Woke is now Dog Whistle for Black

"There’s “urban” of course. And urban’s cousin “inner-city.”

And then there’s “at-risk,” “underserved” and “fatherless” if talking about black children. “Marginalized,” “low-income” and “welfare-dependent” if talking about the parents of those children.

Blacks live in “Democratic strongholds” like “Chicago,” but are also “socialists” and “low-information voters” taught “critical race theory” by “Marxists” to be “anti-American.”Black neighborhoods are “sketchy” and “depressed” “ghettos” filled with “thugs” and “transient” “Section 8” “renters” employable only through “affirmative action” “diversity” “quotas.” If blacks choose to play a sport, they are “naturally gifted,” “ungrateful,” “intimidating” and somehow both “aggressive” and “lazy.”

The newest addition to this glossary is CRT. You have Black teachers, Black administrators or Black school board members? That’s CRT. Black authors in your curriculum? CRT. You happen to teach a version of American history that doesn’t capitulate to the concept of American exceptionalism? CRT. Soon, CRT will be given sentience. It’ll be blamed for sham robberies, phantom murders and the NCAA’s transfer portal. Cops will stop and frisk CRT, and will plant guns on it when the search is clean. Parents will take their children out of schools, fearing that CRT will ask their daughters to the prom.

Absurd as this might seem, there’s an insidious intentionality behind it. The White anxiety about this obscure legal terminology was mostly invented and exacerbated by Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist who (rightly) thought that creating a CRT boogeyman was an effective way to galvanize White parents by putting a name to their fear of the decentering of Whiteness in America. Continents have formed in less time than it would take for that decentering to happen, but things like “time” and “reality” don’t seem to matter to the White parents distraught about Nikole Hannah-Jones.

Today, “woke” is mostly used by the right to signify the presence of Black people (or women) where they didn’t expect them to be. The NFL is 60 percent Black? Not woke. An NFL team hires a Black coach? Wokeness gone wild. A Black Little Mermaid? They took all the water out of the sea and replaced it with liquid, um, woke-ter. Fantasy franchise spin-offs “House of Dragon” and “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” are now “woke,” because apparently elves, hobbits and fire-breathing dragons are more believable than Black people in Middle-earth.

The dog whistle glossary updates every five years or so. Words are retired — when was the last time you heard “ghetto”? — to make room for others. New contenders emerge each year. Anti-Blackness is limitless, so the pool of candidates to indicate the presence of Black people is bottomless.

Usually not a fan of franchise reboots, but maybe go back to the source material, where racists don’t have to twist themselves into bigoted little knots. Just say n----r with your chest."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/09/26/damon-young-woke-is-now-dog-whistle-black-whats-next/