How is anti-wokeism different from sexism and/or racism?

The issue here is that the expansion that you make it sound as if it was “normal” remains as one expansion that is coming from an abnormal group. Sure that the word is used with racist or dog whistle meanings, but the bigger issue is that the insulting expansion is greater among bigoted groups that have a lot of influence these days.

Marjorie Taylor Greene mocked for gushing over ‘anti-woke’ Super Bowl country star - not realising he’s a BLM activist

I’m the same. My overall political perspective has shifted over time. There was a time I considered myself pretty conservative, then I drifted to a moderate stance and now I have to say I can only be called a liberal.

Yet many of my beliefs didn’t change. I never fit comfortably in a box at any point. There were things I believed as a conservative that didn’t match what you’d expect a conservative to believe, and there are things I believe as a liberal that you wouldn’t expect either. People usually don’t fit into boxes very neatly.

Getting back to the main topic of this thread, I think this tweet has some relevance:

…I think this is a fair summary.

But I just want to point out that we hit an inflection point over the last few months. Remember when there was a time that almost nobody had heard of critical race theory, then suddenly all of the conservatives were talking about critical race theory, then suddenly everybody was talking about critical race theory…but during debates it became clear that the “two sides” were talking about two different things and then…

Well just do a google news search for CRT.

It means something different now. And pretty much everybody has given up fighting about it now, with critical race theory basically meaning anything to do with race, particularly Black history, that makes white people uncomfortable.

And I think that this discussion needs to be viewed in this context. Woke is not as obscure a word or phrase as CRT. But it was largely used in its original context until around about 2010. It became used more often as we hit the 2020’s, to the point where HarrisX thought there was enough casual recognition of the word in order to conduct a poll.

But I’ve seen an acceleration in the last few months to the point of what we are seeing in this thread: a debate where “woke” clearly means entirely different things to two different sets of people. One group aligns pretty closely to the dictionary definition. The other group is a bit more vague. But if you forced me to sum that up in a single sentence, it would be:

“Progressive ideals that make people uncomfortable.”

Some people might think I’m being unfair here. But IMHO, it fits everything we see in this thread.

And I think that gives us a picture of what we have to look forward too. A couple of years ago we were debating whether or not trans girls should be allowed to play girls sports. Today we have states banning trans affirming care for kids and you have over 300 anti-trans legislation on the books. A year ago we were debating what even the word CRT means. And now states are passing anti-CRT legislation.

So I think we are maybe six-months to a year away from the first round of “anti-woke” legislation to start hitting the states. I’m sure they are being drafted in the bill-factories as we speak. Hold on to your hats.

In the population in general, no. In the circles I move in (POC spaces and leftist spaces) it’s common enough. I interact regularly with two unrelated people who have “Stay Woke” as their sigline, for instance.

Sounds a lot like “political correctness.” You have two sides fighting fiercely because they can’t even agree on what PC means. When liberals say they support PC, conservatives hear, “I want people to be offended because Oreo cookies contain white filling sandwiched by black layers (not something I made up, I heard in 2003)” and when conservatives say they oppose PC, liberals hear “I want people to be able to say the N-word without consequences.”

Well the original point was merely that people who would or could consider themselves “woke”, as per the original definition from BB, would also be people that expanded the reach of the word and would consider other policies, activities, causes etc. to be associated with it. So sure, I’m confident that such people are in BLM.

Both expansions of usage are perfectly normal and to be expected. The original usage, the benign expansion and exploration of what it means and how and when it applies, then the backlash and pejorative spin from the opponents.

Is that really such a far-fetched description of what has happened?

More far-fetched than the alternative scenario?
That one implied by BB that no-one using the word or identifying with it has ever used it to mean anything more than a general “awareness of systematic injustices and prejudices”?

Is the most common use of the word these days as a pejorative?, yes. no doubt about that and no disagreement from me.

Well the original point was that @bump made the claim that “insufferable” people, who self-identified as woke, were being preachy and sanctimonious. We all called BS, as this is a popular RW straw man at the moment.

When bump completely failed to even give one such example of a person, you jumped in to his defence, that of course such people exist, and just look at BLM etc…

Approx 100 posts later, you’re admitting that it’s just your guess based on nothing.

No, that was an entirely different point, I did not defend bump’s POV that…

What I did say was that people who do or could identify as “woke” have in the past expanded the reach of the word “woke” past the original definition that BB first provided.
It is a huge leap from that to “insufferable, preachy and sanctimonious” I’d have no problem aiming that criticism if I felt it were warranted but I mind very much when you have me saying things I did not say.

You can go back and check if you like. The posts are still there.

The thing I am saying you were defending, was the part I underlined: that there were people who self-identified as woke. He called them “preachy and sanctimonious”, you claimed they had expanded the meaning of the word woke.

Neither of you have provided any examples, and you just conceded that you are guessing such people exist.

Your wording suggested that I was agreeing with a depiction of those people as “preachy and sanctimonious” I did not do that.

As for evidence. I know people myself who did describe themselves as woke and were perfectly happy to talk about the many areas in which that concept applied. This was an ongoing topic in the DEI sessions in our company. That’s anecdotal, I don’t expect you to take that at face value.

