Frankly, if you’re not the target of the bigotry, almost 100% of your advice and effort should be directed at the initiators of the bigotry instead of at the targets of the bigotry. Direct your attention outwards.
I agree that being effective is important. I disagree that it makes sense for you to lecture @MrDibble on what that looks like in this case.
Now, if he suddenly decides to start dunking on gay people, it’s a different matter: by all means, give him a piece of your mind. In that case he’d be the initiator, not (I think) the target.
But it’s difficult for someone who’s not in the crosshairs to know how best to handle being in the crosshairs.
I hear you here. However, bigots don’t tend to argue in good faith, and I prefer not to waste my time on those who don’t argue in good faith. I want constructive conversations. Raging isn’t that. If someone is personally attacking someone I love, I’m there. If they’re just spewing ignorance, fuck 'em. They just want a reaction.
Definitely not intentionally misunderstanding it, it’s just that you seem to be advocating opposite concepts every time you post. Don’t be nice, but also don’t be angry, but also only be angry but only at the people who have the power to hurt you, which you acknowledge is just about anyone who votes to put bigots into power.
Let’s go back to this sentence, then, which is I think at the heart of the disagreement.
A bigot who doesn’t make policy can still have power:
-They might have trans children, and they might be abusive to those children based on their bigotry.
-They might teach Black students, and they might underserve or abuse those students based on their bigotry.
-They might provide health care to women, and they might underserve or abuse those women based on their bigotry.
-They might work in a prison with atheist prisoners, and they might underserve or abuse those inmates based on their bigotry.
-They might vote for bigots who set policy.
-They might do a hundred thousand other things that translate their views into shittier lives for the targets of their bigotry.
To be clear, the type of power I’m talking about is making policy. I’ve said that several times. Also, the things you are list are indeed harmful. But, those things are far different than being ignorant on Twitter. I’m referring to online conversations here. That’s the entire scope of my arguments thus far. If that hasn’t been clear until now, perhaps now it should be clear from this point forward.
That’s clear. The problem isn’t that I don’t realize that’s the only kind of power you’re talking about. The problem is that I disagree that that’s the only kind of power worth considering in your “therefore aren’t worth wasting time on” formulation. All the other kinds of power I mention, and many others, are relevant.
Ah, gotcha. Well, the intent behind my arguments here has been that wasting time on social media raging at bigoted trolls who don’t make policy is generally pointless and makes it hard for others to take someone seriously when they do that. My apologies if I’ve been unclear on that.
I think the most important thing is to discern what is harmful from what is merely offensive. My main argument is that we should each take each situation, conversations, etc on a case by case basis and figure out our course of action from there. The things you listed are certainly harmful and you should definitely speak up and do something about it. I just don’t see the people who genuinely are powerless blowhards spewing hot air on social media as worth my time.
If we take the time to discern who’s who and what’s what and then respond appropriately rather than instantly reacting, I think we’d all be more effective. To be clear, I’m not accusing you of doing those things, but it’s all too common when people are in the middle of their rage. We don’t always respond effectively when we’re worked up. That’s what I’m trying to get at.
I’d rather be helping people than arguing with people. And with that, I think I’ll go focus on doing just that.
I hope this clarifies things and I hope you have a good day.
Second, what you posted was an opinion from 2021. Someone did not get the memo :). Other more educated ones already pointed at discouraging the use of the word as they noticed what was going on thanks to the overwhelming strength the right wing media has.
“To some, woke is now a derisive stand-in for diversity, inclusion, empathy and, yes, Blackness. So, when legislators pass a law to “stop woke” in light of the word’s true history as well as its commonly understood meaning, what are they really saying?”
The details of the law and the story behind its passage bear out this conclusion. It was passed against the will of a broad cross-section of Florida residents and students who testified to legislators about the harm it would cause in the state and to their community’s efforts to challenge injustice. Notably, many of these initiatives were launched in the wake of the horrific deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and far too many other Black people due to police violence.
Under the Stop W.O.K.E. law, educators and institutions in Florida are already being restricted, or restricting themselves out of fear, from freely teaching students about many of the events and people that make up the history of this country. Indeed, even the stories of American icons like Martin Luther King Jr. are allegedly being banned from Florida K-12 classrooms under this law.
In Harriot’s view, the manipulation of woke has been key to effecting policies that, when looked at plainly, reveal a foundational hostility to values most Americans share. This includes recognizing and honoring icons who toiled to bring our nation closer to living up to its ideals of justice and fairness, where everyone can thrive and live without fear of being targeted for who they are.
“It’s hard to get people to demonize human beings and lives and history. But it’s easy to get them to demonize a word. And if you can use that word as a placeholder for those people, for caring about those people, then it’s easy to demonize instead of saying, ‘We’re just gonna stop caring about people,’” Harriot concludes.
Watson agrees, “When I think of political figures like DeSantis and the rampant fight against critical race theory — you are really trying to erase history and trying to erase knowledge that we need to grow better as a people. The fact that you are trying to hide these experiences all for the comfort of your white fragility is troubling, harmful, and, most importantly, dangerous. And that’s literally everything that woke goes against.”
And they get into that position of power due to the votes of the bigots who you say are powerless.
Plus which: people not in a formal position of power may have a good deal of power over others in their family, workplaces, etc.
They are not harmless.
Is it useful to spend all one’s time arguing with bigots on social media? Very likely not, at least for most people. But if one happens to be somewhere anyway, online or otherwise, and runs into bigoted statements, calling those out can be very useful, and simply ignoring them is in many cases a bad idea. I really can’t tell from your posts overall whether you’re advising that because you think the people making the statements are powerless; but some of your posts sure read that way to me.
