Who You Calling 'Woke,' Motherfucker?

 On October 31, 2024 I posted a blog titled, “Chandler's Misogyny and The Little Sister.” On June 27, 2026, the heroically named Anonymous posted the following comment (I guess he’s a slow reader, as he is clearly not a deep thinker):                                    

 "Full disclosure: I am not what anyone would consider woke." Yeah, I could tell you were totally not woke when you wrote and published a long essay about Raymond Chandler's enduring and beloved detective mysteries and how appalled you are by their misogyny. Nothing screams "Not woke" to me than a long digressive essay judging an author from the 1940s through a contemporary feminist lens. Maybe you could further establish your "not woke" bona fides by examining Hammett's shocking inability to platform black voices in his work.

 My reply:

 Your courage is admirable. Anyone with an opinion I'd be inclined to consider would have left his name. And, yeah, I can tell you’re a guy, which only embarrasses me; you're beyond such self-examination.

 Thanks for giving me the idea for another blog post, dickhead.

This is the promised blog post.

 People who know me well will attest to the fact that, while I try to treat all people the way I’d like to be treated, I am not by any means ‘woke.’ The Beloved Spouse™ has an abstract object she calls ‘The Box,’ into which she insists I place some of my comments in the hope no one but her will ever hear them. As was Chandler, I am a product of my age, so many things The Sole Heir™ would never dream of saying strike me as innocuous.

 And sometimes I say shit just for effect. Sue me.

 I’m making a few points here:

1. There is a goodly distance between being woke and being an asshole. Context matters. Standing up for women/racial minority/LGBTQIA+/etc. rights is not woke; it’s doing the right thing. I’m proud to stand up for them, which doesn’t mean I accept their agendas without modification. I’ve had many disagreements with members of all these communities over the years. Sometimes it’s because I’m behind the times; I am, after all, seventy years old. Sometimes I’m an insensitive prick. There are occasions when I genuinely disagree with something they want, or how they want to accomplish it. There are also times my agreement is insufficient (to them), or not in the manner they want me to express it. To someone who is truly woke, that disqualifies me.
2. The fact that Chandler is a product of his times doesn’t mean he’s not a misogynist. He lived in misogynistic times. The laws, as well as social mores, were discriminatory toward women. (And just about everyone else who wasn’t a straight, white male.)
3. Papering over past inequities does not make this a better world. While The Little Sister exposes the misogyny of the times, I would never advocate for changing a word. No one is more strongly opposed to sanitizing the works of Mark Twain by removing the word nigger from his writing. We need literature that accurately describes the vernacular of its time so we can see what progress has been made. Or not.

I feel safe in assuming Anonymous is a white male, almost certainly straight (at best a self-loathing homosexual), as my peers, alas, are the only demographic that says things like this. So, and I’m speaking directly to Anonymous, you ofay, cracker, GED-aspiring-to, latent pedophile: You don’t have to ask if someone is woke any more than you have to ask if a person is vegan; you couldn’t stop them from telling you if you tried.

 Feel free to comment, especially to clarify what the fuck you mean by Hammett's shocking inability to platform black voices. Put your name on it, though. If you’re afraid to use your real name, “Pussy” will do. (With apologies to what may be my favorite part of the female anatomy.)