Thinks makes little sense. These are both terms used by the right, one pejorative and one not.
“Family values” is the right’s oh-so-secret code to label itself anti-LGBT.
“Woke” is the right’s catchall to label others pro-LGBT rights, among other things it doesn’t like.
They’re talking about the tax dollars that they worked hard to earn, going to those who didn’t work and who paid few to no taxes. In other words, being forced to share their earnings with the less fortunate, through taxes and government redistribution. “Helping them with my tax dollars just teaches them that they don’t need to do anything except sit back and benefit from my tax dollars.”
I’d suggest that this fits in with the right’s view of any form of UHC as “socialism”: “The government is taking from me to give to those poorer than me. That’s socialism!”
To me, “woke” means “Christian”, in the sense of someone who acts with love.
Matthew 22:39
“The second [commandment] is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Galatians 3:27-28
For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female–for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
The people who are anti-woke are filled with hate, and having abandoned God, hate even themselves. Thus their desire to destroy our country and everything else.
This, basically.
When it means anything more specific, it tends to mean ‘People want me to be careful about what I say and how I say it so that I don’t piss other people off! This is something that has never been expected before of anybody in history!’
– People have been expected to be careful about what they say and how they say it in order not to piss other people off since, probably, about ten minutes after the invention of human speech; and most likely to do the equivalent about their body language before that. The thing that’s actually being complained about is that those in historically-privileged groups are now sometimes being expected to watch their language in order not to piss off those in historically-disadvantaged groups, instead of only the other way around.
I don’t really hear about people with progressive ideals using the word at all any more. IME it’s a thought-terminating snarl word used exclusively by reactionaries (you’ll never persuade me to label them “conservatives”), and what its meaning is, is: having called you “woke,” I have rendered you and your concerns trivial and irrelevant. There is no value in discussing anything with you.
It’s rhetorical onomatopoeia. What’s the “definition” of “KABOOM?”
Note that “woke” has been around a long time.
“The phrase “woke” and to “stay woke” is not new — it began appearing in the 1940s and was first used by African Americans to “literally mean becoming woken up or sensitised to issues of justice””.
By now, “woke” has been so tainted by pejorative right-wing use* that it is in danger of being wiped entirely from the progressive lexicon**.
*in which it is basically defined as any progressive ideas or policies found to be reprehensible, ludicrous and/or counter-productive and thus mockable. There doesn’t seem to be a left-wing equivalent with which to label the right. “Fascist” probably comes closest.
**along with “liberal”.
Woke as a term is 100 years old in the black community. This very long Vox article by Aja Romero has the best history of wokeness in culture. Even long articles can’t be complete and she leaves out perhaps my favorite usage, by Barry Beckham in his 1971 Garvey Lives!.
“I been sleeping all my life. And now that Mr Garvey done woke me up, I’m gon’ stay woke. And I’m gon’ help him wake up other black folk.”
(Romano: “In 1923, a collection of aphorisms and ideas by the Jamaican philosopher and social activist Marcus Garvey included the summons “Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!” as a call to global Black citizens to become more socially and politically conscious.”)
That sums it for me. A definition needs both parts. Woke is the awareness of the systemic injustices that have historically plagued us and the willingness to fight legally to change the system and the culture. You’re not woke if you just say the right things; you have to go out and work to make a difference because doing nothing is no longer an option.
This makes it clear why wokeness is so threatening. The right absolutely depends on the ignorance of their base and the denial of actions they take. An organized opposition demanding that they be taken down from their pinnacles of power is their worst nightmare, especially when it comes from people they despise as less than human.
White supremacy is naturally a target of wokeness, but historically woke and white were not simple antagonists. Child labor laws were considered woke. Women’s suffrage was considered woke. Social Security was considered woke. Banning factories from polluting the air and water was considered woke, though that exact term wasn’t used in any.
Modern wokeness is a descendant of the clash between the progressive movements and the conservative interests. (Today’s progressive wing of the Democrats are also descendants of that earlier movement, but not identical to it.) The women’s movement, the gay movement, the Asian movement, the Muslim movement, the trans movement, and all the other social, cultural, class, religious, color, and belief movements are mixed in to a far greater extent than a century ago. Almost all of the early 20th battles were won by the progressives, although most took decades and needed further tweaking and reinforcing. Today they are all core American principles, fought only by a few beyond-the-pale extremists. I see the modern battles being won the same slow two-steps-forward, one-step-back frustrating way. A generation or two on, children growing up will not understand why their schoolbooks include fights about the obvious.
