My view of "woke"

[PeacefulWarrior]

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.

I think when your trumptard types use "woke" as a pejorative, what they are referring to is political correctness run amok to the point where its nonsensical, and even downright insane.

Like if you say that a man has a "right" to play on a women's sports team "because feelings", then you are political correctness run amok or "woke".

See, the Democrats would do well to deep six such outlandish and counterproductive causes.

 

[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.

As to your point about racism and motivation the effect of divorcing liberty from equality is that it feeds into racial disparities and racist attitudes among some people even if that's not the intent. In my view that's wrong. Consider the fact that Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater voted against the recently passed Civil Rights Act wrongly claiming it was an affront to liberty, and that furthermore no matter how burdensome and unfair legal segregation was blacks and whites must work it out together individually.

You claim my rebuttal was a straw man. So I will ask you - What is the Conservative policy solution to discrimination against black people if it is only right and fair policy to end affirmative action and DEI which hurt whites and Asians ? I would think based on your criticism of my response you have something to offer blacks that's comparable to whites and Asians.

 

[Craig234]

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.

I would say that a bit differently. In some things, it's not a zero sum game, but in others it sort of is. If women get the vote, then men's votes are less powerful. If whites have advantages over blacks and rules make it more equal, whites can lose benefits. The issue is justice, which has those costs, versus pandering to the people with unfair advantages that are injustices to get their votes.

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.

The reason for that is that the people aren't thinking at all about what's right and wrong about transgender people, but rather the 'issue' are those oligarch political operatives looking for the things that generate anger from people about transgender people and hyping them to get votes.

 

[Craig234]

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.

It's a bit like the words 'terrorism' or 'socialism'.

First, they make an argument using some terrible 'terrorist attack' like children blown up in a cafe, or 'socialism' pointing at Mao or Stalin, to get people thinking 'they're against terrorism or socialism'. They reinforce that a lot. Then when people reflexively 'hate' the words terrorism or socialism, they use those words for whatever they're against to get irrational agreement to oppose them.

Sometimes, 'woke' is about specific things; but it's made into a catch-all opposing the progress Democrats have led against wrong discrimination, to get people to say 'Democrats support woke and they're against woke', to re-fight the battles for that discrimination they lost and get the votes from the side that lost (votes used to elect oligarchy).

It's a sort of organization of those people giving them a rally cry - 'hate woke' - to get their votes.

 

[NatMorton]

As to your point about racism and motivation the effect of divorcing liberty from equality is that it feeds into racial disparities and racist attitudes among some people even if that's not the intent. In my view that's wrong. Consider the fact that Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater voted against the recently passed Civil Rights Act wrongly claiming it was an affront to liberty, and that furthermore no matter how burdensome and unfair legal segregation was blacks and whites must work it out together individually.

You claim my rebuttal was a straw man. So I will ask you - What is the Conservative policy solution to discrimination against black people if it is only right and fair policy to end affirmative action and DEI which hurt whites and Asians ? I would think based on your criticism of my response you have something to offer blacks that's comparable to whites and Asians.

My solution is to enforce our laws against racial discrimination and not turn a blind eye to those laws when racial discrimination is done in the name of "diversity." My other solution is to expose the spurious reasoning of those who defend discriminatory "diversity" programs, as I am doing here.

 

[Kenneth]

My solution is to enforce our laws against racial discrimination and not turn a blind eye to those laws when racial discrimination is done in the name of "diversity." My other solution is to expose the spurious reasoning of those who defend discriminatory "diversity" programs, as I am doing here.

Thanks for your response. Then hopefully if you're serious there should be bipartisan support across the ideological divide for strengthening the Civil Rights compliance capacity at all Federal agencies including more funding and stronger oversight authority in the public and private sector. Secondly, stop confirming judges to the Federal Judiciary whose views and records on don't reflect a commitment to strong Civil Rights enforcement.

