Wake Up!
- Tim Lambert
- Apr 7
- 2 min read
This week I have proudly been promoting woke. in the words of Janefonda at the recent SAG Awards, "hashtag#Woke just means you give a damn about people".
There are people who fear wokeness, but it requires them to address social injustice and show compassion. They see that as weakness when in fact it takes both courage and strength. Standing up to bullies, rooting out harassment and discrimination isn't for the faint hearted, but it is an essential human activity.
I was running a workshop on hashtag#DignityatWork for one of my clients this week. They are an historic institution and also have staff who have worked there for nearly forty years. One key message I sought to convey was that age cannot be used as an excuse for prejudicial behaviour and harassment. I describe myself as an older white British male. I lived through the 60's, 70's, 80's, and 90's where behaviour and attitudes we now openly describe as offensive and intolerable were tolerated. That doesn't mean they were right then, just that we were not awake to the harm they did or chose to ignore it. And as an older white British male, I have had to educate myself, and learn what is right and wrong in my dealings with people of all kinds. Choosing not to educate ourselves is tantamount to saying, 'I don't care about you, or the harm I might inflict in you.' That's pathological, surely.
According to the OED (Oxford English Dictionary), 'woke' is the past tense of 'wake'. Being anti-woke means you are asleep, prepared to turn a blind eye to hate and extreme prejudice. History shows us what happens when people walk blindly down that path.
At its heart, hashtag#Equality, hashtag#Diversity, hashtag#Equity and hashtag#Inclusion is simply about caring. Do I give a damn about people? Do I care about the people around me and how I might make them feel? And, am I awake to the terrible possibilities that might occur when I stop caring?
If you would like to talk to me about working with your organisation on this and other areas of development, please get in touch.
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