When did the bushfires become woke?

There is enough social commentary on the bushfire crisis and climate change to fill up Lake Eyre. So, I'll refrain from picking a side because I'm obviously not a scientist and admittedly I don't know enough.

What I do know, is that the Australian bushfires have brought the scurrying woke-folk out of their burrows in droves. Virtue-signalling do-gooders who are big on grandstanding and small on sincerity.

You know the types? Akin to the celebrities that British comedian Ricky Gervais recently pummeled -- in his savage tell-it-like-it-is Golden Globes speech.

In the past week, there has been article after article in the mainstream media about the heroism of multicultural Australia with headlines such as, "Sikh group giving free hot meals to bushfire victims hailed as legends" and "This is the Australian way: Muslims donate 36,000 bottles of water to firefighters" and "This is Australia: Muslim heroes travel to fire-ravaged Victoria to cook meals for firefighters battling the blaze".

Talk about bootlickers at the Church of Woke. It would be a tough gig to find headlines more "token" than these. And sadly, the general public eat this rubbish up. Never pausing to question its accuracy or motivations.

A survey conducted by Ipsos Mori in 2016, revealed that people globally overestimate the Muslim population. With Aussies believing that 12.5% of Australia is Muslim when in actual fact, the population is only 2.4 %.

When newspaper editors publish Muslim-centric headlines and advertising agencies insert "token Muslims" into national advertising campaigns in the name of inclusiveness, the general public is brainwashed into believing that more Muslims reside Down Under than the reality.

Pray tell… If Australia is so "diverse", "inclusive" and "anti-bigotry" as we make out to be - then why make a habit of singling out race at all? It's unnecessary because the general consensus is that anyone who is legally and lawfully a citizen or permanent resident is an Aussie.

And on a more sensitive note, how are we to know if immigrants need a reminder of their homeland? After all, they are often fleeing war, famine, dictatorship and corruption.

One would assume the point of these celebratory articles is to convey how cosmopolitan Australia is. But by objectifying minority groups for the benefit of enlightening 'the majority' is exceedingly more racist and condescending than not acknowledging them at all.

Philanthropy and kindness are part of being human. They have no gender, colour, race or sexuality. Sadly, minority groups have become objects of inspiration much like individuals living with a disability.

These groups are used by the privileged majority and basically treated as a product -- something others can find value in. Not to mention being used as a tool for political point-scoring.

The late Australian Disability-Rights Activist, Stella Young gave a Ted Talk titled, I'm not your inspiration! During her insightful speech, Young recites a tale from her youth, (when she was a Buffy-The-Vampire-addicted 15-year-old-girl) and the council wanted to give her a 'community achievement award'. Young goes on to say that she wasn't doing anything that could even be considered an achievement -- if you took her "disability" out of the equation.

So keen are Lefties to be politically correct and inclusive, they infantilize these minority groups like an overprotective mother who wants her child to be happy and safe and protected and unaffected from the ills of the world. It's cringeworthy to watch.

Publishing articles about minority groups behaving "graciously" and "humanely" is just patronising tokenism that divides more than unifies.

As Anne Miles states in her October, 2019 column about diversity and marketing for Mumbrella:

Real acceptance and inclusion is actually invisible. It just is. It's so natural that there is no need to make a song and dance about it.

We are getting this horribly wrong. There are solutions: learning more about our unconscious bias and aligning our strategies with the actual population count.

Be diverse and inclusive but don't fuss about it or fake it. It's time to move on from activism and focus on actually doing something.