Until this week, few people outside the world of fútbol (soccer), knew of Edinson Cavani, the Uruguayan forward, who until now, was best known for moving to Manchester United from Paris St. Germain. Yesterday, he posted a comment on social media that immediately drew scorn from sleep wokers (I define “sleep wokers” as partisans of wokeism whose passion and righteousness sometimes blinds them to what is right before their very eyes) around the world. In a 2019 article for Medium.com Joe Duncan defined this new movement in these terms:
“Wokeism is the religification of social justice, a bastardization that pollutes original messages of those legitimate social grievances that it consumes as they become hijacked by decentralized players who are more concerned with inflicting harm, shaming, and celebrating together, rather than righting the very grave wrongs of social institutions. It’s the conspiracy-theory arm of the so-called “left” quite often, a term I refuse to use to this particular group of people because their message is so vehemently anti-left on a predictable basis. The point of wokeism is to attack an out-group, it’s never to correct an error, and rarely to criticize the more dangerous elements of society that lead to those errors, namely infinite-growth capitalism. Outrage for outrage’s sake wants to inflict pain, not acquire justice.”
We may disagree with the most precise definition for wokeism, but we cannot deny the impact it has had. It has been said that wokeism has evolved from critical theory, but the present form of this movement eschews any form of constructive debate or criticism. If finds reprehensible the mere notion of considering context or culture in its attacks against alleged perpetrators of 21st century social mores.
Cavani comes from a Latin American culture where interactions between friends center round terms of endearment or affection. It is not rare to call a white friend “negrito” or a heavy-set colleague “flaco”. Irony is part of the friendly interaction in Latin American in a way that no longer exists in the US. Having lived in Cuba for seven years, I am used to this. I was often called by my Cuban friends “mi negro”. I never felt offended, but rather honored that I was considered to be part of the individual’s circle of close friends. In the case of Cavani, he is being judged and condemned by people who are not attuned to these cultural nuances. Oftentimes these keyboard warriors take their shots behind the shields of their social media anonymity and that is a shame. Cavani is not even afforded an opportunity to defend himself against the sleep wokers who have assailed him in such a vicious fashion. It never occurred to them to consider the context or the culture that it was made in.
Racism and wokeism are two sides of the same coin. Both represent the extreme sides of human behaviour and attitude. As international educators we must work hard to build and maintain a middle ground.