If being “woke” means supporting equality, science and democracy, Howard Stern is happy to be branded as such.
“I hear that a lot that I’m not good anymore because I’m ‘woke,’” Stern said on his SiriusXM radio show on Monday.
“I kind of take that as a compliment, that I’m woke,” he continued. “I’ll tell you how I feel about it. To me the opposite of woke, is being asleep. And if woke means I can’t get behind Trump, which is what I think it means, or that I support people who want to be transgender, or I’m for the vaccine ― dude, call me woke as you fucking want.”
Stern celebrated COVID-19 vaccines, telling listeners he recently got the new booster shot, and mocked Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
“I am woke, motherfucker, and I love it,” he said. “I want to be awake. I want to read legitimate news sources. Here’s how woke I am: I believe the election was not rigged.”
Merriam-Webster defines “woke” as being “aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).”
The term has been hijacked in recent years by conservatives, who use it liberally and at times nonsensically as a culture war catchall to criticize progressive values and just about anything else they don’t like.