Desmond Tutu and the benefits of Wokeness

 Desmond Tutu did some of his theological training at King's College, London. He liked to tell how, if he was lost and needed directions he would ask a policeman, who not only didn't arrest him, nor even demand his papers, but actually called him "Sir!"  He admitted that on occasions he and his African colleagues would sometimes ask a policeman for directions, even when they knew perfectly well  where they were and where they were going going, just to enjoy the frisson of this, to them unusual, experience.

We don't hear much of this aspect of the Metropolitan Police these days.  I wonder if it still exists?  Our unarmed "bobbies" and the culture that policeman were there to be asked if you wanted to know the time, were one of the features that made our country admired, and could do so again.

Another Tutu story relates to his childhood.  After a church service the congregation were milling about outside the church, and the visiting preacher Fr Trevor Huddleston, before engaging Tutu's mother in conversation, raised his hat to her (which I presume was  the conventional thing for polite gentlemen to do when approaching  ladies  in that era, though I was too young to notice much of it here in Birstall).  Tutu was impressed.  If this man cold raise his hat to his mother, a humble house servant, then the visiting  priest  clearly "had something" which was worth exploring.  Hence Tutu became an enthusiastic ember of the church, eventually was ordained as a priest and became one of your most celebrated Archbishops.

I think "woke" was originally used to indicate awareness of racial injustice, but has now expanded to a more broad awareness of and sensitivity to the predicaments and feelings of others.

The Conservatives and their supportive press have chosen to ridicule those who attempt to practise wokeness in this sense.  They shouldn't: it is designed to make the world a better place, something both Huddleston (a member of the Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield, next door to Birstall) and Tutu both tried and succeeded in doing along with countless polite policemen and others who  treat all human beings with the respect we all deserve.

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