# Is it Time to Tone Down the Wokeness, Especially about the Past? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 15, 2024, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287 "2024-11-15T15:14:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2024, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287/104 "2024-11-15T20:43:15Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > the right thinks, “So you think LatinX is how Hispanic people should be referred to, even if Hispanics don’t want it?” Because the Right is totally open to it when a group actually does want the way they are referred to changed? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2024, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287/105 "2024-11-15T20:44:29Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Because the Right is totally open to it when a group actually does want the way they are referred to changed? No, but the Right isn’t the side that bears the brunt of being attacked as ‘woke.’ There’s a double standard. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2024, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287/106 "2024-11-15T21:11:56Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > But I wouldn’t call it woke. Exactly - if woke = ‘anything I don’t like’, that’s a non-starter. And how many variations of that have we seen in this thread alone? There are a lot of not-so-hidden assumptions about what woke means, and then this example of Gaza gets dropped into the mix. It’s easy to see that “people should tone down doing things I don’t agree with” is not exactly a brilliant idea. But change the label to ‘woke’, and suddenly there’s a debate. Anybody and everybody can agree with the notion that people should do things they personally don’t like, because they’ll insert their own (vague) definition wherever they see the word. Come up with a clear, consistent definition of the word and use it clearly and consistently, and the foundations of the OP fall totally apart. ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2024, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287/107 "2024-11-15T22:02:18Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > All in the Family was originally broadcast with a content warning in the woke days of the 1970s The first episode, but I’m not aware of any after that. Saying it was ‘originally broadcast’ is a bit misleading. The warning was not ‘every’ broadcast. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2024, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287/108 "2024-11-15T22:02:46Z")
Fair enough. My apologies for imprecision. ---
**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:** [November 15, 2024, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287/109 "2024-11-15T22:27:31Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > People are worried about the border because Haitians are eating their pets. What policy action will reduce Haitian pet consumption to a level where it doesn’t worry Trump voters? Do you really think that? Or do people worry about the border because they feel they aren’t getting paid enough, they blame it on immigrants driving down wages, and they worry about crime, and “they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the dogs” is an emotive expression that resonates with them rather than a statement of fact that they believe? I think in hindsight, we (and I include myself in that) cared about that phrase much, much more than Trump supporters ever did. Or if they _do_ care, it’s because the phrase triggers and own the libs, not because they believe it. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2024, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287/110 "2024-11-15T22:47:32Z")
How do you prevent the entire population of the US from complaining about Hop Sing or Tonto? Because if even one liberal, or person pretending to be a liberal, makes one single post about it on Xitter, it’ll be paraded all over Fox News and all of the other Republican media as proof that all liberals everywhere are extremists. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2024, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287/111 "2024-11-15T22:50:36Z")
These are people who believed Trump’s impossible promises. Do not overestimate their inteligence. ---
**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:** [November 15, 2024, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287/112 "2024-11-15T22:54:25Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > How do you prevent the entire population of the US from complaining about Hop Sing or Tonto? You don’t need to prevent any whackjob from saying stupid shit; you just need to [publically distance yourself from it.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Souljah_moment) ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2024, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287/114 "2024-11-16T00:46:54Z")
can we enshrine this and have it stickied to the top of all these ‘trump sucks’ threads. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2024, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287/115 "2024-11-16T01:42:44Z")
> [@Santafe](#): > > We lost. > > We should be taking a hard analytical look at why we lost. > > Any thoughtful logical attempt at looking at the situation, of which some posters attempt, quickly gets drowned out by “We are right, everybody who voted for the other side is a stupid racist sexist jerk” […] > > Imagine an apolitical working class independent voter with all the concerns all polling data indicates independent voters have, visiting this message board. > > They would be told they are racist/sexist/uneducated/race traitors. […] > > This is why we lost the election. Sorry, but what you’ve written here is about the farthest thing possible from “a hard analytical look at why we lost”. It’s basically just your gut reaction involving the imagined feelings of an imaginary apolitical voter getting hypothetically all offended at seeing apolitical voters’ balloting choices critiqued on the Straight Dope. What use is that as actual political analysis? And