by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
First, let me some things out of the way. I’m drunk as I write this and so I’m venturing into something potentially extremely controversial because I feel like being a bit more frisky than normal. And, in this specific case I’m using a very narrow definition of “woke.”
So, I’m not attacking the #MeToo movement or anything like that. And I’m a CIS white man and shouldn’t even be talking about this. I know. I get it. But, as will become clear, there’s a specific reason for all of this to begin with.
Ok, what prompts this post is something I saw on Tik-Tok. A gorgeous young woman was complaining about the cancelation of The Victoria’s Secret Show and how she still had dreams of walking it one day. This got me thinking about how wokeness is, in a way, limiting women’s choices by not giving them the option to, say, to walk the Victoria Secret runway if such a thing is potentially an option for them.
And, let me be clear — I know about how problematic the ownership of Victoria Secret is and I know about how Fenty is, in a way, replacing Victoria Secret and working within the context of the “woke agenda.”
Ok, Ok. I get it.
I guess what I’m really bemoaning is how it seems that to be woke, by definition means to no longer believe there is any cultural center where traditional things like, say, a beauty pageant or the Victoria Secret runway show simply have no place in the world.
This is relevant because if you actively allow identity politics to deconstruct the “center” you are fueling the rage of the very people the “woke cancel culture mob” hates the most — the MAGA New Right. If there was any way for us to square the circle and say, “Yes, you can have a Victoria Secret runway show in the post woke era, if that’s something you’re interested in” then a lot of Traditionalists who are now all-in with MAGA might at least think about moderating their stance a little bit.
It just seems to this middle age CIS white male — who should be rarely be seen and never heard — that the reason why there is something of a crisis going on in the Western world at the moment is you’re limiting what women can do in the name of being woke. If you’re a hot, young woman, then walking the Victoria Secret runway is something you dream about, something you really want to do.
You shouldn’t take that away from her in the name of “wokeness.”
But, of course, that’s exactly what’s happening. We’ve entered a new era where there is no “center” in pop culture anymore and the United States is careening towards a very, very, very dark fate where there are only two options: autocracy or civil war.
Good luck.
