On staying woke

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In a way this is a continuation of the previous post, or maybe a spinoff.

Another great movement  - and by great I'm referring only to the popularity or amount of attention received - of our time would have to be the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Without going into Googledom, and also to allow you room to apply some quality analysis to my ramblings, the BLM movement seeks to bring awareness to racial discrimination against African Americans in this day and age, long after slavery was legally abolished and equality supposedly established.

One of the phrases that has been commonly used in this context is "stay woke", which according to my dictionary means to keep mindful and aware of what is happening around you, not to have the wool pulled over your eyes about the often harsh reality.

Side note: My personal stance is pro-BLM. I have seen others well-meaningly say that All Lives Matter, which as a standalone statement is total truth. However, coining the ALM phrase only in response to BLM, in a cultural context where inequality is undeniable, paints the picture that all our racial struggles are the same, and disregards the suffering and issues that many still face.

Now back to wokeness. In a way, it has become a fad. Sometimes it seems that there are more people talking about staying woke, than there are actually staying woke. And staying woke implies remaining vigilant in your environment, which means there will be changes in situations which may require you to do a self re-evaluation. It means that you will never know everything, and what you may know today may no longer be true tomorrow.

It may not sound like it but I am all for it, and actually try to live in this state, in a manner of speaking.

How?
I suppose it is by trying to apply a healthy amount of skepticism without falling into cynicism. I try to challenge what I have been told and what I know, by asking why.
Also, as part of the process of finding the answers, I consider my own experience as most valuable input where applicable. Obviously, this will depend on the context of the issue, for example I have zero experience of being an African American, but I do have experience of being a victim of racial discrimination.
I try to be mindful of the saying "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing". No matter how knowledgeable and experienced you are in anything, there is always room to learn. There is always an angle unconsidered.

One of the key observations I have made on this long road is that sometimes the biggest mistakes that people have made, either as individuals or as a society, was just to believe a lie. Oh wait, we've been doing that since the beginning of time ...

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