# Defining "woke" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 15, 2023, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220 "2023-03-15T14:43:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220/141 "2023-03-17T13:23:25Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …progressives never really used it so it isn’t a surprise that you never heard them say it. This response indicates you didn’t read what I said. I’m already getting tired of needing to say “I didn’t say that”. ---
**Author:** ![Dorjan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorjan/32/12440_2.png) [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220/142 "2023-03-17T13:29:40Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …it was never a word that even belonged to “the left” for them to abandon. It is a word that had its origins within the Black community, and they haven’t given it up to anyone. This, thank you. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220/143 "2023-03-17T13:38:16Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Instead of getting into the weeds and figuring out how we can work together as a staff and better serve our students, the bulk of the meeting, like 90% or more, was spent talking about things like how someone sent an email about lockdown drills that ended with “shoot me an email if you have any questions” and how harmful that was, and looking at a list of “deficit based” words to avoid and how to use "asset based words instead, e.g., instead of talking about word problems, we should talk about math stories, because “problem” is deficit based. > > **That’s** what’s harmful. Not because it’s actually harmful to remove the phrase “shoot me an email” from a message about lockdowns, but because it gets in the way of more important work. It’s like if you go to the doctor for your pneumonia, and she spends the appointment talking with you about the importance of taking vitamin supplements. But is the time wasted by saying, “Hey in an email about school shootings, don’t use the phrase, ‘shoot me an email’.”? Or is it wasted in the pushback against it? That seems to be the playbook, get you arguing with them about minutia, and then observe that you are spending all your time focused on minutia. The whole point is to derail and distract, to _get_ in the way of more important work. It would be like going to your doctor, and them saying, “You have pneumonia, here’s a treatment that will help with that. But your chronic recurring pneumonia is caused by a vitamin deficiency, you should either eat a more balanced diet or take supplements.” You argue with them about the benefits of vitamins for the rest of the visit, and leave the office telling everyone that the doctor didn’t want to talk about your pneumonia, only about vitamins. A month later, since you ignored the advice, you get pneumonia again, but now you blame it on the doctor. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220/144 "2023-03-17T13:49:40Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > But is the time wasted by saying, “Hey in an email about school shootings, don’t use the phrase, ‘shoot me an email’.”? Or is it wasted in the pushback against it? 100% the former, since neither I nor anyone else said a word in pushback. I don’t know why others kept silent, but for me it was because I didn’t want to waste time in a back-and-forth over a triviality. Yet the committee still spent less than 10% of the meeting talking about things that matter, and almost all the meeting talking about how brave it was for the staffer who sent the email to talk about her error, and how important it was that we all interrogate ourselves in a similar manner, and how it was a model for equity, and so on. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > It would be like going to your doctor, and them saying, “You have pneumonia, here’s a treatment that will help with that. But your chronic recurring pneumonia is caused by a vitamin deficiency, you should either eat a more balanced diet or take supplements.” You argue with them about the benefits of vitamins for the rest of the visit, and leave the office telling everyone that the doctor didn’t want to talk about your pneumonia, only about vitamins. No, it’s nothing like that. I guess that would be an entirely different thing that could happen, but it’s not the kind of thing that happened here. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220/145 "2023-03-17T13:52:30Z")
> [@Moonrise](#): > > then that’s called being a liberal. No. Liberals don’t have a monopoly on awareness of social problems (and in fact have some obvious glaring _gaps_ in their awareness by virtue of _being_ liberals). I’m not a liberal, and I’m very aware of social problems. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220/146 "2023-03-17T14:04:57Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > 100% the former, since neither I nor anyone else said a word in pushback. I don’t know why others kept silent, but for me it was because I didn’t want to waste time in a back-and-forth over a triviality. Yet we still spent less than 10% of the meeting talking about things that matter. Short meetings then. Or at least very badly planned and executed. I don’t see how a list of things that are considered to be problematic should take more than ten minutes or so, if no one is objecting to it. Maybe the presenters were not able to organize their information well, and took longer than they needed to. I’m just not seeing how you end up spending 90% of your time on things that don’t matter. But I now see that you’ve done an edit to flesh things out a bit, and I’ll agree that a meeting is not the best time for an awards banquet. But, to me, it sounds like whoever is running your meetings needs to review Robert’s Rules or even better a contemporary update to them, that sounds like the problem. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > No, it’s nothing like that. I guess that would be an entirely different thing that could happen, but it’s not the kind of thing that happened here. Then I’d say that you are the exception, as that is how it plays out time and time again. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220/147 "2023-03-17T14:07:52Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > But, to me, it sounds like whoever is running your meetings needs to review Robert’s Rules or even better a contemporary update to them, that sounds like the problem. For real, how many progressive meetings do you go to that are run according to Robert’s Rules? I go to like 2-3 meetings a week, we’re talking meetings with land acknowledgments and pronoun declarations and titles like “Mass meeting” and “Equity Committee.” Of those, I think one meeting a year follows Robert’s Rules. But very few of the meetings go down rabbit holes in the way this one did. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220/148 "2023-03-17T14:57:46Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > My intial immediate response to this was going to be along the lines of “all joking aside, we need to teach our kids respect for our institutions, and if our institutions don’t live up to those ideals, then it’s the institutions we need to change, not what the kids are taught”. Why? Why do institutions inherently deserve respect? Institutions should earn respect based on their behavior. ---
