What AOC gets right – and wrong – about ‘Woke 1.0’ | Francine Prose

Recent comments by AOC have reignited a fiery debate about ‘wokeism’.

But what are we really talking about?

Full confession: I am one of those who have come to think that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can essentially do no wrong.

At times when I most fear for the future of our country, I watch her videos and am consoled and cheered by her clarity, her honesty, her intelligence, her simple common sense.

So I was a little surprised to hear that on a recent interview on ABC This Week, she quoted a political ally as having remarked: “Woke 1.0 was crazy.”

What surprised me was not that she called for some moderation of the radical positions – the call to defund the police and the military, for example – that have, at times, been an aspect of progressive politics.

But I was frankly a little unnerved to hear her use the word “woke”.

Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Her latest book is Five Weeks in the Country