Weaponization of Wokeness: The Theater of Management and Implications for Public Administration

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Zavattaro, Staci M.; Bearfield, Domonic
• 署名单位: State University System of Florida; University of Central Florida; Rutgers University System; Rutgers University Newark
• 刊物名称: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-3352
• DOI: 10.1111/puar.13484
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 585-593
• 关键词: CIVIL-RIGHTS ACT; affirmative-action; POLICY; POSTMODERNISM; education

摘要

Contemporarily, the word woke has moved into the popular lexicon, largely to mean aware of and ideally doing something about systemic racism. After the George Floyd murder, and many other state-sanctioned murders of Black Americans, protests erupted globally, and public administrators responded either with actionable policy changes or sometimes symbolic, woke statements that did little to alter the system. In this conceptual paper, we explore the reasons for this via Baudrillard's phases of the image, showing how the word woke has moved from roots in the Black community to being weaponized today via its disconnection from this reality, thus trending toward its own hyperreality. In this final phase, the word woke has no connection to its former reality, leading to the passage of legislation that upholds White power structures.