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220/149 "2023-03-17T15:01:55Z")
I mean they shouldn’t automatically be disrespected either. We have an entire movement doing everything they can to destroy all of our institutions and our entire democracy right now. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220/150 "2023-03-17T15:02:21Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > But, to me, it sounds like whoever is running your meetings needs to review Robert’s Rules or even better a contemporary update to them, that sounds like the problem. Parliamentary procedure can’t fix a culture that doesn’t understand the difference between form and substance. It only determines the order that people talk about their pet concerns. If you’re not convinced, spend a little quality time watching Congressional proceedings on C-SPAN. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220/151 "2023-03-17T15:14:57Z")
> [@Airbeck](#): > > I mean they shouldn’t automatically be disrespected either. No, they should > [@Babale](#): > > earn respect based on their behavior Like I said earlier. ---
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220/152 "2023-03-17T15:17:15Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > No, they should I disagree. Yes we should work to improve them, but your stance means the nihilists will succeed. I’m not ready to live in a country without institutions, at the whim of those who destroyed them. Respecting why we have institutions is not the same as thinking they are perfect. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220/153 "2023-03-17T15:23:05Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > > [@wolfpup](#): > > > > My intial immediate response to this was going to be along the lines of “all joking aside, we need to teach our kids respect for our institutions, and if our institutions don’t live up to those ideals, then it’s the institutions we need to change, not what the kids are taught”. > > Why? Why do institutions inherently deserve respect? Institutions should earn respect based on their behavior. Maybe you’re thinking of “institutions” in the narrow sense of business organizations like banks or the Federal Reserve. But in the broad sense of the term, social institutions are the essential underpinnings of civilization. Without them, all we have is anarchy. It shouldn’t be controversial that kids should be brought up to respect civilization ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220/154 "2023-03-17T15:24:14Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > But very few of the meetings go down rabbit holes in the way this one did. As readers of this message board know, going down rabbit holes happens whenever participants lose focus. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220/155 "2023-03-17T15:27:51Z")
> [@Moonrise](#): > > Liberalism is about not only affirming, but striving to achieve equality between members of society, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, diet, creed, wealth, etc. It is rooted in facts and reason, critical thinking, peaceful coexistence, inclusivity and ultimately compassion and love for all humans. Its main tools are education and free access to information. > > Wokeness seems to me to be about imposing minority views to the rest of society. It is based on “feelings” and passion, blind adherence to a strict with-us-or-against-us worldview, conflict, exclusion and ultimately hatred for the Other. Its main tools are banning, rewriting and hiding. How are “compassion and love” not "“feelings” and passion? I get very tired of people saying, in effect, ‘My opinions are based entirely on facts and reason but my opponents’ opinions are based on emotion!’ Everybody’s opinions and stance on issues are based on emotion. If you had no emotions, you couldn’t want anything, you couldn’t care about anything – you wouldn’t care whether you or your child or neighbor had a job or not, had a home or not, were being lynched or not. Ideally, people seek out facts in order to sort out how to best apply their emotions, instead of leaping into emotion-filled opinions without checking into what’s actually going on. Being “woke”, in the original sense, was exactly about doing that – about becoming more aware of the facts of the situation. Being “woke”, in the accusatory sense, is just a noise. Partly because many of the people using it that way aren’t looking, in a rational fashion, into the facts of what the word means. (Some people of course know exactly what it means when it’s used with actual meaning, but have realized they can use it as a cudgel to drive others the way they want them to go, and are doing so.) > [@Moonrise](#): > > I thought that the purpose of this thread was to define “woke”. I complied, with my own definition. I thought we were actually having a debate. Silly me. The OP does not appear to me to be asking for definitions of “woke”. The OP appears to me to be asking why people are objecting to the word and/or idea, and why some are saying that it’s hard to define. The OP starts off with a definition, and then asks > [@slicedalone](#): > > But why is being “woke” a bad thing, or a difficult thing to define? – and, as LHOD says, yes we’re having a debate. Did you think a debate was a discussion in which everybody agrees with each other? FWIW, my answers to the original question are: it’s not a bad thing, it’s a good thing. Some specific things that people are discussing doing about it may be bad things, most of them are good things, some may be reasonably debatable. But being aware of a situation is a good thing. And it’s not a difficult thing to define – except that as LSLGuy says, people who are opposed to doing anything at all about injustice and would prefer to pretend that it doesn’t exist, as well as people who are in favor of injustice, are refusing to recognize the definition and are instead insisting that the actual definition is ‘people trying to insist we all do silly and obnoxious things about a nonexistent problem.’ And they’ve convinced enough people that this is now, indeed, an alternative definition; because that’s how language works. > [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > > [@Moonrise](#): > > > > (ever seen an Islamist preacher supporting trans rights ?). > > Why an _Islamist_ preacher? Yeah, I’d like to see an answer to that also. I don’t spend any significant part of my time listening to preachers of any sort. But a couple of them came up on my first page of Google results. And I read, all the time, about Christian preachers railing against trans rights. They don’t, of course, represent all Christian preachers; but blaming this specifically on Islam looks very squicky to me. if what you were saying was that you think Islam is a “fringe view” – do you have the remotest idea how many Muslims there are in the world? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220/156 "2023-03-17T15:29:18Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > > [@wolfpup](#): > > > > As far as “sensitivity reader” goes, there’s a description here: > > Did you think he was asking for a definition of “sensitivity reader” because he didn’t know what one was? _I_ certainly didn’t, until I read **wolfpup** ’s post, and I am grateful to them for posting it. ETA: And from the context in which **Moonrise** has been addressing the term, I wouldn’t lay a lot of money on the line over the question of whether they did, either. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220/157 "2023-03-17T15:37:06Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Yeah, I’d like to see an answer to that also. FWIW, although Iran is far, far from a paradise for transfolk, [Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwah in the eighties calling for the respect of transgender rights](https://www.voanews.com/a/despite-fatwa-transgender-people-in-iran-face-harassment/4402998.html). Shit’s complicated. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220/158 "2023-03-17T15:41:08Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > For real, how many progressive meetings do you go to that are run according to Robert’s Rules? I go to like 2-3 meetings a week, we’re talking meetings with land acknowledgments and pronoun declarations and titles like “Mass meeting” and “Equity Committee.” Of those, I think one meeting a year follows Robert’s Rules. I didn’t say follow them, I said review them, you know for tips on how to run an effective meeting. I run meetings, I don’t follow Robert’s Rules, but knowing them and other ways of organizing a meeting helps to get through all that needs to be gotten through. That’s my point, it really sounds like a failure to run a meeting effectively than any issue with the content. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > But very few of the meetings go down rabbit holes in the way this one did. I earlier took it that you meant that 90% of the time in meetings was spent on this stuff, and that this meeting was just an example of a typical one. If it was just this one meeting that went off the rails, then that’s really not as harmful, at least not on the sort of systemic basis that would give any sort of meat to the complaint that _the Left_ spends all its time on these subjects. > [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Parliamentary procedure can’t fix a culture that doesn’t understand the difference between form and substance. And it doesn’t matter the merits of the subject of a meeting if it is not well organized. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220/159 "2023-03-17T15:44:56Z")
> [@Airbeck](#): > > I disagree. Yes we should work to improve them, but your stance means the nihilists will succeed. Nihlists will succeed if we judge institutions based on their actions rather than blidnly following them? I don’t think I follow that logic. > [@Airbeck](#): > > I’m not ready to live in a country without institutions, at the whim of those who destroyed them. The only way this stance makes sense is if you assume that all institutions are inherently so bad that if we took a good hard look we’d decide to abolish them. > [@wolfpup](#): > > Without them, all we have is anarchy. It shouldn’t be controversial that kids should be brought up to respect civilization So if I was born in the 1800s, you’d have me raising my kids to respect the institution of slavery just because it’s the institution in place and the country relies on it? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220/160 "2023-03-17T15:45:48Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > I earlier took it that you meant that 90% of the time in meetings was spent on this stuff, and that this meeting was just an example of a typical one. If it was just this one meeting that went off the rails, then that’s really not as harmful, at least not on the sort of systemic basis that would give any sort of meat to the complaint that _the Left_ spends all its time on these subjects. Saying this with respect, I really need you to read me more carefully here. I am neither trying to give meat to that sort of complaint, nor saying that the left spends all its time on those subjects. In fact, I specifically repudiated that in my first post. I AM agreeing with: > [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > There are indeed some silly narcissistic excesses in left-wing identity politics, some cringe-inducing practices that I think are harmful to the left. As part of the left, I think we have specific things that sometimes crop up that we need to do better about. This is an example of one of them. I don’t have to think the left is without flaw to work passionately for the leftist causes I believe in. In fact, I suspect that the more you’re involved in leftist organizing work and activism, the more you’ll realize both that the flaws are there, and that in no way do they undermine the core ideals nor the activists doing the good work. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/defining-woke/981220.md?page=9)