NEW YORK, NY May 17 (DPI) – Michelle Goldberg, a reliably left-of-center columnist for The New York Times, penned an op-ed declaring that “wokeness is dying” and “we might miss it.” The column, in 12 brief paragraphs, reacts to the premise of a recent book by a former NYT peer, Nellie Bowles, who claims that the woke orthodoxy is fading because the woke revolution has been won.

Most readers, though, commented that America’s dive into neo-Marxist illiberalism can’t be buried fast enough, no matter how well intentioned its beginnings. And most too disputed that Woke orthodoxy – tribalism, forced outcomes and the abandonment of standards and merit – has successfully revolutionized society, especially in the way America educates young people.

The most popular comments – note the second comment, by a teacher, on the impact is woke orthodoxy in the American classroom.

I don’t know the future of DEI but for so long, I supported it. I didn’t mind the pronouns, I have always thought we need more women in leadership positions, I read some of the racism books and agreed. But it’s tough to be a DEI ally these days. Pronoun folks began to insist that I call myself non-binary and cis male and correct me when I didn’t. Diversity never seemed to include very many males of any race. And I was born racist, genetically privileged at birth, so there was literally nothing I could do except feel shame. I chose Plan B which was to walk away and have felt better ever since.

I’m a public high school teacher. I just went through something like 80 hours of work, after hours, trying to interpret the 40something pages of “standards” from HR for my performance review. The last, a new standard is over 8 pages long, in tiny print, in a 4 column matrix, about “culturally responsive pedagogy.” It’s a ginormous word salad of meaninglessness, that I am nonetheless evaluated on, and for which I have to find “evidence” of in my teaching. Meanwhile, we are graduating kids from my high school who cannot read, and teachers are still quitting in large numbers because of exhaustion and disgust with the degradation of our schools. This woke garbage has cultivated educational malpractice writ large and can’t die fast enough in my eyes. It is absolutely toxic.

One can be anti-Trump without being woke or a New Progressive. In fact, the chances of preventing another Trump term would be greatly enhanced if wokeness/New Progressivism were formally retired by all. I hope it’s not too late.

If true this is fantastic news. And the sooner the better. Better to focus on merit, respect, accountability and decency than grievance, plunder m, resentment and envy which is all that woke politics ever offered anyone.

I have almost stopped listening to NPR and its local affiliate, WNYC. The programming is now non-stop DEI. I am as liberal as they come, and heartily support DEI causes, but they both have gone way overboard in their effort to prove their wokeness. It’s getting so that I can predict, as soon as I turn the radio on, what the current issue will be. Of course there’s a backlash; the pendulum always swings the other way after it hits the peak on one side. The key is to make your case without the risk of losing all your momentum when the inevitable happens and the pendulum swings back.

Teaching children of one race that they are responsible for the perceived sins of the past,while telling other children that they have been harmed by the forebears of that race was and is just plain abusive of both groups. Children don’t know racism unless and until it is taught to them. Wokeism separates and divides them teaching division and distrust. Please leave the children out of this.

This movement was not about the “enormous societal energy to tackle long-festering inequalities” as Goldberg contends. Most progressives ignored inequality and instead focused on identity politics. The intense emphasis on pronouns and microaggressions, for example, did nothing to address economic inequality in this country.