I was a victim of Woke 1 and I refuse to let AOC laugh off the harm she caused

“Woke 1 was crazy,” grinned Rep.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday as she sought to brush off a question about ideas she endorsed very recently — like “defund the police.”She’s letting herself and her allies off far too easy.The excesses of the toxic hyper-leftism that metastasized in so many American institutions — academia, media, sports, law, government, education, entertainment and the corporate world — were a form of illiberal authoritarianism that did deep damage to individuals and to the fabric of American society.I know, because Woke 1 came for me.My crime? Advocating for meritocracy in New York City’s public schools.I was an attorney with the Legal Aid Society during Woke 1’s peak in the summer of 2020.In my off-hours I was also involved in my children’s public schools, and I’d recently been re-elected by fellow parents to sit on the local Community Education Council.In that capacity I disagreed with Mayor Bill de Blasio’s efforts to scrap the color-blind SHSAT, the single test used for admissions to NYC’s specialized high schools, based on the specious claim that the test itself was racist — and I had the audacity to say so publicly.That’s when the Black Attorneys of Legal Aid, a caucus of my former union, the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, chased me out of my job for wrongspeak.It’s far easier to defend meritocracy in 2026, but in 2020 — the era AOC now wants us all to laugh about — it was career-ending.BALA published a statement declaring that a public defender “cannot oppose anti-racism and effectively represent Black and Brown people.”The group went on to say I had “no business having a career in public defense” and “we’re ashamed that she works at the Legal Aid Society” — and my employer amplified the message by re-tweeting it.That post is still up.A real knee-slapper, right, Congresswoman?My public shaming served many purposes.The Woke 1 practitioners of Ibram X.

Kendi–style “anti-racis...