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During my time on the school board, I got used to being called names on social media. People who didn’t know me at all decided that I was dishonest, greedy, dumb, power-hungry, out of my depth, unfeeling, callous, naïve, and lazy. I was labeled a crook, a turncoat, and these favorites: “a yes-man,” “a good old boy,” “just a teacher,” and “a pocket-lining millionaire.” Huh?

(Now, I’m no angel. I definitely got snippy from time to time in board meetings, especially when as chair I had to enforce decorum when it came to public comment. A leader/ elected official knows that you must be firm and push back when the occasion demands, or you’ll lose control of a situation or allow false information to go unchecked.)

There’s one word I’ve been called (in a derogatory way) that always confused me a little: “woke.” It’s become a pejorative in recent political campaigns, but when I’ve pondered the word I’ve wondered what’s so terrible about it. So I set out to learn more.

Linguists tend to agree on the time when “woke” was used figuratively and soon adopted into Black culture, although the literal definition “roused from sleep,” is certainly related. In the1938 song “Scottsboro Boys,” Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly) sang that young Black men, when traveling through unfriendly territory, should “stay woke, keep their eyes open.” (If you don’t know the case of the Scottsboro Boys, it’s a despicable example of racist Southern “justice” during the Jim Crow era.) So, in this earliest iteration of the word as an adjective, it meant to be aware, to be highly in tune with your surroundings, to understand what you’re up against.

In this century, during the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements, “woke” began to have broader societal implications. People who sympathized with victims of violence and injustice considered themselves to be conscious of and troubled by social injustice and discrimination. As time went on, these people began to be condemned for being overly politically correct bleeding-heart liberals and cripplingly sensitive softies. We’re now being told that “wokeness” is an insidious progressive virus that we must fight in order to avoid dangerous pitfalls into Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs and LGBTQ rights.

However, I’ve also recently heard this definition: Being “woke” is simply being empathetic to others’ struggles, being alert to obstacles to fairness and human rights, seeing beyond our own comfortable lives, being hopeful for a day when we can “all just get along.” And what exactly is wrong with that, I wonder? Does being this kind of woke mean that we’re crybabies, pushovers, mindless sheep, or too forgiving and too tolerant when tough love is called for? I don’t see how that necessarily follows.

You may have noticed that I wrote “OVERLY politically correct” earlier. I don’t think we need to tiptoe in fear around other people’s beliefs, but I do believe that we should be sensitive to others’ feelings (there’s that Golden Rule again), and if that means modifying our language a bit, then so be it. But don’t accuse me of participating in a war on Christmas if I say Happy Holidays to someone.

How is it possible that sympathy and compassion have gotten a bad rap in today’s cultural and political wars? In a movie I watched recently, a fictional senator told a petitioner that he couldn’t help him with a cause because his constituents care more about “me” than “we.” I think that’s true of a lot of people nowadays, and I find that mindset sad and frightening.

I think I can safely describe some significantly bright lights as “woke.” How about Oskar Schindler? Mother Teresa? Jesus?

So, yeah, I hope to be known as fair, aware, kind, sensitive, patient, and loving. Go ahead and call me “woke” if you want. I’ll consider it a compliment.