If we can do those things maybe there's hope for concrete progress towards freedom and equality.

 

[NatMorton]

Thanks for your response. Then hopefully if you're serious there should be bipartisan support across the ideological divide for strengthening the Civil Rights compliance capacity at all Federal agencies including more funding and stronger oversight authority in the public and private sector. Secondly, stop confirming judges to the Federal Judiciary whose views and records on don't reflect a commitment to strong Civil Rights enforcement.

If we can do those things maybe there's hope for concrete progress towards freedom and equality.

We already have freedom and equality under the law, and we do not need to give the state more authority of our lives.

 

[Mr Person]

"Woke" and "woke ideology" is just the dim bulb section of the right's new "socialist" and "socialism". It means "thing I don't like and which makes me the most victimized victim EVAH!"

Similarly, trans people replaced gay people as favorite tiny minority to victimize, while saying "LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!"

 

[NatMorton]

"Woke" and "woke ideology" is just the dim bulb section of the right's new "socialist" and "socialism". It means "thing I don't like and which makes me the most victimized victim EVAH!"

Similarly, trans people replaced gay people as favorite tiny minority to victimize, while saying "LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!"

^^^ And as day follows night, personal attacks follow anyone critical of DEI or trans ideology.

They just can't help themselves.

 

[Phys251]

"Woke" is about as meaningless as a term as "socialism" is, now that the right has butchered the two so badly.

EDIT: @Mr Person beat me to it.

 

[NatMorton]

"Woke" is about as meaningless as a term as "socialism" is, now that the right has butchered the two so badly.

EDIT: @Mr Person beat me to it.

Fortunately, "racial discrimination" has not lost it's meaning, even when it's masked with woke euphemisms.

 

[Helix]

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.

It's appropriation to generate ragebait fueled money and power. Either way, I'm not participating. Far right wingers own those terms now.

 

[NatMorton]

It's appropriation to generate ragebait fueled money and power. Either way, I'm not participating. Far right wingers own those terms now.

Ah, but you are participating by offering your opinion, twice. What you've not done is support that opinion with a well reasoned argument.

 

[Helix]

Ah, but you are participating by offering your opinion, twice. What you've not done is support that opinion with a well reasoned argument.

I'm pointing out what the terms have become and why.

 

[NatMorton]

I'm pointing out what the terms have become and why.

This you not participating, again?

 

[Helix]

This you not participating, again?

Peace.

 

[NatMorton]

Peace.

And also with you.

 

[Mithrae]

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

No, if we assume that their 2024 (class of 2028) admissions are the 'correct' numbers, then the greatest beneficiaries of their prior policies (2020 and 2021 admissions) were white students:

	2020	2021	2022	2024	Change from 2020/21
White/other	46.10%	44.10%	40.60%	31%	-13 to 15%
Asian	14.70%	15.90%	27.90%	37%	+21 to 22%
African	24.40%	25.90%	15.20%	14%	-10 to 12%
Latino	12.70%	12.50%	12.60%	16%	+3%
Native	1.80%	1.10%	2.90%	1%	~1%
Pacific	0.30%	0.50%	0.80%	<1%	~0%

As a generalization, what we would intuitively expect from one of America's oldest and most elite universities is for them to err on the side of tradition and privilege. These numbers could easily be interpreted as discriminating against Asian Americans and discriminating in favour of White Americans making it a 2 out of 3 match with those expectations in this case, behind a smokescreen of (numerically less) favouritism to African Americans. Whether that was actually the case or actually the intention is another question; but what is blindingly obvious is that it wasn't left-wing "weaponized radical Identity Politics" by the stretch of any but the most fevered imaginations.

The only hyper-partisanship here is coming from you.

