You asked, they answered, and then you dodged with a flippant reply. Even if I agreed with you, this is a terrible way to discuss things.
I apologise, I'm sure there's a better, more cool-headed way to discuss giving money to a marginalized population to make a foothold in a marginalized field with someone that views that action as "woke politics".
I'm sure we've could've met in the middle (like only supporting some BIPOC journalists) if only I wasn't so gosh-darn divisive. My bad.
Now, you can disagree with this, it is obviously impossible to tell for sure without reading people's minds, and many people will throw out accusations of "wokism" with little to no merit to the point where you lose the will to engage with any of them, but if you do argue against these accusations of "wokism" as endorsements of bigotry, you aren't actually engaging with what people are telling you.
In that sense, the "middle" between "woke" and "bigoted" isn't "slightly bigoted", it's "not woke and not bigoted".
Being a bigot is a choice (and using the term woke unironically is a pretty good, albeit not perfect tell), being black is not. I couldn't care less about finding a common ground with bigotry. I have zero interest in debating them, and I have zero interest in debating your "centrist position" to do nothing to elevate BIPOC people's position in marginalised fields. Hope that clears up my comment for you!
Doing nothing might be a lot more conducive to minority achievement than some of the stuff that was ultimately funded by these grants. Such as SeRCH's YouTube videos about "intersectional scientific method" and "hyperspace".
Well, yeah. That's what "neutral" means
A BIPOC receiving a grant is not the issue, the issue, and what might be considered "woke" is to give the grant because they are BIPOC. That's "equity".
Equity means awarding people based on immutable characteristics and makes every interaction in society a racist/sexist struggle.
Anyway, you may be in favor of it, which is fine. Just know that it's an incredibly unpopular movement that is widely rejected internationally, and also in most developed nations across the political spectrum, minus the far-left.
Even the idea to call said people "marginalized" is insulting.