How MAGA Helped Make Wokeness Great Again

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“Woke” simply means to be aware of government deception. One of its key concepts is distrust in government. While being “aware” in general is the basis for being “woke,” in the hands of skilled manipulators, the word has become a warped political slur. So, what is the purpose of wokeness, and how has MAGA helped to make it great again?

Government-Sanctioned Horror

While some Americans rushed to get Covid-19 vaccines, others were more hesitant. Many African Americans did not trust the vaccines or the government. Talking heads like Dr. Fauci, then-Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, claimed the vaccines were safe and effective, but African Americans remembered the time their grandparents and great grandparents had been lied to by the government’s medical experts in a catastrophic miscarriage of justice.

In 1932, the Centers for Disease Control and U.S. Public Health Service carried out what would become one of the longest-running medical travesties America has ever seen, as noted by History.com. As confirmed by the CDC’s official website, from 1932 until 1972, the CDC’s researchers conducted syphilis studies in 400-600 Black men. Although penicillin had become the standard treatment for the infection in the 1940s, the treatment was withheld from these men for decades.

By withholding treatment, the researchers signed the death certificates of the participants. Even more disturbing is the fact that some of the men’s wives and children also died from the disease. For 40 years, the doctors and researchers who were supposed to help them ultimately did nothing more than take notes and watch them waste away.

Had these men known about penicillin as a treatment for syphilis, they would have taken it, but they were not informed. They were not informed of much, so they didn’t ever give their true informed consent. Yet the experiment continued, funded and conducted by government agencies Americans trust with their lives. Miscarriages of justice in the medical field against Black people are why Black people have a different relationship with medicine in this country. This is why many African Americans told others to “Stay woke” when they saw the government pushing a rushed vaccine for a virus of sketchy origins. MAGA rang the alarm too.

However, MAGA’s frame of reference could have come from infamous cases like the CIA’s MK Ultra project that began in the 1950s. A secret CIA experiment of psychological, MK Ultra lasted until the 1960s. Run by chemist Sidney Gottlieb, the experiment sought to find ways to control the minds of others, particularly German soldiers.

In the 1950s, Gottlieb arranged for the CIA to purchase roughly $240,000 worth of LSD. According to NPR.org, “… he began spreading it around to hospitals, clinics, prisons and other institutions, asking them, through bogus foundations, to carry out research projects and find out what LSD was, how people reacted to it and how it might be able to be used as a tool for mind control.”

Although the CIA wanted to use it for mind control, they did not reveal this to volunteers in the experiments. Whitey Bulger volunteered and was told the experiment was for finding a cure for schizophrenia. He took LSD for over a year before guessing it had nothing to do with schizophrenia.

To Bulger, he was a guinea pig in a government experiment that just wanted to see what happened to the minds of people taking LSD over an extended period of time. Afterwards, he wrote about the experience which he called “horrific.” He had thought he was losing his mind. In the end, he found out what had happened to him and promised his friends he would kill the man responsible.

Still, the most memorable case is that of Frank Olson, described as, “an American  bacteriologist,  biological warfare scientist, and an employee of the United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories.” Sidney Gottlieb, his colleague, secretly dosed him with LSD. He had been told it was a “secret truth serum” in development.

As time went on, Olson reported paranoia and feeling as if he were losing his mind. At this point, he still didn’t know he had been dosed with LSD. On the morning of Saturday, November 28, 1953, Olson fell to his death from Statler Hilton Hotel. It is unclear what exactly happened, but Olson ended up outside the window and dead on the sidewalk.

Initially, Olson’s family was told by the CIA his death was a suicide. They were not told about the LSD until decades later. Some continue to question Olson’s suicide and believe it was murder by the CIA to hide what they had done. One thing remains true no matter what: Frank Olson was a hard-working man, like many in the Tuskegee experiment, secretly and illegally drugged by his government, the very government he worked for at the highest level. This is like an urban tale amongst MAGA.

Although some Americans might not be overly familiar with the sad case of Frank Olson, many on the MAGA side are. This is the case they point to when asked, “Why don’t you trust the government?” It is, for them, their Tuskegee experiment.

In this way, MAGA is woke and helping to make being woke great again, even if they outwardly protest the word “woke.” This is the intersection of governmental skepticism at which MAGA and many in the Black community will always meet. And just like many in the Black community, some of MAGA called the origins of Covid and the vaccines untrustworthy. In hindsight, most would say they were right.

The New Covid-19 Origin Report is Woke

As some African Americans turned down the Covid-19 vaccines, they waited for the other shoes to drop. Where did Covid come from, and are these vaccines really safe? Depending on you who listened to in 2020, the vaccines were either “100%” safe or about as trustworthy as a syringe found in an alley. As of 2024, a Republican-led subcommittee thinks it has found Covid’s origin, and most still don’t trust Covid vaccines.

Early on, the origin of the Covid-19 virus was hotly disputed and somehow political. Some on the Left argued the disease had natural origins. Those on the Right pointed to a lab leak in China as ground zero. Trump famously called it “The China Virus.” The argument over its origin would continue from 2020 until December 2024, when a Republican-led subcommittee officially concluded the disease likely started in a research lab in China. This affirmed the beliefs of most MAGA Republicans and some skeptical African Americans.

As for the vaccines being “100% safe and effective,” they were neither. Some people were encouraged to get up to three or more Covid shots, one of which was supposed to act as a booster. Considering this was a vaccine that had been rushed to market, people were rightfully skeptical. If the vaccines were so effective, why did people need so many shots? Why did some people who received the shots have severe pain in the arms of injection for days or weeks on end?

While people asked questions, reports quietly leaked proving the vaccines were not as effective as once thought and that they were having negative effects on at least some patients. Primarily, young males began experiencing enlarged hearts. Medical professionals attempted to calm the public by saying these hearts would eventually shrink back to their regular sizes, but nobody wants to risk enlarging their hearts for many medical reasons. The reports of the enlarged hearts and other negative effects contradicted the medical professionals who had called the vaccines “100% safe.” The reports also confirmed the suspicions of many African Americans and MAGA Republicans who had rejected the idea that any rushed vaccine could be as safe as authorities had claimed.

However, those who supported the Covid vaccines point out that the vaccines did reduce the likelihood of severe illness, death and other complications. Some acknowledge the vaccines were not “100% safe” or “100% effective.” The vaccines did arguably save lives, even with some side effects.

That acknowledged, a number of African Americans and MAGA Republicans questioned the safeness of the vaccines and were reluctant to get the shots. They questioned the Covid origin story and refused to accept government narratives. At any rate, it bothered Republicans so much, they formed a subcommittee, conducted an investigation and found the Covid-19 virus likely originated in a lab in China. Each side was woke on this issue, regardless of why, and it seems they were right.

The Takeaway

To be “woke” is to be aware, particularly of government deception. Black people have had to be woke since the first slave ship landed in Point Comfort. Others within American society are woke but refuse to call it that. But that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Maybe it’s time to do away with the labels and just get to action. Either way, being woke is the only way to prevent the government from doing the most evil to you.

This article was written by Jermaine Reed, MFA, the Editor-in-Chief of The Reeders Block.