Note that I didn't say the SCOTUS decision was incorrect in this case - I don't know enough about their admissions process - but the hyper-partisan nature of the current SCOTUS is simply a fact proven by
A) the Federalist Society ties of all six conservative-appointed justices,
B) McConnell's and the Republicans' refusal to do their constitutional duties and even consider filling a seat vacated nine months before an election, under a stupid pretext proven false when they rushed to fill another seat vacated two months before the very next election,
C) Trump's explicitly political promise to appoint justices who would rescind women's long-established constitutional rights to security of person, liberty and equality under the law with regards to abortion, and
D) the misleading or dishonest responses of most conservative justices in their confirmation hearings regarding abortion.

Agree with it or not, pretending that the SCOTUS decision against Harvard is akin to God's own truth and that Harvard's venerable wisdom and the district and appeals courts rulings in their favour are "radical" is obvious nonsense. Folk who are not dogmatists or cultists recognize that there are some areas in which reasonable disagreement is possible - it's not always a choice of either right or radical.

 

[Mithrae]

^^^ 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.

I pointed out the fact that the anti-woke crowd are also the ones who nominated and supported Donald Trump to lead the country, and listed three (of the many) publicly-available facts which have long proven his almost open racism, and explained why that could understandably if not necessarily excusably bias discussions with the ostensible non-racist opponents of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and so on. (Alongside the personal experience that discussions with anti-woke folk reveal not-so-subtle racist assumptions or motivations far more often than not, though of course that's more an opinion than a fact.)

Instead of addressing any of those facts, you are the one who's decided to resort to ad hominem and lies; I did not even remotely accuse you of racism here, in fact I explicitly allowed that the tenth guy may be neither a Trump supporter nor racist, but apparently that victimhood card is all you've got.

 

[Corbell]

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

Ok. let's see what you are talking about.

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.

blah, blah, blah. This whining about past injustices has gotten old. YOu get no capitol from this whine.

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.

Except it is worth noting, that the "people who continue to support the discrimination" have been a marginalized fringes sincd the mid 60s. Both mainstream parties, teh dems AND the republicans have both been very supportive of "Civil rights" for several generations now.

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.

This is where you really jump the shark. YOu make no mention of any valid complaints about the cost or impact of the fight for "equality".

People that didn't like bussing their kids hours to school, had a valid complaint. People that lost jobs to less qualified minorities, had a valid complaint.

You claim that they are bigots and fools.

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.

Here you characterize those that oppose you as either stupid or evil.

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.

NOte the complete lack of any concrete examples or any hint of what the other sides's actual complaints or positions are.

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.

This is of course not true.

 

[Craig234]

the hyper-partisan nature of the current SCOTUS is simply a fact

I agree, but think the word partisan doesn't do it justice (no pun intended). We can look for a better word, but I think corrupt is better. It's essentially hijacking the power of the court to re-write the constitution to do so to benefit the oligarchs. It's a bit like placing bank executives who will move money to you. We could call that administrative error, but a better word is theft.

 

[Mithrae]

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.

'Divide and rule' is one of the oldest strategies there is, and as you suggest the loss of (relative) privilege can be easily propagandized as oppression. And in the case of race specifically in the USA there is a long and well-documented history of using relative privilege for white people (or rather, greater oppression of black people) in that manner:

• Referring to the period after the Civil War, W. E. B. Du Bois in the 1930s wrote that "It must be remembered that the white group of laborers, while they received a low wage, were compensated in part by a sort of public and psychological wage."
• Similarly, Lyndon Johnson while campaigning in Tennessee in 1960 said that "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
• And Reagan's advisor Lee Atwater in 1981 discussing the 'southern strategy' and Reagan's politics; "You're getting so abstract now you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it."

 

[Craig234]

'Divide and rule' is one of the oldest strategies there is, and as you suggest the loss of (relative) privilege can be easily propagandized as oppression. And in the case of race specifically in the USA there is a long and well-documented history of using relative privilege for white people (or rather, greater oppression of black people) in that manner:

There's a very interesting history to how racism was 'manufactured' in the US centuries ago. The British running things had challenges against oppressed workers, and found that by dividing them by race and giving whites more privileges it created divisions that made them more able to 'divide and conquer'. IIRC it's in the book "How the South Won the Civil War".

