I don’t usually play requests, but when 805 people clamour for the same song, what is a guy to do? It all started last week when News24’s Editor-in-Chief Adriaan Basson wrote a column titled ‘Dear White People’. After I had finished gagging, I tweeted that you would have to be a very particular kind of smug, sanctimonious prat (actually I used another word) to do something like that.
I received over 50 replies, most in agreement, and the tweet was retweeted 100 times, which suggests that it resonated with a significant number of people. Shortly after, a fellow member of the ‘twitterati’ (you see what fun you’re missing, Helen?) ran a poll asking people to vote as to whether they would rather read a piece by Basson titled ‘Dear White People’ or a piece yet to be written by me titled ‘Dear Woke People’. Modesty would normally forbid me from bragging, but it was a landslide victory, with poor little Adriaan only getting 8% of the vote and the other 92% voting in favour of Woke over White. So, here it is, for all those of you who don’t feel the need to be told what you can or cannot think or say by Mr Basson.
Dear Woke People …
Honestly, how on earth do you expect the rest of us to take you seriously? You behave like spoilt five year olds who keep screaming until Mommy buys you a sweetie. And then, when the sweetie is finished, you start screaming again for something else and the only communication you seem to understand is to scream and scream and stamp your petulant little feet until you get your way. You truly are the ‘diddums’ generation.
What most of us don’t get is what you actually stand for or believe in. Sure, we know that you regard yourselves as a breed apart from common humanity and therefore deserving of special attention. Presumably that’s why you embrace victimhood so enthusiastically. If you weren’t becoming outraged or feeling persecuted as a minority every day, I’m guessing there would be very little to live for.
Let’s talk about sexuality …
If you couldn’t label anyone who disagrees with your world view a racist, a bigot, a member of the alt-right, a homophobe, an Islamaphobe, a misogynist, a transphobe etc etc, you wouldn’t have much to look forward to, would you? Other than a vegan wrap.
So let’s talk about sexuality, because that does seem to be a major issue with you. Normal people don’t feel the need to tell complete strangers what they do in the bedroom, but you lot can’t wait to tell us all that you’re gay or bi or transitioning. The implication is that your lifestyle choice is so much better than all those boring old baby-popping, bourgeois heterosexuals out there. Which is why you feel persecuted, isn’t it? But the reality is that this is not the 1960s. Times have changed and the majority of society is quite accepting of other people’s sexual preferences … although some of us are still trying to come to terms with the idea of women with penises. Ooops….that sounds a bit like trans-phobia. Better call the hate-speech police. If you really want to fight for LGBTQI+ rights, why don’t you become activists in a country that tosses homosexuals off tall buildings or sets fire to them? We know the answer to that one, don’t we.
But what we love most about you WOKERS (is that your collective noun?) is that you all fancy yourself as activists. You can sniff out social injustice at 500 metres and heaven forbid if someone Tweets, says, or writes something you don’t approve of. That’s what you lot euphemistically call ‘problematic’ and is a sign for the baying WOKE cyber-bully mob to swing into action. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. First thing is to take a comment out of context then blow it out of all proportion on social media. Helen Zille, anyone? Then it’s a demand to de-platform someone and prevent them from expressing their opinions. Not that you would know what their opinions are, because you’ve prevented them from expressing them. Then, with a bit of luck, you can demand that they be sacked from any jobs they may have and be publicly humiliated. This, apparently, is the equivalent of a multiple orgasm for WOKE activists.
Smug and sanctimonious
You must have all felt so very smug and sanctimonious when you got Helen Zille ‘deplatformed’ from the Franschhoek Literary Festival two years ago after her very pertinent Singapore observations. It was a close thing though, I know. There was Helen with a best-selling book and an eager audience anticipating her speech – so you had to swing into action to get her banned at the eleventh hour and the invertebrate organisers of the festival seemed happy to oblige. No, that’s being unfair to the invertebrate organisers. Anybody threatened with a WOKE cyber-bully mob would have to do as they are damn well told, wouldn’t they? That, after all, is the essence of fascism.
And what about those hashtags? WOKERS wouldn’t know what to do without their hashtags. They are a signal to the rest of the tribe that you belong and care deeply, so very deeply, about things that really matter. So, as soon as old Harvey Weinstein started to fall foul of the law, you all suddenly remembered that you too had been sexually abused, if not by Harvey himself, by some other toxic male whose name escapes you for the moment. #metoo became your mantra, hotly pursued by #menaretrash or, if your tiny brain can’t quite grasp the issue at hand, then #notinmyname will always do.
Fed up
Well, WOKERS, here’s the bad news. Try as you may, you’re not going to shut down free speech. You may have colonized the mainstream media, but all that’s done is to call into question their credibility. Daniel Friedman was finally sent packing in disgrace from The Citizen and Nickolaus Bauer will forever be remembered as the man who faked a news story about the old SA flag. Adriaan Basson may think his readers are morons who need to be told what to think, but the reality is that the mainstream media are fast becoming regarded as a click-bait chasing joke. Thanks to the internet we have a wide range of alternatives to the fish-wrap of yesteryear. Whether it’s in the USA, the UK, Australia or South Africa, people are becoming increasingly fed up with a minority of small-minded, bitter, puritanical virtue signallers telling the rest of us what we are allowed to say and think. The fightback has begun.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
If you like what you have just read, become a Friend of the IRR if you aren’t already one by SMSing your name to 32823 or clicking here. Each SMS costs R1. Terms & Conditions Apply.