what use is it as a guide to potential large-scale policy changes? AFAICT, actual political analysis of the recent election seems pretty unanimous that voters, especially less-informed voters, were seeking “a change” because they’re unhappy about inflation. They’re also concerned about the Republican allegations of disastrous levels of illegal immigration. But, as with Republican allegations of Democratic “wokeness”, those concerns are ultimately based on lies. Are there some real problems, from the ordinary voter’s view, with kitchen-table economic issues and with border control and illicit labor markets? Of course there are. Are any of those problems accurately described by Republican fearmongering, and are any of them realistically going to be remedied by Republican “policies”? Of course they’re not. Democrats do need to work harder to support, and regain the support of, the non-wealthy voters that they’ve largely abandoned over the past few decades in favor of neoliberal policies making working-class and middle-class lives more economically precarious. But we won’t get there by pretending that excessive “wokeness” is a genuine problem, or even a significant part of the genuine problems. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2024, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287/117 "2024-11-16T02:03:30Z")
Less informed voters usually _are_ wrong-That is what makes them less informed. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2024, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287/119 "2024-11-16T02:42:27Z")
> [@Santafe](#): > > Unfortunately that’s why we lost the election. …everybody has a theory on why the Democrats lost the election. But it wasn’t because the Democrats “campaigned on wokeness.” Because they didn’t campaign on wokeness _at all_. Here’s what actually happened. The Republicans acted like the Democrats were campaigning on “wokeness.” The Democrats _actually_ distanced themselves from anything remotely related to what could be considered “woke.” Trans journalist Katelyn Burns counted how many times the word “trans” was used at the Democrat convention…it was used _twice_. In a state where the Muslim vote was important, they sent Cheney, Clinton and Torres to Michigan. They didn’t “defund the police.” They gave the police BILLIONS more in dollars and in turn the police killed more people in 2023 than any other year. The Democrat immigration policy were increasingly authoritarian. The Democrats did everything they could to be “anti-woke.” So perhaps if you were wondering why millions of people decided to sit this election out, perhaps consider you are looking at this the wrong way around. Perhaps if they had embraced “wokeness”, instead of outright rejecting it, they may have stood a chance. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2024, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287/120 "2024-11-16T03:01:12Z")
In my view the reason people can’t and won’t define “wokeness” is that its lack of definition is _the entire point._ Unlike most political terms it has _no_ face meaning, no literal interpretation you can point to and pin it down with. So it can be used to mean _anything you want at all_ and nobody can call you wrong. Which means there’s no point in trying to “tone down the wokeness” since _it can’t be done,_ anything the Democrats do real or imaginary can be labeled “woke”. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2024, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287/121 "2024-11-16T03:17:27Z")
> [@Santafe](#): > > Rather than deal with the failure to effectively communicate to the apolitical independents, you just call them “less informed “ All these people worried about inflation voted for the guy running on a platform of tariffs and deporting all our ag workers. But god forbid anyone suggests that those people are anything less than perfectly informed. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2024, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287/123 "2024-11-16T03:31:48Z")
> [@Santafe](#): > > I got a crazy idea. Maybe communicate to those voters the pros and cons of tariffs and deportations of ag workers. Instead of calling them racist idiots. They _were_ told, they didn’t listen because they _are_ racists and idiots. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2024, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287/124 "2024-11-16T03:39:50Z")
> [@Santafe](#): > > I got a crazy idea. Maybe communicate to those voters the pros and cons of tariffs and deportations of ag workers. Instead of calling them racist idiots. Just to clarify your position, are you saying they’re not racist idiots, or are you just saying we shouldn’t talk about them being racist idiots? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2024, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287/126 "2024-11-16T03:54:21Z")
> [@Santafe](#): > > I’m saying the very assumption that a working class VOTER is a racist idiot is the not conducive to winning elections. Voters _being_ racist idiots is also not conducive to Democrats winning elections, so maybe it’s important to figure out if that’s true before we work out our strategy. Which we can’t do if the entire topic is verbotten. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2024, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287/127 "2024-11-16T03:54:54Z")
> [@Santafe](#): > > I’m saying the very assumption that a working class VOTER is a racist idiot is the not conducive to winning elections. On the contrary, it worked quite well for Trump and the Republicans. If anything the mistake the Democrats have made is giving the intellect and morality of the general population too much respect. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2024, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287/129 "2024-11-16T04:11:12Z")
> [@Santafe](#): > > We should ignore their racists and sexist concerns. Like the economy. They don’t care about the economy, they care about hurting everyone else. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-tone-down-the-wokeness-especially-about-the-past/1010287.md?page=7)