The cites already given in the thread talk about the expansion of the term from the POV of people who, in my opinion, would definitely apply the label “woke” to themselves where “woke” is defined by that original BB definition.

Are they clearly stating “I identify as woke and I think it should be applied beyond the original meaning”? No, they aren’t, but I think it is a reasonable inference based on what was written and what has been said.

Overall I think it far more reasonable to accept that inference than its negation, which would be “the term “woke” is used only in its original sense by those who identify with it and has not been subject to any form of benign expansion”.

I don’t say you are claiming that negation is true. You are right that I am making the positive claim and need to bring the evidence. I find the imperfect evidence convincing, you do not.

The “PC gone wild”, “preachy and sanctimonious”, “SJW”, “woke”, “cancel culture” -(yes, those are all the same phenomenon) trope is made up by assholes who are being held accountable for their crap.

There is never a real example, any documented instance. It is bullshit spewed by bullshitters called out for their bullshit.

There was no such suggestion (as I say, I did underline the critical part), but it wouldn’t even matter if there was. We’re all clear that your claim is that there are people who self-identify as “woke” and who have greatly expanded the original meaning of the word.

It’s pretty telling that in terms of cites of this supposed phenomenon, @bump invoked a training he did over a quarter century ago where no-one self-identified as woke nor even mentioned the term. And you guessed that such people must exist in BLM.

Now your cite is people in your company who have self-identified as woke.
And you’re wrong: not only am I not rejecting this cite, I want to hear more! Did they say “I am woke”? What explanation followed, in this totally real thing that happened?

This seems appropriate as a response:

sanc·ti·mo·ni·ous

/ˌsaNG(k)təˈmōnēəs/

adjective

DEROGATORY

  1. making a show of being morally superior to other people.

To ask how anti-wokeism is different from sexism or racism sounds kind of like a Trump supporter asking, “How is anti-Trumpism any different than hating America or being unpatriotic?”

To a Trump supporter, loving America and loving Trump are one and the same. But to anyone and everyone not in the Trump cult, it’s clear that support of Trump entails all sorts of baggage that goes beyond mere patriotism - if it can even be called patriotism at all.

Kinda reminds me of when Paul Ryan claimed that Rage Against the Machine was his favorite band? LOL

Honestly though, it seems like anymore “woke” is a term used more by the anti-woke crowd, to criticize anyone or anything they disagree with. Things they find too progressive or liberal. I rarely see it used in a positive manner, just a negative one.

Do I consider myself “woke”? Fuck if I know. The word’s been so twisted nowadays. Like someone said, it’s the new “PC”. If by “woke” you mean people should try not to be such bigotted assholes, and try to pay attention to what’s going on in the world, and educate themselves, well, I guess. I don’t see it happen any time soon, however. :frowning:

And it is pretty telling that you have conflated what bump said about their experience with what I have said about people identifying as woke and expansion of the term.
Almost as if you dislike the pejorative terms they were using and you would like to connect them somehow to me.

The two were not related, my comment was not related to bump’s, I do not and have not agreed with their assessment.

I did refer to bump’s experience in my posts very briefly and the below is the sum total of any “jumping to his defence” that I did.

I also very clearly said that we don’t actually know what was said to them unless they came back and clarified.

And at no point did that supposed “defence” lead into my wider point. At no point did I make my wider point as a means of defending what bump said.

Tweet, that enough.

This meta argument of what he said or they said is done.

@Novelty_Bobble, leave the thread. You appear to be only arguing in circles and it is killing the thread.

Everyone else no more replies to them.

Thank you, W_E. My thought before I even saw your post. Sadly, I think the thread may already be dead.

There seem to be two camps on the “anti-woke” thing. before I get into that, I must point out that “woke” began as simply meaning being cognizant of the plight of people of color. Then it got co-opted by others and turned into a catch-all term for what used to be called SJWs.

I see the two camps as follows:

The first is those who actually are bigots and who tend to lean towards right-wing extremism and they want to “own the libs” and just lash out at anything that supports equality, LGBT+ issues, etc. They often have this fundamentalist worldview that is generally sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc. and they want to be able to voice their bigotry without consequence.

The second camp is generally on the same side of the issues as the “woke” people, but strongly disagree with many of the tactics and narratives being employed as they are often selectively bigoted as well, with different targets. Plus, there’s a lot of absolutist thinking and zero tolerance for any criticism or disagreement, no matter how valid. They aren’t against the demographics, but the attitudes. The snark, vitriol, constant rage, and overreacting to often innocuous things.

A fair argument can be made that many who claim to be “woke” do partake heavily in bigotry against those they perceive as privileged (white, cis, male, old, etc) and it kind of flies in the face of the progressive stance that bigotry of any kind should be avoided. Narratives such as “punching up vs punching down” send the message that punching is fine, as long as it’s done to the “right” people. So, a lot of hypocrisy and disingenuousness has become a part of the whole “woke” movement.

There are a ton of people who simply want to see everyone live a life of dignity and respect, have their basic needs taken care of, and not be marginalized or discriminated against. Yet, they aren’t on the attack online looking for fights and shouting people down. They’re just being kind and reasonable with people in general. This is where I identify. I don’t feel that arguing all the time is fighting the good fight, nor is it at all effective in resolving the problems they claim to address. If anything, it just exacerbates them.