My view of "woke"

[Craig234]

I see enormous amounts of garbage by what appear to be parrots regurgitating propaganda about woke, and it's time to correct the word.

There are long cultural histories of xenophobia, bigotry, discrimination. It's been common to make people slaves without thinking much about it, and many other forms of discrimination. Just the US has horrific history of harm against groups including Natives, Hispanics, African heritage, Irish, religious minorities, women, sexuality variations, and many others.

There has been a long gradual evolution toward people recognizing there is a moral issue about such discrimination, and that it has been wrong, and support has built to support equal rights and respect for people as a moral principle. It's led to things like the Civil Rights acts and other changes to rules, as well as cultural values - shunning and opposing people who continue to support the discrimination.

Politically, it seemed we were making progress as a country. People who are not allowed to freely act with discrimination and have those around them agree, who aren't raised in that culture, tend to lose it over generations. You don't hear many calls for bringing back slavery or segregation, both of which were violently fought for earlier, for example. People could quietly remain bigoted, but there was a price for being loud about it, and there was less and less.

As a country, we could be proud of that evolution, after a lot of struggle and big political prices paid. Our progress on civil rights was often viewed as one of our country's greatest areas of progress - though still continuing. Women's votes, then black civil rights, then gay marriage, then transgender rights...

But then, oligarch political organizations looking for ways to get votes realized that there was a market for telling people to be resentful about that progress, to feed them misinformation to make them feel resentful, and make enemies of 'the other side' for supporting those values. If you were called a bigot for bigotry, then that was a great injustice to you, turn to the oligarchs who would tell you it's just fine.

All of this was done simply to get votes for oligarchy - to screw the very people who were being pandered to to get the political power to pass policies that have redistributed $50 trillion to the rich. An effort treating those people as idiots and suckers - but of course if you warn them about that, the political forces say you should resent that, too.

They could not win by actually, honestly, directly attacking the 'civil rights' - that was tried in the past, they lost. Instead they found that by using 'new words' - by hyping the word "woke", which was almost unknow to represent 'non-discrimination, respect for people, progress' - they could suddenly be 'respectable' in fighting for things that are not respectable - in short, discrimination, hate, being assholes. Again, all to get support they could use for oligarchy.

And now our society is shamefully filled with countless 'deplorables' going around pointing at every person of color, every respect for people they don't like like gay people, every inclusion of diversity, and yelling "WOKE" and that they're boycotting it and opposing it. That's all it is. Opposing the moral progress of our country to support discrimination and bigotry with a new word "woke" to benefit oligarchs and screw the people who fall for it.

 

[Lursa]

Since you choose not to reply to so many posters, both left and right, I wonder what useful responses you'll get?

 

[Roadvirus]

There's "fighting discrimination" and then there's "weaponized radical Identity Politics".

The latter is the big problem.

 

[SkyChief]

Woke is becoming passé.

 

[Helix]

I reject the term as faux's appropriation of something to shit on for its own benefit. Anyone who uses it now is typically a far right wing rage potato who can't find the fauxbox off button. CRT and DEI are other examples.

 

[911Sparky]

I reject the term as faux's appropriation of something to shit on for its own benefit. Anyone who uses it now is typically a far right wing rage potato who can't find the fauxbox off button. CRT and DEI are other examples.

Woke (worse than Hamas) is a term used with disdain by those who think they are better than others.

 

[Kenneth]

I don't think issues related to wokeness or so called identity politics are categorically radical or outside the mainstream. In fact efforts to uproot systemic racism, realize gender equality, and LGBTQ Rights are about individual freedom and the equal right to it. No individual whose rights, opportunities, or material well-being are undermined can be truly free because they interfered with by the state. In other cases they lack choices or cannot make their own way due to social barriers. Democrats in general Liberals and Progressives in particular are making a mistake in thinking that we can downplay or deny these issues while focusing on economic or class issues. It's a false choice because we should be talking about both.

 

[dmpi]

This is what you get for stifling free speech under the pretense of political correctness. Eventually people will regain their voice and you'll get an earful.

 

[Nickyjo]

Fact is we have all become woke on a number of issues. Look at the 1960s movie, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” Bigotry against interracial marriage is more or less gone, and that film is a relic of a different time. Attitudes about equal pay for women and treatment of women in the workplace have progressed so that they are a non-issue in most places, tho problems certainly remain. Gays and lesbians are featured in film and on TV with few people getting the vapors.

