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Pat Wagner's avatar

Thank you. You reminded me of the concept of "concrete thinking," meaning those people who tend to see the world in black and white terms. The nuances of life can be lost to them. And they tend to aggregate information, so that they interpret the world as "All [fill in the blanks] are [fill in the blanks].

When it comes to people caring about their personal history and how it affects the larger community, the concrete thinker might paste the pejorative label "woke" on everything and anything connected with one cohort: one gender, one ethnicity, one sexual orientation, etc. It's as if there is a finite amount of happiness and gratitude in the world, and if one specific group celebrates, it takes away from the larger group's happiness.

Me? I want lots of celebrations. And I think celebrations for specific events and such just add; they don't diminish.

We have an amazing Greek festival here in Denver with amazing food, a great Juneteenth festival, and one of the best Pride festivals in the country. I am not of Greek heritage, African-American, nor a lesbian. But I still like people being happy.

My favorite holiday is the 4th of July. Despite our country's serious flaws and mistakes, I am very grateful that my mother, grandmother, grandfather, and great-grandparents ended up in the United States. The 4th is my Thanksgiving Day. (With ice cream and pie) And because of that gratitude, I have hoped to work to make things better for everyone.

Finally, I can separate out my appreciation for a celebration versus my grumpy irritation with the political and financial issues around the declaration of a Federal holiday. I like important issues being recognized, but I am always a mite skeptical about the purity of intent around the government declaring that one celebration is more important than another. So this group is more worthy of getting to close the banks and post office?

As Jake points out, we should all be celebrating the successes, even if they aren't perfect, and share with our neighbors' joy.

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Brian's avatar

I'd argue that the 1860s actually were a time period known for woke politics. Woke means being awake to systemic injustices (generally racism), and the Civil War woke lots of people.

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