(Wake up, Woke!)
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Good morning, America. Have you heard about the latest thing that’s being called racist?

Math.

Mathematics – the one thing I thought I could depend on to treat everybody else better than it treats me. But now the Warriors of Woke have decided math is hateful.

What part of math, do you suppose, is harboring all the hate? Prime numbers? Pi? Your age?

Someone recommended that the most hate-filled member of math may indeed be Pi … after all, it is an irrational number. Coincidentally, I used to date an irrational number, but let’s not open that wound.

I’ve never been accused of being a math expert … if some situation makes me need to count to eleven, I have to take off a shoe. In fact, my favorite “I don’t get it” joke involves math:

There are ten kinds of people in the world:

1. Those that understand binary
2. Those that don’t

Unfortunately, not even taking off my shoes is gonna help me with that one.

If you dig a little deeper into the woke vs. math story (oh, it’s deep all right), you’ll find the warriors claiming a couple of woke-worthy things:

• Math is racist when the focus is on getting the “right” answer
• Math is racist when students are required to show their work

Whew. Any conscious human, regardless of footwear, can see where this is heading.

• Johnny’s math final included the answer “2 plus 2 equals, uh, something farther away than 2,” but we let him graduate, because at least he tried.
• When I insisted Johnny show me how he came up with his answer, Johnny called me an imperialist, which he misspelled.

Meanwhile, woke Californians are busily renaming public schools, whacking references to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and … ready? … the octogenarian career Democrat, Senator Diane Feinstein. (Apparently, at some point during her career, Feinstein failed to demand a Confederate flag be castrated. Either that, or … and much worse … she once shook hands with Trump.)

California’s not opening any of the public schools, mind you, they’re just renaming them. After all, we can’t have impressionable young minds reminded of America’s first President, or America’s greatest President. I can’t count how many they’re renaming, because math is racist. (Maybe I can get Johnny to count for us, when he’d done with interview as California’s Budget Director.)

But although the Woke Warriors and Cancel Culture Commandos are steaming down the warpath (Shakespeare’s now on their hit list), it seems to me they’ve overlooked some things that are long overdue for being outlawed.

Things Cancel Culture Forgot To Cancel

• Online posts that predict they already know “how many of you will share this”
• Cooking recipes that include the phrase “or until done.”
• Music companies that release an artist’s “Greatest Hits” album that includes one song you can’t get anywhere else
• The misguided and undesired promise, “…will knock your socks off!” Nobody wants surprise bare feet, especially when they’re shopping for mesquite-flavored snacks, or electronics Let’s never hear that again.
• Instruction manuals that feel the need to remind me not to vacuum my carpet while sleeping
• “Ask me about my grandkids!” bumper stickers on cars in the far left lane moving at 40 miles an hour
• Whoever decided that I can only buy Girl Scout “lemonades” cookies once a year
• People on the phone who give me their fourteen-syllable last name and then, when asked, say, “The way it’s usually spelled.”
• Internet providers who, when I call to complain that my internet is down again, tell me to visit their website
• Blood sugar medications that hedge providing any actual results without “diet and exercise”
• Hate-warped reductio ad hitlerum judgments that MAGA hats and swastikas both incorporate the color red. So does salsa, blood, and a little Corvette made famous in a Prince song. Give it a rest.
• That guy who risked riding in a boat he cut in half just so you’ll buy his caulk
• Home Services people who throw little rock-filled baggies and a business card onto your driveway
• Guys who get production credit on fishing shows as “writers.” What are they writing? Some kind of clever lure-based double entendres?
• Chat bots with the functional English vocabulary comprehension of a rain-forest pre-schooler with a speech impediment
• COVID-conscious citizens who now wear two medical masks … and neither one covers their nose
• Zero-alcohol beer: for those times when you want all the halitosis and nausea, but none of the fun
• Automobile ad announcers who yell at me, as if it was my fault they failed the vinyl siding salesman exam
• Restaurants that make a point to find me, and then seat a family next to me that has kids who haven’t stopped shrieking since conception
• Hardware stores that will cheerfully sell you an electricity-powered clothes dryer that has no power cord. Imagine being told: “Here are your four new tires! Pardon? Oh, you want them on the car?”
• Okay, bad example.
• Food ads that promise “Now with 20% more flavor!” Oh, yeah? Show me the math … if it’s not racially biased.
• Geraldo