A few short years ago our country had a great awakening about how poorly we treated people of color. Millions of people looked around and realized that Black Americans were still being treated as less worthy, less protected, less heard, and sometimes killed as if their lives carried no weight at all.

It was as if the scales had fallen from our eyes and we were able to see afresh the injustices white people had perpetrated on people of color. The “woke” metaphor was quite apt as so many of us became aware of our privilege, strived to maximize equality, minimize oppression, be anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti- homophobic.

Then came the backlash. First they mocked the language itself. “Woke” became a sneer, compassion became weakness, and equality was turned on its head. The people demanding fairness were treated as the real threat instead of the people stripping rights away. Next they targeted the institutions promoting inclusion: schools, libraries, universities, corporations, public health agencies, even churches.

And now the mask is off completely. Districts with large Black populations are gerrymandered, polling places disappear, voting rolls are purged, and now the Supreme Court has trumpeted the message: Black Votes Don’t Count!