 

[Mithrae]

There's a very interesting history to how racism was 'manufactured' in the US centuries ago. The British running things had challenges against oppress workers, and found that by diving them by race and giving whites more privileges it created divisions that made them more able to 'divide and conquer'. IIRC it's in the book "How the South Won the Civil War".

Definitely; white vs. black was far easier to manage than rich vs. poor. Though as I understand it there were several factors involved in the creation of the 'black' and 'white' races, with the increasing Christianization among slaves being a big danger for finding common cause and brotherhood with them.

The creation of the trans bogeyman is a rather similar modern example. The reactionary bigotry against gay rights was very predictable both in that it's always been condemned in Christian culture, and that some parts of gay culture are flamboyantly visible. By contrast pretty much the main thing that most trans people want is to fit in unnoticed and pass as their own gender; and they're an even tinier fraction of the population by an order of magnitude to boot; and the proposed 'solutions' to this non-issue such as central government making medical decisions against patients and their parents are utterly irrational and brazenly hypocritical. The scale of anti-trans outrage is entirely a manufactured phenomenon around an almost complete non-issue, yet so many folk seem if anything proud to be led around by the nose.

As Utah Governor Spencer Cox noted in explaining his veto of an anti-trans bill targeting four kids in Utah high schools, "Rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few."

 

[NatMorton]

No, if we assume that their 2024 (class of 2028) admissions are the 'correct' numbers, then the greatest beneficiaries of their prior policies (2020 and 2021 admissions) were white students:

	2020	2021	2022	2024	Change from 2020/21
White/other	46.10%	44.10%	40.60%	31%	-13 to 15%
Asian	14.70%	15.90%	27.90%	37%	+21 to 22%
African	24.40%	25.90%	15.20%	14%	-10 to 12%
Latino	12.70%	12.50%	12.60%	16%	+3%
Native	1.80%	1.10%	2.90%	1%	~1%
Pacific	0.30%	0.50%	0.80%	<1%	~0%

As a generalization, what we would intuitively expect from one of America's oldest and most elite universities is for them to err on the side of tradition and privilege. These numbers could easily be interpreted as discriminating against Asian Americans and discriminating in favour of White Americans making it a 2 out of 3 match with those expectations in this case, behind a smokescreen of (numerically less) favouritism to African Americans. Whether that was actually the case or actually the intention is another question; but what is blindingly obvious is that it wasn't left-wing "weaponized radical Identity Politics" by the stretch of any but the most fevered imaginations.


Note that I didn't say the SCOTUS decision was incorrect in this case - I don't know enough about their admissions process - but the hyper-partisan nature of the current SCOTUS is simply a fact proven by
A) the Federalist Society ties of all six conservative-appointed justices,
B) McConnell's and the Republicans' refusal to do their constitutional duties and even consider filling a seat vacated nine months before an election, under a stupid pretext proven false when they rushed to fill another seat vacated two months before the very next election,
C) Trump's explicitly political promise to appoint justices who would rescind women's long-established constitutional rights to security of person, liberty and equality under the law with regards to abortion, and
D) the misleading or dishonest responses of most conservative justices in their confirmation hearings regarding abortion.

Agree with it or not, pretending that the SCOTUS decision against Harvard is akin to God's own truth and that Harvard's venerable wisdom and the district and appeals courts rulings in their favour are "radical" is obvious nonsense. Folk who are not dogmatists or cultists recognize that there are some areas in which reasonable disagreement is possible - it's not always a choice of either right or radical.

You skipped '23, but it doesn't matter. The point is that the black acceptance rate dropped, and it happened in many schools after the decision, not just at Harvard. That is evidence blacks were benefiting from racially discriminatory admissions practices.