But you're right. I should probably ban Reckall and yourself for posting about it. But instead I'll just tell both of you not to post any off-topic politics in this thread again.
The problem, as I see it, is that it is almost impossible to separate Wokeism both from his general impact on popular culture as a whole and the political discourse as a whole.
Before banning me, please read what follows
Regarding popular culture, to me there is no difference between movies, comic and RPGs when it comes to "going woke". The recent Tolkien Society Summer Seminars and DC Comics' "I'm not Starfire" episodes don't live on separate planets. The impact of political/philosophical/religious movements on pop culture is always, if widespread enough, integrated. This means that The Tolkien Society, Terminator: Woke Fate, Star Wars and even this year's Oscars fiascoes are all lessons learned that can be useful for the RPGs sector too (with a recurring element: people don't buy woke, full stop).
Regarding the latter, there, I already used the word "political" in the last paragraph. But can you really avoid to not be political about a problem whose source has firm roots in politics (even if not only there)? While wokeism was already trending back in 2015, after the election of a certain President pop culture seemed to feel that it was their task to push back against his "values" and Wokeism all of sudden found an immense fertile ground and exploded. This belief of mine is a political statement (IMHO a simple observation, but let's admit how not everyone will agree).
A couple of months ago an article made the rounds, here, about the rejection of Wokeism by Christian thought. But the writer pointed out how it is rejected by atheists, too. Other articles, out there, show how the left itself rejects Wokeism - because it damages their values by bringing them to the screeching, unassailable extreme and thus causing an unwelcome pushback towards the left as a whole. "Even the left is your friend" should be considered a tool in the struggle against wokeism - not something to be discarded lightly.
And I personally think that all this obsession about "Marxism" only attacks part of the problem and fails to grasp that Wokeism is the symptom of a more deeply rooted malaise in today's Western society; a malaise that, by now, is colorless, and wildly grasps from Marxist to Christian thought - and everything in between - as long as they "validate"
their thoughts.
And I also think that people in positions of power, these ranging from political parties, to Hollywood Studios, to journalists, are actively trying to ride and amplify this wave - either giving the impression or genuinely believing that it is THE wave (as we saw, truth is that it isn't). I wrote this before and in this very thread: WotC wants to go woke? They will go broke. Bean counters will save the day.
So, what the solution can be regarding the debate here? My only proposal is to create a separate sub-forum, or use an already existing one, where we can freely talk about "AOC is coming for your CoC books!" leaving this one for the unadulterated discussion of RPGs. If Ravenloft goes woke we can pin it with a link to the appropriate thread.
Whatever the solution will be, I think we need one. As I said, I can't see how you can't speak about woke-[thing] without, soon or later, mentioning the political discourse on the matter.