‘Anti-Woke’ Author Who Can’t Define ‘Woke’ Goes Viral

The word “woke” is thrown around absurdly often, from college campuses and M&M candies, to Silicon Valley Bank, but what does it actually mean?

During an interview on The Hill’s online program Rising, conservative author Bethany Mandel became visibly flustered after co-host Briahna Joy Gray asked her to define the word “woke.”

Mandel was promoting her new book, “Stolen Youth,” which proposes that the youth of today are being ideologically poisoned with leftist theories about race and gender. According to Mandel, she and co-writer Karol Markowicz spent an entire chapter defining what “woke” means. Despite all of that research, Mandel wasn’t able to define the word.

Mandel, discussing America’s education system, claimed that it had undergone “a woke re-imagining that is very, very, far-left,” and stated that “only 7% of Americans consider themselves very liberal, and probably fewer of them consider themselves woke.”

Gray then asked: “What does that mean to you? Would you mind defining woke? It’s come up a couple of times. I just want to make sure we’re on the same page.”

Mandel seemed stunned by the simple question, stammering: “So, I mean, woke is sort of the idea that … um …” After a few seconds of silence, Mandel predicted: “This is going to be one of those moments that goes viral.”

To her credit, Gray allowed Mandel to sit with the question, waiting patiently for a coherent answer from her uncomfortable guest. Mandel continued to struggle, saying: “woke is something that’s very hard to define, and we’ve spent an entire chapter defining it. It is, sort of, the understanding that we need to totally reimagine and reduce society in order to create hierarchies of oppression. Umm. Sorry, I … it’s hard to explain in a 15-second soundbite.”

Gray then assured Mandel that she could take her time.

Fortunately for Mandel, Grey’s co-host, Robby Soave, jumped in to save her, and offered a definition of “woke” that many would recognize, defining it as “the tendency to punish people formally or often informally for expressing ideas using language that is very new, that no one would have objected to like five seconds ago.”

After Soave’s interjection, the interview continued to spiral, as Grey turned her attention to one of Mandel’s examples of supposed educational indoctrination, revealing it to be an anecdotal tweet that Mandel had seemingly misconstrued.

The tweet relays the story of a five year-old girl who tells her teacher that “she likes girls,” and the teacher responds by saying “that’s ok.” Mandel retweeted the anecdote with the caption: “Make talking about sexuality with young children weird again.”

When questioned by Grey, who pointed out that there didn’t seem to be any mention of sex in the exchange, simply an acknowledgement that lesbians exist, Mandel made a vague allusion to parents’ frustrated by “constant messaging” from schools, and suffering “death by a thousand cuts.”

Without citing an example, Mandel repeated that there was “constant, constant messaging about sexuality,” and clarified that she wasn’t advocating against teaching children that LGBT parents exist.

As per Mandel’s prediction, her clip from the interview went viral.

Twitter users cited the interview as an example of how the word “woke” is used less as a description, and more of a signal, that could potentially contain extremely racist implications.

Some users helpfully provided a definition of the word, pointing out that once articulated, the word takes on an overtly positive meaning.

Many pointed out that the word was originally coined by the Black community to signal social awareness, and had been tainted by conservatives.

Mandel, rather bravely, logged onto Twitter for some damage control, claiming that Grey had been “demeaning parenting in general in colorful and nasty terms” before the interview started and that Grey’s comments threw her off.

Mandel then took another shot at the question, and defined “woke” as: “A radical belief system suggesting that our institutions are built around discrimination, and claiming that all disparity is a result of that discrimination. It seeks a radical redefinition of society in which equality of group result is the endpoint, enforced by an angry mob.”

Note the strategic use of the word “all,” and the phrase “angry mob.”

Mendal’s disastrous interview inspired other conservatives to try and define the word, which led to a range of interpretations.

The whole debacle seems to illustrate that right-wingers are fighting a losing battle, growing increasingly incoherent in their efforts to smear social justice as a form of tyranny.

Indeed, a recent poll found that a majority of Americans view the word “woke” positively, and understand it to mean being “informed, educated on, and aware of social injustices.”

However you define “woke,” simply using the word unironically, in its current context, says a lot.