Who Are You Calling “Woke!?”

Them’s fightin’ words.

     At least some people, particularly politicians, appear to think so. Lianne Rood, a Conservative Member of Parliament for Lambton, Ontario, has been railing against “woke” coffee lids, of all things. She is complaining about the Canadian coffee and doughnut chain, Tim Hortons, that in an effort to become more planet-friendly, is changing from plastic to fibre lids for its take-out coffee. She has Xed (1) about “woke paper lids that dissolve in your mouth” (2) – which does beg the question of what kind of person eats coffee cup lids, but we will leave that for now. “Until Tim Hortons gets rid of this paper lid, I’m done with Tim Hortons,” she has said.

     The lawmaker’s pronouncements make one wonder what has happened to us. How is it that our politicians have ditched the concern that generations of parliamentarians have had for the Canadian value of good governance, and instead have elevated warring about cultural leanings to prominence – along with dissing those who care about the planet and social issues?

     Another Conservative anti-woke warrior, Saskatchewan MP Corey Tochor introduced a private member’s bill in February that would reverse the federal government’s single use plastic ban. He is most concerned about the loss of plastic straws, and in a moment of cleverness, he said: “Soggy, limp, wet and utterly useless: we are not talking about the Liberals. We are talking about paper straws.” Heh, heh, witty that. I hope it got recorded in Hansard, the official parliamentary record, for posterity. It’s a keeper.

     There are many entangled issues here, such as: what is “woke” anyway, what is the job of Members of Parliament, how should they spend their time (should they be eating coffee lids, for example, while on the country’s payroll), and what about the importance of cultural symbols, the environmental crisis, and bad grammar? However, we can only deal with a few of these.

     First, for our American readers, some background on Tim Hortons, since there is no U.S. equivalent. Comparison to Dunkin’ Donuts falls flat (it is now called Dunkin’ in a radical re-branding effort, given that in the age of social media, remembering two words in a row taxes the attention span). Not even close. There is nothing similar in American culture, not even the family bonding ritual of consuming a six-pack of Bud Light while watching football on Thanksgiving day. Tim Hortons is sacred, representing a trinity that includes sacramental doughnuts, coffee, and a deceased hockey hero all in one. At the heart of it – other than a great Canuck staple, doughnuts (its stature matched in Canadian cuisine only by Kraft Dinner) – is the beloved Maple Leaf (and later, Buffalo Sabres) hockey hero, Tim Horton. He died on the Queen Elizabeth Way in February 1974, on his way home from Buffalo, heading to Toronto.

     Tim was driving his exotic De Tomasa Pantera, going so fast that the cop he passed could not be sure of the colour. Rumours at the time were that he had been with a mistress, but no! Not Tim, don’t even say that! In any case, no Canadian hockey heroes ever had mistresses. No, instead he was having a business conference at one a.m. in Hamilton. Perhaps there was consumption of salutary social lubricants at the business meeting. After that, he took to the road, and sadly lost control at well over one hundred miles an hour, was ejected from the car, not wearing a seatbelt. (Hey, it was 1974!) It was too sad and the whole country grieved. (3) Tim was a good guy and we all loved him.

     There you have it, the Canadian Holy Trinity: a dead hockey hero, coffee, and most important, doughnuts, preferably chocolate-glazed. I offer a warning about this. For generations, the U.S. has had, and still has, standing plans for an invasion of Canada (4) – and in fact, during the pandemic, Candace Owens, a supporter of Trump right-wing rowdies, called for the invasion of Canada to stop Prime Minister Trudeau from cracking down on “Convoy” hooligans. (5) But given the importance of doughnuts, I have a warning for the Marines: Don’t get between Canadians and their Timbits. You will regret it, profoundly so. The hand-to-hand combat will be vicious.

     So, then! We have to admit that Ms. Rood exhibits some substantial cojones. To attack Tim’s because of its apparent wokeness, and to say she is done with the brand is unprecedented, radical. It may even be against Canadian law, violating hate-speech statutes. I’m not sure of this, but it is just possible.

But just what is a “woke” coffee lid, anyway?

     Webster’s, at least the online version, defines woke as: “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)” (6) “Stay woke” has been in use since the nineteen-thirties in the African-American community, and the blues singer Lead Belly is reputed to have used the term as early as last mid-century. The word was used to refer to awareness of structural racism that goes beyond individual prejudice, especially in the American South during the Jim Crow era. Use of the term became more common after 2010, particularly within the Black Lives Matter movement. Since then its meaning has widened to include injustice in many forms: to be aware of not only racism, but prejudice and discrimination aimed at many groups, including women, gay people, and people who do not conform to gender expectations, as well as advocates for environmental and climate concerns. Quite simply, although expressed in dodgy grammar, the word refers to consciousness of important societal and civic issues, particularly those of injustice.

