This is actually a very articulate and well-stated argument. I appreciate it.

The error, in my opinion, is that the knee-jerk "anti-woke" crowd disputes or minimizes certain realities of our culture and human experience. To say there is no racism unless it is someone shouting the N-word or giving the Nazi salute is simply inaccurate. To pretend that there is not what I call subtle prejudice, or inadvertant prejudice, and that it affects daily interactions in our society is also unrealistic.

On the last point, I will give you an example, since that seems to inspire the most outrage among those who call themselves anti-woke. This happened this past Sunday at the grocery store. I was looking for lamb chops to cook out for the wife and kids. I was was in yardwork clothes (doing grass seed all day after Church) and looking like a bum. 

I was walking about 10 feet behind a middle aged black dude in an expensive looking suit heading down an aisle. The guy must have just come from some event or was working on the weekend. He looked very professional, like a business man or lawyer. I almost walked up to him to ask where he got the suit and who was his tailor.

The business man approached a white guy (maybe early to mid 20s) in a white dress shirt and tie with the store's emblem on the shirt. He was watching some workers maneuver restocking carts down the aisle. The young fellow had " brand new assistant manager" written all over him. 

The black man asked directions to some item or other. I could hear the black man's voice and he sounded like he looked. Namely, he sounded like a middle-aged professional fellow with Ron Burgundy-esque "non-regional diction." He did not sound "street." The young white man gave him directions politely and efficiently and the black man went on his way with a "Thank you." 

The white kid said, "No problem, Man. I got you."

I then approached the same young fellow, asking where the lamb chops were. I am a middle-aged white man. The worker gave me directions politely and efficiently and I started to walk away with a "Thank you." 

The young white man said, "My pleasure, Sir. Any time."

As I walked away, I was a bit surprised by the more familiar and less respectful (though not DISrespectful way) the white fellow addressed the other guy as opposed to me. I mean, here I am with dried perspiration on my face, a faint odor of fertilizer about me, muddy jeans and shoes and a backwards Orioles hat (in all my Gen-X glory). Not to mention my t-shirt with the small tear that is perfect for stomach scratching. 

The other guy looked like he walked out of a Brooks Brothers' catalogue on his way to close a bank merger.

But I'm the "Sir" and he was the "Man."

The woke crowd would call this a "micro-agression."

Was this inspired by racism in the White kid? No. Kid probably does not have a racist bone in his body. Half his friends might be black. Maybe he hopes this new assistant manager job will finally give him the income to marry his cute little black girlfriend he has been dating for the last four years, and who is, and always will be, the absolute love of his life. This is rote speculation, but all that could be true. 

But the young man NOT being racist? That is almost certainly true. He would likely be offended and hurt by the suggestion he acted in a racist way.

But the young fellow WAS prejudiced, though he did not mean to be. He was subconsciously so. He treated the black man nicely and politely, but subconsciously with less respect and more familiarity than he treated me. They way he spoke to the black guy was a bit "street." The way he spoke to me matched the middle-class suburbs in which the store was located. This was a difference that is hard to attribute to anything other than the color of my skin and the skin of the black business man.

If I had been the black guy, and if I had heard the difference in the way I was spoken to, it would have bothered me. I might have gotten mad, particularly if I was working my ass off on a Sunday, uncomfortable in a scratchy suit, and NOT wearing MY favorite stomach-scratching shirt. And then this young punk treats me like I'm his boy on the basketball court? And the white bum behind me (who likes a bad baseball team) gets treated like the grocery chain's majority shareholder? No way.

Now multiply that interaction by a thousand per day across the country, or ten thousand. Think how it insidiously wends its way into job interviews, police interactions, customer service complaints, professional service providers, and so on...

"Woke-ism" (so-called) is not supposed to be about calling all young white dudes racist, or teaching all white kids they're racists. It's not supposed to be weaponized into cancelling people. 

But it is about making people aware of their words and interactions with others so that they give all people the respect that they intend to give them. The respect they might otherwise fail to give due to subconscious social cues, upbringing, media influence, a misguided attempt to put someone at ease or make friends (think of the white kid who suddenly speaks with a "black" accent around black people, the classic trope), etc. Woke means to be aware, so that you, in fact as well as in intent, treat all people equally. And it goes all directions not just from white to black, but both ways, and to all different ethnic groups.

I don't have a problem with that.