading racial slur from Mark Twain book
5. Thou shalt call on thy Lord Google for woke help
When you find yourself in the depths of privileged despair, you can turn to Google for woke answers.
Google’s Smart Canvas, a new feature to be used across several of the tech giant’s platforms, will begin to suggest alternate words and sentence structures for its users.
For instance, typing the word “chairman” would trigger a prompt from Smart Canvas suggesting you substitute “chairperson.”
The new feature not only promotes the use of gender-neutral terminology, it will also keep an eye out for any ableist words like “crazy” or “crippling.”
New Google Docs feature to prompt users to use more gender-neutral language
[simplecast-embed error="Could not get iframe html"]The Week in Woke is a feature presented by The Howie Carr Show’s executive producer, Taylor Cormier. The Week in Woke can be heard every Thursday at 5:30 PM on The Howie Carr Show.