Silly comments about speech still exist, but they were hilariously made fun of in the SNL skit a few years ago called “Don Pauly.”

Political correctness still affect the left in some areas, but it’s important that we recognize it when it comes from the right as well. I look forward to the day that we have rational discussions about US-Cuba history and relations, currently forbidden by many on the right.

 

[Craig234]

I look forward to the day that we have rational discussions about US-Cuba history and relations, currently forbidden by many on the right.

Republicans, what is wrong with you on Cuba?

There's this place called Cuba 90 miles from the US. For over 50 years, the US has launched an economic war on Cuba, a total block on the 'free trade' we love to say we're for. This has caused a lot of harm to the Cuban people, for what reason? The boycott was put in place as a power move to...

debatepolitics.com

 

[NatMorton]

Craig is worried about "parrots regurgitating propaganda?"

 

[NatMorton]

I reject the term as faux's appropriation of something to shit on for its own benefit. Anyone who uses it now is typically a far right wing rage potato who can't find the fauxbox off button. CRT and DEI are other examples.

The other perspective is that each of those terms were coined and promoted by the progressive left, and that they only became derogatory when the consequences of the policies those terms represent became clear.

 

[NatMorton]

I don't think issues related to wokeness or so called identity politics are categorically radical or outside the mainstream. In fact efforts to uproot systemic racism, realize gender equality, and LGBTQ Rights are about individual freedom and the equal right to it. No individual whose rights, opportunities, or material well-being are undermined can be truly free because they interfered with by the state. In other cases they lack choices or cannot make their own way due to social barriers. Democrats in general Liberals and Progressives in particular are making a mistake in thinking that we can downplay or deny these issues while focusing on economic or class issues. It's a false choice because we should be talking about both.

The problem with "woke" ideology isn't always the intent behind it. The problem rests with the policies often implemented to achieve that ideology's objectives and the fact that those policies frequently trample on someone else's rights or wellbeing. Whether it's the well intended yet racially discriminator admissions policies at elite colleges or the legally imposed delusion that somehow biology does not dictate gender. Many voters look a these policies and look at whom these policies affect and say to themselves "this is wrong."

Fox News isn't the reason "woke" as a brand is having problems. Woke policies are losing the battle of ideas in the market because euphemisms can only take an ideology so far.

 

[Mithrae]

There's "fighting discrimination" and then there's "weaponized radical Identity Politics".

The latter is the big problem.

Do you have any examples/evidence that aren't either
A) "Look at what this one person said/did!" or
B) ridiculous right-wing lies or
C) the same old 'issues' we've seen dozens of times and are only 'radical' in the eyes of people who (for example) believe that medical decisions should be made on a one-answer-for-all basis by ignorant legislators in a central government rather than by the actual patients, parents and doctors involved under guidance of the broader medical community?

Didn't think so.

 

[NatMorton]

Do you have any examples/evidence that aren't either
A) "Look at what this one person said/did!" or
B) ridiculous right-wing lies or
C) the same old 'issues' we've seen dozens of times and are only 'radical' in the eyes of people who (for example) believe that medical decisions should be made on a one-answer-for-all basis by ignorant legislators in a central government rather than by the actual patients, parents and doctors involved under guidance of the broader medical community?

Didn't think so.

Certainly, and one that's been a discussed at length in a recent thread. In the name of diversity, Harvard University's admissions process was found in a court of law to be racially discriminatory against Asian applicants.

As for weaponizing woke, you even get a sense of it in the OP. It is all too often the case that any (and every) opposition to ideology's like DEI or CRT is cast as an expression of racism without so much as an acknowledgement of the argument actually presented. You can set your watch by it.

 

[Kenneth]

The problem with "woke" ideology isn't always the intent behind it. The problem rests with the policies often implemented to achieve that ideology's objectives and the fact that those policies frequently trample on someone else's rights or wellbeing. Whether it's the well intended yet racially discriminator admissions policies at elite colleges or the legally imposed delusion that somehow biology does not dictate gender. Many voters look a these policies and look at whom these policies affect and say to themselves "this is wrong."

Fox News isn't the reason "woke" as a brand is having problems. Woke policies are losing the battle of ideas in the market because euphemisms can only take an ideology so far.