     Rapidly there was a backlash, as there always is, when the status of the privileged is challenged. The word quickly became a pejorative. This transformation was an extension of a tactic that the right has been enormously successful in carrying out; that is, co-optation of positive words that call for social change and progress. Now, even hard-core Liberals can be heard denigrating wokeness, as though it implied someone who is fey, superior in attitude, someone who is ridicules, but who nevertheless fascistically wants to impose thinking and beliefs on others. This disdain for woke has spread to Canada and many other countries. A good deal of this has been orchestrated by entrenched powers: for example, fossil fuel interests manufactured a deliberate war on “wokeness” in order to undermine environmentalists. (7) More on that it a bit, but first…

     It is not that “woke” is without problems: questionable grammar, for one. My inner- grammar-child recoils at “woke.” I can feel Miss Scott’s ruler, my second grade teacher at King George School, rapping my knuckles as I say the word. Ouch. “Awakened,” would be more correct in terms of the English language, but it implies that the individual is in a state of Buddhist enlightenment, so that is not quite right. “Awake” would be correct – as in, “she is awake to the reality of structural racism.” But I have to grant that the inventors of the term wanted something unique, something that would stand out, hence: woke. This is similar to the adoption of the term “gay,” by gender-script non-conformists. Although I miss the old usage of gay, I have to accede to them the right to take the term, given how much mistreatment they have had to endure.

     Of course there is another tangential English problem associated with this discussion: namely, Tim “Hortons.” It should be Tim Horton’s, of course, unless there were several hockey players who started different restaurants and who were all called Tim Horton. I don’t understand why we accept this travesty so passively. They could call it Tim Horton, as in Walmart, but since they chose the possessive, there should be an apostrophe, and we ought not tolerate its absence without a fight. It is the same for Lands End and Starbucks, which should be Land’s End (or less sensible, but still correct, Lands’ End) and Starbuck’s. I wrote to Lands End about the issue and received a jokey reply intended to humour me. I was not amused. Even more egregious, from a few years back, was Apple and “Think Different.” Outrageous. Of course, despite the catastrophic loss of the adverb in North American culture, it should have been “Think Differently.” Or, if the monsters at the helm of Apple did want people to think the word “different,” then it would have been “Think: Different.” A simple colon would take care of the problem. But no – the cads said to hell with the decline of civilization – we don’t care! Low.

     The other problem is that woke people can appear superior, intolerant, and downright annoying. What comes to mind is the unfair treatment of J. K. Rowling, who, without rancour or prejudice against trans people, put forth a not-unreasonable position on sex vs. gender. (8)  Another example concerns the invented concept of “cultural appropriation.” For instance, there was the cancellation of yoga classes at the University of Ottawa a number of years back. Some students complained of discomfort due to North American people engaging in a practice that is originally part of the culture of India. Yoga was being “appropriated” by Canadians, the woke students kvetched. (9) What nonsense. There can be misappropriation, as when a fashion house, in a massive exhibition of crass insensitivity, used faux North American Indigenous headdresses in a show. Ugh – tacky and disrespectful. Still, there is really no such thing as cultural appropriation.

     Cultures are not things; nobody owns them. Culture is a process, a way of living, and elements of culture spread or diffuse to other people all the time and there is nothing wrong with that. It would be silly of me to be upset, for example, if a Sherpa mountaineer wore a kilt in the traditional way, without undershorts, during an ascent of Everest, nor should I be perturbed with a Japanese teenager playing the bagpipes, nor an Iranian who chose to wear a Montréal Canadiens’ hockey sweater. So woke people: enough with self-righteous posturing, already.

     But back to the organized war on wokeness. In addition to the think-tank inspired campaigns, such as that noted of the fossil-fuel industry, commercial entities and politicians are jumping on the ant-woke honey wagon. Not for comedic effect, although it would appear that way, there are retail marketers that cater to the denigration of social consciousness. Right wing outlets, such as The Daily Wire, have launched lines of anti-woke products, including vitamins to “reclaim masculinity,” called “Manly Green Vitamin Capsules.” Jeremy’s Razors, Black Rifle Coffee, Ultra Right Beer all follow this line, promoting themselves as antidotes to the “woke mind virus.” The working class staple, Bud Light, almost tanked after using a transgender person in an advert. The Daily Wire advocates that people not “buy your men’s health products from a company that partners with drag queens and supports radical organizations that push gender procedures on children.” (10)

     The cynics of the political world have seized the opportunity also: the aforementioned Ms. Rood, and the Canadian Conservative populist wanna-be, Pierre Poilievre are two. But most notable is the self-declared leader of the anti-woke Brownshirts, Ron DeSantis in the U.S. “Florida is where woke goes to die,” he has famously declared. (11) It would be tempting to ridicule this statement and this man, were the consequences of this not so disheartening and harmful. For example, under his approval, the Florida middle school social studies curriculum and texts discuss how African slaves benefited from slavery by learning new skills! The curriculum makes no mention of who it was that did the enslaving, or slavery’s horrors. Despicable, that.

