Yes, Awokening. Because we’re getting “woke”, you see? Or, at least, that’s what the hip, young people say. Or, so I’m told.

You might have heard that Kanye West got himself into a bit of controversy. It started when he rose to the defense of Candace Owens; a black Conservative lady. It wasn’t so much an endorsement of her views so much as just a firm defense of her right to have her views. Kanye got a lot of flack for doing that, and then instead of doing the usual celebrity mealy-mouthed apology, he doubled down by Tweeting out a picture of his MAGA hat, signed by Donald Trump. The meltdown among the social media SJW’s has been epic – and enormously entertaining. But there is a more important issue at stake here. It is about people finally waking up to what is really happening.

I don’t really know Kanye West beyond knowing he’s a rap star, apparently of gigantic proportions. But as my musical tastes stopped being hip by about 1990 or so, I’m just not familiar with his work. It could be the best stuff ever, could be the worst – I just don’t know. His fans love him, and on the level of being a performer, that is the only test he has to meet. Plenty of voices on the right are warning people off from embracing Kanye West – I can’t fully determine if this is based on fears that he isn’t truly Conservative or over distaste for his music. As for me, I suspect Kanye is most emphatically not a Conservative and given what I know of rap, I’m fully prepared to find out that he’s done some songs I’d find objectionable. So, what? This is America and you get to put out whatever you want in music, books, movies, etc. Also, I don’t have to limit myself to alliances with Conservatives. If there’s a non-Conservative out there who wants to do something I agree with, I’m ok with that. The only people I absolutely can’t work with are the SJW types…because they hate me and want me destroyed; so, that makes working with them a little difficult.

Outside of all that, the more important thing here is that Kanye understands that there is a group in America which wants to limit him. They are saying to him that because he is black, he can’t hold certain opinions. Kanye rejects that. So does Candace Owens. So, I think, will more and more African-Americans now that someone with the pop-culture stature of Kanye West has shown it to be possible. That is what is important. Additionally, there are tens of millions of people out there who don’t care too much about politics but are entirely ok with people holding different views about politics…and they are watching the left trying to destroy Kanye because he spoke out of turn and they don’t like it. That is what is going to prove revolutionary.

For the longest time, we on the right have not been able to make a dent in popular culture because hardly anyone – and no one at the top of the heap – has been willing to step out of the prescribed, PC requirements of popular culture. James Woods, for instance, is a great actor and he’s overtly right, but he’s also not a major player in the Hollywood game at this time. Kanye coming out and saying, in essence, “you can be black and have different opinions, and even be friendly with Trump” is as if John Lennon had endorsed Richard Nixon in 1968. The massive pushback against it is an indicator of how gigantic this can be: the left is fearful that African-Americans and other Democrat-heavy voting blocs will now start to re-assess their political allegiance. Remember, if just 20% of the African-American vote were to go GOP, there’d be no chance the Democrats could win in 2018 or 2020. They’d be crushed.

But I think we also have to take a step beyond that. We, too, need our Awokening. Everyone does. Nothing in this country is quite as it should be. The rot has gone very deep. We on our side have let a lot of things slide, as well. Yesterday, I came across a Tweet series from a lady describing the interaction her boyfriend had with the police. Read it, it is horrifying. There are things we are completely right about, but also things we’ve been ignoring, likely because they don’t directly affect us all too often, or at all. But that isn’t good enough. We have to be on guard for all. There are some these days advocating an amicable divorce between the Red and Blue Americas. I won’t have anything to do with such talk. First off, because I won’t consign part of my fellow Americans to the unfettered rule of SJW tyrants; secondly, because economic and strategic reasons compel us to remain together. But they also compel us to build a just society – doing so requires that we remove the left from power and keep them removed. Doing that will require a pretty consistent level of political support north of 55% for an extended period of time…and that means we need a lot more people on our side, and to get them we’re going have to start caring about things we haven’t cared about: as noted at the link, we’ll have to start carrying about the phenomena described as “driving while black”. Sure, a lot of SJW nonsense has been put out under that phrase…but I know POC who say they have run afoul of it. And even if it is hard to quantify, it is there…and we should find out why, and seek to remedy it.

Ultimately, everyone of good will is in this together with us, even if they don’t agree with us on every issue. But everyone who has a sense of fairness; who has a desire for liberty; who doesn’t want anyone running their lives – all such people are our allies. And all of us must band together.