But thats because we have a zero sum view of individual liberty. We want to divorce it from equality. If women are more free it's a threat to men and manhood. If Black People are more free then it's a threat to white people. It goes right down the line to LGBTQ people too.

People want the right to their values, personal initiative, property, and expression. They want it for those like them but not someone different. This isn't natural or biological its taught and there's always a political agenda behind it.

1. It's not that affirmative action or DEI go too far in helping Blacks at the expense of whites. It's because these things work to benefit blacks and whites feel threatened. They guarantee an outcome just like white domination and power exercised through what appear to be neutral means guarantee favorable outcomes for whites.

2. In a society that idealizes motherhood and child rearing a career woman or getting an abortion is wrong because the implicit assumption is that women are out of place. So we say things like she's trying to have it all or she's killing the baby to cover up her irresponsible behavior.

3. The very fact that LGBTQ people are more visible and accepted is outrageous to many straight people who aren't comfortable even if it's not acceptable to express such open disdain. For people of traditional religious faith integrity, conscience, and divinely sanctioned order require the repression of LGBTQ people.

BTW I think we wrongly reduce the rights of transgender people especially youth to bathrooms and participation in girls and women's sports to discredit transgender people in general.

We should wait the same thing for others we want for ourselves. But maybe that's asking too much of human beings long conditioned to be against someone whose different.

 

[Mithrae]

Certainly, and one that's been a discussed at length in a recent thread. In the name of diversity, Harvard University's admissions process was found in a court of law to be racially discriminatory against Asian applicants.

A longstanding admissions practice of one of America's most respected Ivy League universities was upheld by a district court, then upheld again in an appeals court, before finally being over-ruled by a hyper-partisan Supreme Court.

Even if you happen to agree with that SCOTUS decision, it's pretty obvious from the lower court decisions that Harvard's process was not wildly unreasonable or "weaponized radical Identity Politics" by the stretch of any but the most fevered imaginations.

As for weaponizing woke, you even get a sense of it in the OP. It is all too often the case that any (and every) opposition to ideology's like DEI or CRT is cast as an expression of racism without so much as an acknowledgement of the argument actually presented. You can set your watch by it.

You wouldn't think it from all the hysteria we see on the subject, but Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are good things. Critical Race Theory is an obscure academic topic. 'Woke' started out as black slang. Why have any of these become national bogeymen, aside from the common theme of expressing the interests of black and other marginalized Americans?

To be fair, it really doesn't help that the anti-woke crowd have nominated and elected a guy who (among numerous other examples)
- called peaceful black NFL protestors against police brutality "sons of bitches" and suggested they shouldn't be in the country,
- showed open support for monuments to failed secessionist white supremicist slavers despite having zero interest in history and evidently hating losers and traitors in any other context, and
- directly, repeatedly and therefore deliberately mirrored Adolf Hitler's language by saying that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of the country."
If nine out of ten anti-woke folk support a racist and quasi-fascist to lead the country and nine out of ten discussions on the subject turn out to have not-so-subtle racist undertones, it's pretty understandable if not necessarily excusable that some assumptions are carried over to the tenth guy.

 

[NatMorton]

1. It's not that affirmative action or DEI go too far in helping Blacks at the expense of whites. It's because these things work to benefit blacks and whites feel threatened.

We can stop here because you're engaging in exactly the sort of weaponization I described.

No, that's not why AA and DEI are often opposed. They're opposed because they often rely on racially discriminatory practices, and it is deemed by many -- including me -- that favoring some and disfavoring others for no other reason than the color of their skin is morally wrong. This is the opposition to AA and DEI, whether you acknowledge it or not.

 

[NatMorton]

A longstanding admissions practice of one of America's most respected Ivy League universities was upheld by a district court, then upheld again in an appeals court, before finally being over-ruled by a hyper-partisan Supreme Court.

Even if you happen to agree with that SCOTUS decision, it's pretty obvious from the lower court decisions that Harvard's process was not wildly unreasonable or "weaponized radical Identity Politics" by the stretch of any but the most fevered imaginations.


You wouldn't think it from all the hysteria we see on the subject, but Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are good things. Critical Race Theory is an obscure academic topic. 'Woke' started out as black slang. Why have any of these become national bogeymen, aside from the common theme of expressing the interests of black and other marginalized Americans?

