What is woke? It is an adjective of African American vernacular meaning “aware of discrimination,” similar to the general American English word “awake.”

I am a woke person. I want to be aware of history and awake about the world around me. I rode on a ferry from the Maryland Eastern Shore to Virginia Beach that had “whites only” water fountains and seating areas. In a conversation with Wilt Chamberlain and Wayne Hightower of the San Francisco Warriors, they relayed the story to me of a teammate who was traded because the team was starting too many Black players.

I always thought that most everyone believed it was important to be aware of and remember what happened in Germany in the 1930s and ’40s, as well as what happened in this country to African Americans during colonial times, the first years of the United States as well as later.

The mere idea that we wouldn’t teach the next generation about the Holocaust, the Civil War and women’s suffrage and names like Martin Luther King Jr., Harry Belafonte, Amelia Earhart, Jackie Robinson and Susan B. Anthony and what they accomplished just never crossed my mind. Knowing history was a reminder of what was good in the past — as well as what should never happen again.

It is apparent that President Donald Trump and many white Republicans have made attempts to erase a substantial portion of history by limiting the education of the next generation.

This effort is saying: Let’s be ignorant of all history that may reflect badly on white men and indoctrinate the next generation to believe that white men were the only individuals who accomplished anything positive. Let’s erase the written history of slavery, discrimination, lack of women’s suffrage and concentration camps and gas chambers. Let’s ban books that discuss any topics that would shed a bad light on white men. Let’s erase anything bad that would negatively affect white men. That is what the push to eliminate “DEI” and “wokeness” is all about.

Here is an excerpt from an article by the writer and commentator Heather Cox Richardson:

“Today, Erin Alberty of Axios reported that at least ten articles about the Code Talkers have disappeared from U.S. military websites. Broken URLs are now labeled ‘DEI’ an abbreviation for ‘Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.’ Axios found that web pages associated with the Department of Defense have also put DEI labels on now missing pages that honored prominent Black veterans. Similarly missing is information about women who served in the military, including the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II. A profile of Army Major General Charles Rogers, who received the Medal of Honor for his service in Vietnam, was similarly changed, but the Defense Department replaced the missing page and removed ‘DEI’ from the URL today after a public outcry. Media outlets recently noted that the Arlington National Cemetery website had deleted content about Black, female and Hispanic veterans. The erasure of Indigenous, Black, Hispanic and female veterans from our military history is an attempt to elevate white men as the sole actors in our history.”

To my Republican neighbors and friends, I hope that after you think about what “woke” means and what agenda you may be supporting, you will step back and rethink your position on the Trump agenda. Do you really want to eliminate any history that reflects poorly on white American men, or tells stories about the accomplishments of minorities and women over the years? Will we be a better America if we indoctrinate the next generation in Trump’s limited version of history?