For those who ride on the top of oppression, repression, and suppression (called scum when water is involved), simple human decency, equality of all, and the fairness of the justice system is existentially threatening. As it should be. They’re fighting their hardest now because they are backed in a corner and can see the end coming. It is. The light at the end of the tunnel is the train speeding their way.
An entertaining article:
I seem to remember someone started a thread about this already.
If someone is calling you that, they are probably a far right troll, and they see you as being obnoxious by not agreeing with their opinions on white supremacy.
If someone calls someone else “woke” they may find them obnoxious, but their judgement is beyond twisted at that point. I don’t see it as a reflection on your character, only on theirs.
They don’t even know what it means, it’s just a slur to them.
And in Ye Olde days, not watching your words in public was an easy ticket to a duel to death… or a lynching.
The problem with your argument is “obnoxious” is not some objective concept. As you say, “woke” is a pejorative. Pejoratives are not used only in cases where they actually fit. They are very often used as an attempt to try and silence those you disagree with.
It’s thus easy to just act like everyone who disagrees with you is “obnoxious.” Heck, it’s easy to find people obnoxious if you disagree with them but have to admit they have a point. It’s normal to find people obnoxious who expect you to actually do something. And it’s normal for those actually participating in an injustice to find those who fight against them to be obnoxious.
The fact that the person finds you obnoxious (or at least says they do) does not tell you that you are objectively obnoxious, let alone that you’ve “gone too far.”
Just look at the long list of things that are called “woke.” Teaching about slavery in school is apparently “woke.” Acknowledging that trans people exist is apparently “woke.” It’s a pejorative, so of course it will be used for anything that the person in question opposes that roughly fits the definition.
Or not.
I recommended that people not watch Fox News several decades ago, because it was dishonest and propagandic. Now, obviously, my hope was that the people that I told this too would think, “Well, Sage is a Republican and good at research. I should make note and start being a bit more skeptical.” More likely, they took it as evidence that I’d gotten corrupted by the liberals and couldn’t be trusted anymore. The former required introspection and personal betterment. The latter allowed mental laziness and the ability to continue having people spoon feed you what you liked to hear every day.
If half the country is warning you on something, you should take it seriously.
It’s not half the country. The majority sees being woke as a good thing. Gen Z is not falling for any of this culture war stuff. Hence the attacks on schools as indoctrinating kids to be woke.
Don’t confuse the incredibly loud minority as being half of the country. Remember the GOP has lost 3 straight elections running on this kind of hateful stuff.
Wait, so now I’m woke?
What a pleasant surprise!
So, you became “woke”.
The same half of the country is telling you that you were corrupted by liberals and can’t be trusted anymore. How seriously do you take that?
Well said.
My version of the pile-on comment is: "If half the country is parroting Faux New’s line, is that 150 million people thinking that, or is one person thinking that and 150 million drones repeating what they’ve been told?
If the latter, it’s profoundly unAmerican to accord them any attention or authority.
Beat me to it. I came here to post the link to Mandel blanking out. Mandel is a known liar; you’d think an experienced liar would at least have her bullshit prepared.
Bitching about “woke” things is basically Mandel’s job. Baseball writer Keith Law commented, “It would be like me being unable to explain what a pitcher is.”
This is actually true, and everyone saying it’s not is not thinking this through. If half the country is saying “woke is a huge threat” you should take it seriously… but taking something seriously does not mean believing it without thought. It means thinking “huh, many people are concerned about this, I should investigate further.”
And, well, having read a lot about this, it’s just inchoate horsefuckery, as used by conservatives, anyway. “Woke” is as nebulous as concept as I’ve heard used in political discourse in my entire life. So I took it seriously, investigated, concluded it’snot just pointlessly vague, but seems to be used mostly by people who just don’t like something but can’t articulate a good argument why. So, there, I did my job as a concerned citizen.
Good point.
@Sage_Rat is totally correct that 150 million very confused citizens filled with rage about something imaginary could do a lot of damage to a democracy. And therefore we should take that threat of our country being destroyed by 150 million deranged people seriously. Very seriously.
What we should not do is take their silly concept of “wokeness as a moral problem” seriously. And certainly the best way to prevent 150 million fantasists from harming the country is not for the rest of us to start agreeing with them or to alter the real truth we abide by to better resemble their propaganda-besotted fantasies.
Some ideas are so bad that contemptuous ridicule is the only appropriate response. RW whining about wokeness is one such bad idea.