Woke on the Farm
Much of this year’s MAGA war on woke is aimed at Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs in corporations and education. The idea behind this aversion to justice is that civilization depends on a laser focus on reading, writing, and arithmetic in education, but only as means to make more money in a marketplace ruled by supply and demand and the profit motive, rather than human empathy. Attention to DEI distracts from the real business of life, they think, and tends to burden consciences with guilt over irrelevant systemic injustices, and the bother of empathy with those who are falling behind in the rat race.
But there is another dimension to wokeness, and to practiced antagonism to it. It’s hard to be a farmer and not be awake and aware of what is happening in the natural world, and how it impacts daily life.
From the time I slowly emerge from bed in the morning till the last chores at night, I listen for rain and look out the window for signs in the clouds. What will I wear as I go out to check on the ewes and lambs in the pasture, run, feed, and play ball with the dogs. How far along is the alfalfa? Is the humidity low enough for bailing? Which birds are about? Are the dickcissels and meadowlarks guarding their territories, would the bobolinks stay around if we delayed harvests till July, and are the young rabbits still outrunning the red-tailed hawks? As I turn out the lights at night I keep listening for the crickets, the howling wind, or the coming thunder.
More to the point, how long will the temperatures stay in the 90s this summer? Aren’t we having many more 60 and 70 mile-an-hour winds; and when it rains isn’t it harder and faster?
We often lament how far people have become removed from how their food is produced. Equally tragic is how our heads have been buried in parking spaces, smart phones, and warfare politics. We must find the energy to dig ourselves out long enough to smell, touch, and see—to become woke to our world.
What would it take to make me less woke to the signs of the times around the farm? What would it take for me to take the same vow of silence about absolutely obvious global warming, and the threats of overuse of chemicals, that the Farm Bureau seemingly adheres to in its Farm Week newsletter?
Wendell Berry famously urged his children to “Look and see,” as they walked about their farm. Look and see the diverse and delicate beauty surrounds us all, and the ways our lack of awareness endangers this beautiful balance.
Being woke may be anathema to the MAGA crowd. But it is essential for life with one another, and life on earth.