I think the problem stems from people defining their position in term of resistance. That is, it is not good enough not to be racist, one must be anti-racist. As a reaction to that, the other side thinks it is not good enough not to be overtly "woke." One must be an anti-woke force. To be less is to be woke.
This isn't as absurd as it seems. When you're trying to stamp out a ruinous worldview, every vestige of it is problematic. The littlest gesture can become symbolic. Take feminism and the 1950's worldview. Most people are glad to do a small favor for a coworker, but a man asking a woman to get him a cup of coffee-- absolutely no big deal in its own right-- becomes a supercharged situation in some cases precisely because the woman has a zero tolerance policy toward the entire 1950's worldview, and this particular request hints at being a manifestation of one. Comment on a congresswoman's clothes and you just might be treated to a full blown Ph.D dissertation about how you embody everything that is wrong with the world by treating women's appearance differently than men's appearance. No matter how bossy a girl is, you may not call her bossy, you sexist. You must affirm her confident leadership.
Looking at how hyper-sensitive feminists can get about the subtlest hints of a sexist mindset and you start to understand how sensitive some conservatives are to hints of wokeism. It is matter of phantom dog whistles, minor details, word choice and tone of voice. If they detect someone present might not be fully anti-woke, not deeply offended or sufficiently disgusted by wokeism and all its works and all its ways, well, they can instantly become like a woman CEO who has just innocently been mistaken for the receptionist. Not gonna stand.
I think that hypersensitivity is a weakness of feminism, anti-racism, the lgbtq movement, and now segments of conservatism. I think it is a weakness that tacitly expresses a real philosophical vulnerability. Feminism knows it is trying to erase real differences between men and women. Anti-racism knows it rests upon the validity of bogus group identity politics. The lgbtq loggy knows deep down that it is fighting against reality. So it screeches all the louder that anyone might dare even entertain such a thought. And conservatism, when it is weak like that, takes any acknowledgment of anything whatsoever that might be salutary about feminism, "racial justice," or lgbtq concerns as a call to arms. It can't bear even perceived microaggressions against its worldview. That kind of hyper-sensitivty is nearly always a sign of weakness.