     But this tells us what is at the root of the antipathy. The most fundamental basis is racism. The foundation of anti-woke is simply good old-fashioned racism dressed up in a brand new suit. We can add to that broader feelings of fear, hate and prejudice toward people who do not conform to society’s gender scripts, toward those who advocate for fairness and justice, and those who care about our fellow creatures and the planet. Couple all that to greed – that is, protection of wealth, especially fossil-fuel wealth – and there you have it.

     So there it is; now we understand what Ms. Rood is getting at. God forbid that Tim Hortons joins the attempt to take on the monstrous problem of plastic pollution, and thus take away our plastic lids and straws. What is next? Giving up incandescent light bulbs, having to drive electrical vehicles, and being forced to see wind turbines on the horizon? Equal and just treatment of all people, regardless of skin colour, or ethnicity, gender, or gender behaviour? Ensuring that all eligible citizens get to vote? Children free of gunfire in their classrooms, safe, happy, and learning in their schools? Living wages? Access to health care? Where will it all end?

     It probably would end in that great dream of the Enlightenment: democracy and decency – things we should be willing to fight for. I hereby declare that I, for one, am willing to fight. In that spirit, keeping in mind our rich and exemplary role-models Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, who challenged each other to an ultimate fighting contest, I demand satisfaction from DeSantis and Poilievre, as a tag-team, to a fight in the octagon. Once I was a martial artist who could kick seven feet in the air (in case I was attacked by a seven-foot opponent, I suppose). Now, at 77, the best I can do is aim for the ankles, but still, I would take them. That famous arc of history that bends toward justice is definitely on my side. And by all means, Lianne Rood can join them: they will still go down. I will wear a robe with a Black Lives Matter  flag on the back, Pride flags imprinted on my gloves, an Extinction Rebellion baseball cap, and my trunks will have WOKE! printed on my arse.

     I urge every Liberal and other people, including true small-c conservatives, to embrace the term and use it with pride. I consider that every college and university sophomore, if not woke, should consider themselves as failing in their work. Let there be Woke Pride.

     After all, who would not want to live with compassion, with understanding of structural injustice, a concern for our planet, and its well-being, with a desire to defend the decency and the dignity of all people and other creatures? Count me in. Please, call me woke!

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1. There is uncertainty as to what to call “tweets,” now that the company is X. Musk as suggested “X’s,” and a completed X would then be “X’ed,” including the incorrect apostrophes. One wag suggested they be called “2 cents,” since that is what the company is worth, post the Musk takeover. Retrieved from: https://mashable.com/article/twitter-x-what-are-tweets-called.
2. Major, Darren. Are Tim Hortons’ new lids ‘woke’? One Conservative MP thinks so. CBC News, May 8, 2024. Retrieved from: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservative- mp-tim-hortons-fibre-lids-1.7199306.
3. 50 years after Tim Horton’s deadly car crash, we clear up one lingering mystery. The Toronto Star, February 17, 2024. Retrieved from: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/50-years-after- tim-hortons-deadly-car-crash-we-clear-up-one-lingering-mystery/article_079468f2-c9d1-11ee-a912-97985739c8f3.html.
4. For example: Lewis, Dan. The 1927 U.S. Plan to Invade Canada. August 26, 2012. Retrieved from: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/12366/1927-us-plan-invade-canada.
5. Porter, Tom. Candace Owens called for the US to invade Canada to stop Justin Trudeau cracking down on trucker protests. Business Insider, February 21, 2022. Retrieved from: https://www.businessinsider.com/candace-owens-wants-us-invade-canada-defend-truckers-trudeau-2022-2?op=1.
6. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved from: https://merriam-webster.com/wordplay/woke-meaning-origin. My old Webster print version, copyright from 1955, simply defines it as the alternative past tense of wake.
7. Noor, Dharna. Rightwing war on ‘woke capitalism’ partly driven by fossil fuel interests and allies: Report shows connections of business and rightwing thinktanks to laws aimed at environmental, social and corporate governance. The Guardian, June 22, 2023. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/22/rightwing-war-on-woke-capitalism-industry- interests.
8. Petter, Olivia. JK Rowling criticised over ‘transphobic’ tweet about menstruation. Independent, June 15, 2020. Retrieved from: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/jk- rowling-tweet-women-menstruate-people-transphobia-twitter-a9552866.html.
9. Foote, Andrew. Yoga class cancelled at University of Ottawa over ‘cultural issues’: “There were some cultural sensitivity issues and people were offended,” says instructor. CBC News, November 22, 2015, Retrieved from: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/university- ottawa-yoga-cultural-sensitivity-1.3330441.
10. Gabbatt, Adam. Poor reviews, missing product: firms’ anti-woke offerings soak consumers: A thriving retail niche caters to the performative masculinity of the right wing, oftentimes bilking its chauvinistic client base. The Guardian, May 11, 2024. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/11/anti-woke-vitamin-economy.
11. Czachor, Emily Mae. “Florida is where woke goes to die,” Gov. Ron DeSantis says after reelection victory. CBS News, November 9, 2022. Retrieved from: https://www.cbsnews.com/ news/ron-desantis-florida-where-woke-goes-to-die-midterm-election-win/.