The online debate about “wokeness” torments me, because it is so amazingly stupid and uninformative. But it also torments me because I am torn between two thoughts.
The first is that there has to be room to discuss the potential pitfalls of the various lingustic formulations that one used to group together as “political correctness” and now designates as “wokeness” (I can see literally no difference between the two categories). Those pitfalls might, in any particular case, include a tendency to alienate the very groups they’re meant to serve, an inaesthetic clunkiness, or even the simple fact that they periodically seem to arise suddenly from who knows where, like neoliberal “best practices” that become instant unconditional requirements.
The second is that no white male leftist who takes a blanket anti-PC or anti-woke stance — especially in mainstream media contexts — can expect to be trusted, because they are objectively treating their white male perspective as the point of neutrality from which they can hand down judgment of what activists and theorists of other groups should say and focus on.
How does one reconcile these two thoughts? The first step is to recognize that the second thought is more important, both ethically and strategically. Even if individual “woke” speech expectations are short-sighted or self-undermining, the blanket anti-woke screed objectively, performatively reinstates the power hierarchies that all leftists should be seeking to unravel. Especially given how often the anti-woke white male leftist has access to bigger platforms than the activists they’re critiquing, it is a clear example of punching down — when we presumably don’t want to punch our allies in any direction. Strategically speaking, it is more likely to give aid and comfort to our enemies than to somehow make leftist ideas more persuasive or leftist organizing more attractive.
It may well be the case that PC or woke language is holding back the left in this country, but I would humbly suggest that white men who want to be part of that strategic conversation should adopt the rule of first shutting the fuck up and listening. Learn to process your defensiveness and gut-level objections into sincere questions. If you get frustrated and need to vent, save it for the DMs. With time, you will realize that no one is mandating that you have to adapt your speech unconditionally to whatever the latest rando on Twitter demands. Doubtless we will all stumble as we seek to practice this spiritual discipline, but hopefully we will train ourselves to resist the urge to pitch op-eds to publications that are eager for anti-leftist content and would never consider publishing the perspectives of actual activists or organizers.
An und für sich 
The anti-woke grift is so nauseatingly ubiquitous these days. Contempt for weakness and the will-to-ridicule become solely fixated on the mendacity of ever-proliferating liberal humanist affect, and these are the lines along which the various woke-obsessed seek out a more personally flattering ideological solidarity (“we are both cool”). This kind of figure sees little distinction between individual cultural and political fealty, which is why talk of a “political realignment” between pro- and anti-SJW camps is simultaneously met with intense credulity and open admiration for its low cunning.