We can’t let the anti-woke movement go too far
As someone who has found herself the target of many a cancel culture attempt, becoming my own boss was exhilarating.
I dove headlong into the anti-woke movement: a growing phenomenon aimed at rejecting the uber sensitivity that has come to define our national discourse.
“My Twitter trolls don’t know what to do anymore since I don’t have a boss and can’t be cancelled,” I tweeted last week. “It’s delightful.”
No more worrying about losing my corporate news job at the whim of an angry social media mob, I told myself. I’m free to say what’s on my mind and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it.
And then that pesky little voice reared its head: my damn conscience.
Last week, basking in my newfound freedom, I tweeted something I now feel truly shitty about.
On April 12, a video went viral showing a car on fire in Seattle. The camera panned over to a man, pants around his ankles, who appeared to be peeing on himself as he watched the flames. The 45-second video was retweeted more than 3,000 times, with many of the comments making fun of him.
I joined in.
“Could have put that thing to use and put out the fire,” I tweeted. I even sent out a GIF making fun of the man’s penis size.
Having covered Seattle’s drug and mental health crises for a decade I should have known better. I should have considered that the man was not well. I should have prioritized empathy.
If only.
It turns out that the SUV engulfed in flames belonged to the man, according to The Post Millennial. He poured gas all over it, and all over himself, before lighting it on fire. When Seattle Police Department officers arrived, a 4-inch knife was still lodged in his neck from a self-inflicted stab wound.
Suddenly my tweet wasn’t so funny. It was sickening. But it was too late to take it back. It had already reached 176,000 Twitter users, according to the platform’s analytics.
As I sat and contemplated what a complete ass I felt like, I realized something: Just because I’m not afraid of Twitter mobs anymore, doesn’t mean I have to abdicate my ethics.
As the anti-woke movement grows, so does the personal responsibility of each of us to police ourselves. Anti-wokeness was never about hurting people. It was never about getting a green light to be assholes on Twitter. It was, and is, about unapologetically rejecting unreasonableness.
The movement fails if we become unreasonable ourselves.
My tweet was heartless, lazy, and inhumane. I apologize. Not because anyone asked me to or because I’m worried about being cancelled. But because sometimes, in a civil society, apologies are necessary.
As someone who has built a brand around encouraging politicians to adopt a moral compass, I ought to own up to it when I betray mine.
I found inspiration in the actions of Washington State Senator Marko Liias, a Democrat who insulted the Democratic governor of Oregon for trying to defend her residents from an ill-advised fuel export tax.
In a radio interview, Liias suggested Governor Kate Brown was a “lame duck” who was “living in fantasy land.”
The next day, much to my surprise, Liias rose on the Senate floor for a point of personal privilege.
“It’s important when I myself use inappropriate and corrosive language to bring that to the body and bring my apologies,” he said.
He ended with a quote from Maya Angelou.
"Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.”
Like Senator Liias, I know better. If I want the anti-woke movement to succeed, I’m obligated to do better.
While I’ve had my share of social media trolls rile their followers up into a rabid mob, Eric Crowl presented a different kind of security concern – one worth taking seriously.