To be fair, it really doesn't help that the anti-woke crowd have nominated and elected a guy who (among numerous other examples)
- called peaceful black NFL protestors against police brutality "sons of bitches" and suggested they shouldn't be in the country,
- showed open support for monuments to failed secessionist white supremicist slavers despite having zero interest in history and evidently hating losers and traitors in any other context, and
- directly, repeatedly and therefore deliberately mirrored Adolf Hitler's language by saying that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of the country."
If nine out of ten anti-woke folk support a racist and quasi-fascist to lead the country and nine out of ten discussions on the subject turn out to have not-so-subtle racist undertones, it's pretty understandable if not necessarily excusable that some assumptions are carried over to the tenth guy.

Sorry, but Harvard's admissions program was racially discriminatory, and the demographics of Harvard's incoming freshmen class after the decision were further proof of that. Relative to Harvard's recent classes, the 2024 incoming freshman class had fewer blacks, about the same number of whites, and more Asian students: exactly the result one would expect to see of the accusations of Students for Fair Admissions were correct.

The only hyper-partisanship here is coming from you.

 

[NatMorton]

If nine out of ten anti-woke folk support a racist and quasi-fascist to lead the country and nine out of ten discussions on the subject turn out to have not-so-subtle racist undertones, it's pretty understandable if not necessarily excusable that some assumptions are carried over to the tenth guy.

^^^ If anyone is looking for yet another example of how DEI/woke ideology is weaponized, here you go. As day follows night, criticism of these ideologies are followed by accusations of racism.

An idea that cannot be defended without relying on ad hominem is not an idea worth defending.

 

[Kenneth]

We can stop here because you're engaging in exactly the sort of weaponization I described.

No, that's not why AA and DEI are often opposed. They're opposed because they often rely on racially discriminatory practices, and it is deemed by many -- including me -- that favoring some and disfavoring others for no other reason than the color of their skin is morally wrong. This is the opposition to AA and DEI, whether you acknowledge it or not.

I acknowledged your argument about liberty by pointing out the tendency to divorce it from equality. That's not weaponization or a failure to fairly consider your view. But you didn't show me the same consideration.

At any rate you operate under the fallacy that alls fair and neutral in society. Certain people aren't unjustly treated they just don't measure up. You believe and I think you're wrong that government interventions aimed at any kind of leveling are undesirable and impractical .

 

[NatMorton]

I acknowledged your argument about liberty by pointing out the tendency to divorce it from equality. That's not weaponization or a failure to fairly consider your view. But you didn't show me the same consideration.

It's the implied motivation of racism that is the attempt to weaponize.

At any rate you operate under the fallacy that alls fair and neutral in society. Certain people aren't unjustly treated they just don't measure up. You believe and I think you're wrong that government interventions aimed at any kind of leveling are undesirable and impractical .

That is a straw-man argument. I am not claiming "all is fair" or that racism no longer exists. I am saying that racial discrimination -- no matter the objective of that discrimination -- is morally wrong and should be opposed. If you want to argument against my position, argue against that.

 

[OrphanSlug]

More "woke" nonsense, there is nothing civil rights or civil liberties when it some to woke. All it means now is a method to demonize the majority.

 

[Kenneth]

It's the implied motivation of racism that is the attempt to weaponize.


That is a straw-man argument. I am not claiming "all is fair" or that racism no longer exists. I am saying that racial discrimination -- no matter the objective of that discrimination -- is morally wrong and should be opposed. If you want to argument against my position, argue against that.

In 1964 Conservative Barry Goldwater opposed the recently passed Civil Rights Act as threat to liberty. All he could say about the unfairness of legal segregation was that people had to be left to work it out. He was wrong about liberty and Racism. Now you say I made a straw man of your rebuttal. Then what is a Conservative policy solution to discrimination against black people if ending affirmative action and DEI initiatives are most fair to whites and Asians ? I'm taking you at your word.

 

[BabaVoss]

Interesting thread. In my view, “woke” is one in a series of words or phrases that have become weapons in our current culture. These are non-specific and undefined. They are hurled as insults or used as fear inducing barbs (“deep state”) that can mean whatever one wants them to mean. Trump has been very successful at inducing fear over non-existent threats. Battling “wokeness” enables hateful people to justify some action they want to take.