They are part of and encouraged by people being hatefully ignorant on Twitter.
I don’t use Twitter. I’m not going to start using Twitter in order to argue with bigots there. But what happens on Twitter isn’t harmless.
And, if you (general you) are using portions of Twitter where people are making bigoted statements, and you continue to post in those threads/with those people without calling them on it, that will be taken by them as endorsing those statements.
Not separable. Some things are more harmful than others, of course. But it’s all harmful.
Your article doesn’t counter the point that I’m making. So I will spell it out again.
Black people refer to “woke” people in the same disparaging way white conservatives do. How do I know this? Because I’m a black person who uses it that way and I have black family and friends who use it that way too. We are all lifelong Dems.
I predict you will continue to argue with me, insisting that I’m somehow wrong about my own experience as a liberal black person. And I will continue to point out that this is exactly what “wokeness” looks like in the wild: an argumentative progressive who is so confident they know better than the minorities they claim to care about that they are willing to erase the agency of minorities altogether, if it means they can win something.
The Reddit thread below offers some balanced perspectives on “wokeness”. Please note these perspectives aren’t all MAGAts; most seem to come from accounts professing liberal views.
Not really, as a minority myself I can say that experiences are not the same. I can only look at the history and realize that even minorities can miss a lot of what is going on.
Of course there are progressive minorities that do rub many democrats wrong, but it is not really good to dismiss what it is happening to many academics that are under the gun in conservative states because of the caricature of what conservatives think “woke” is to them.
I didn’t read all three thousand comments, but what I saw was… basically exactly what’s been said in this thread: about 90% of the posters saying that the term’s original definition, as it originated in the AA community, is fine, but it’s been distorted by conservatives for political reasons. And about 10% saying sometimes woke people can be dicks.
Was there something specific in that thread that you thought merited attention?
I hear you. To expand on this, one thing that generates a lot of “anti-woke” sentiment is the propensity towards one-size-fits-all blanket narratives that demand a “correct” term or stance when there is no consensus in any demographic about what is correct.
Examples: Tons of black people in my life don’t want to be known as “people of color” and say, “just call me black”. Tons of trans people are playing the Harry Potter game and not buying into the idea that they are harmed by people playing it. Tons of Hispanic people can’t stand the term “Latinx”. Hell, some of my dear trans friends have straight up told me that putting an x at the end of a word doesn’t do shit for them. I don’t think it’s anyone’s place to tell them their feelings about this are not valid. The list goes on.
For every narrative about a demographic that demands a singular “correct” way, there is no consensus that there is one correct way in those same demographics. And when people demand that these narratives are the only acceptable take, that’s a big part of what “anti-woke” people rally against. And when it comes to that specific thing, they’re not wrong. The failure of discernment that is all too common is that many assume that if one is against any “woke” narrative, they must be against the entire stance of woke people in general.
I can’t stand bigotry, and I love inclusiveness and representation, but I don’t call myself woke simply because I don’t want to be lumped in with extremist, one-size-fits-all portion of that crowd. I prefer to call myself progressive, but even that is now gaining similar stigmas.
Maybe we need to focus less on insisting on specific terms and focus more on the essence of what people are saying. There are people who are on the same side who aren’t familiar with all these terms and who are trying, but they get a tongue lashing if they fuck up a “correct” term by people who are more focused on their checklist of no-nos than actually listening to intent. We gotta give people a chance to be good.
After all, those who are not black have no business telling black people what the correct term is, and hell, even those who are don’t really have the right to insist that everyone else in their demographic adhere to any specific term. Same goes for trans people and their terms, Latin people and theirs, etc. To be clear, I’m not talking about pronouns. Those should be respected and the only person who has the right to tell you what to call a person is that person themselves.
The complexity is that those who oppose these narratives also don’t have a consensus among themselves. Some hate woke because they hate anything progressive because they actually are bigots and others are against it solely due to being against certain one-size-fits-all narratives because those narratives don’t hold up to scrutiny (due to the lack of consensus). In short, many “anti-woke” people are very often on the same side of issues as the “woke” people, but just disagree with certain narratives. The “woke” they oppose isn’t inclusivity, but inconsistency.
But, if you are at all critical of these narratives, it’s all to common that people will assume you must be part of the bigoted set of people automatically because you dared speak against these “woke” narratives. It’s a circular shitshow. This is why we need to slow down, use our words, and if we’re not sure of a context, ask rather than assume the worst one.
Every group has its wonderful people and its shitty people, and every group has an extremist subsection. Denying that one’s own group has that extremist portion and that the opposing group is nothing but their extremist portion is the cause of endless avoidable vitriol.
Except nobody is denying they exist. What we object to is the idea that because some people who are woke are assholes, that tarnishes the entire concept of “wokeness:”
I wholeheartedly disagree. I don’t think we’re in the same reality. When I’m offended, well…then what? Nothing. Nothing else happens. I’m not in the hospital, I didn’t get robbed of my money, I didn’t lose my job. I just got offended. Oh dear. People who are truly oppressed don’t give a shit about being offended. I’ve lived in Cambodia. They’ve known oppression and the general attitude there is that takes like the one you presented are incredulous. Tell someone who lost a limb to a mine and barely survived a genocide how much you suffer from being offended and they will laugh in your face. Equating being offended with being harmed is an insult to those who truly know suffering. Being offended is entirely separable from being harmed, because you can decide to not let people’s attempts of offend you have any effect. That’s not the case with actual harm.