So one-liner replies are bad then?
Here you give a one-liner reply. I have asked you to expand and explain. You have yet to do so.
Thanks for the serious answer.
I think a lot of conservatives who oppose wokeness believe the extent of white, male etc privilege is greatly exaggerated, if not completely reversed by decades of cultural changes, affirmative action polices, and scholarships and opportunities aimed at helping disadvantaged groups. And even those who do believe discrimination is a significant issue tend to resent the differential treatment they receive due to the ‘deferring to disadvantaged groups’ and ‘punching up vs down’ ideas. “They wouldn’t dare say that about ” is a very frequent complaint on social media. (Re)establishing universal norms of politeness and even-handedness would go a long way here, IMO.
And yes, I agree they oppose educational content that could make their kids feel guilty about immutable characteristics (quite reasonably IMO).That’s not the same as opposing teaching kids about slavery, although doubtless there are some parents who would like to prevent that too.
I suppose any movement can attract moral busybodies and bullies if they see a chance to use it for their own ends. Communism seems to have had more than its share. But were they drawn to the social justice movement because of something about it in particular?
Some parents? How about one political party in some states rewriting the history of American chattel slavery to acknowledge that it was a positive for the slaves?
BBBs response is obviously not a serious one, and I’m baffled at you treating it as such.
I am interested in you giving your own opinion on the points I listed and, where you think I am wrong, explaining how so that we can possibly both reach a better understanding. I have put considerable effort into explaining my understanding of the term, and I would like to see similar seriousness and thought in response - not partisan swipes, accusations of well-poisoning, and demands for cites.
In case @DemonTree is unfamiliar:
How is it not a serious response?
OTTOMH After Neo Nazis clashed with counter protesters, Trump said there were “good people on both sides”. A comedian at a Republican event described Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage.” Some Republican elected officials distanced themselves from the incident or evern condemned the joke and the comedian. Trump was silent on the matter. When asked about the incident, Vance said he hadn’t heard the joke and could not comment on it specifically. He went on to say roughly ‘Sometimes humor is offensive and we should just get over it.’
So we have Trump calling Neo Nazis “good people”. We have Vance bending over backwards to lie his way out of having to pick a side and risk losing support from Puerto Ricans (and presumably other Hispanics/Latinos) or risk losing support from racists. Trump and Vance, in case you didn’t know, won the Presidential race.
Florida has its ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law. Other states have laws mandating that teachers and other school personnel must report any sign of transitioning from the gender on a student’s birth certificate to that student’s parents. The Supreme Court is hearing a case on state laws banning giving anybody under the age of 18 puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy. A member of congress has stated that a trans woman in congress shoudl be barred from using any female only facilities.
Why then do you feel many groups in the US(LGBTQ, Hispanics/Latinos, and even Jews like me) should not be concerned for our continued existence?
If you agree that we should be concerned, how isBippityBoppityBoo’s response not a serious one?
I disagree with the last bit. Social justice is about achieving equality for every human being
This is a real thing. I grew up a white boy in the suburbs. I got stopped by cops only when they thought me or the group I was with was engaged in underage drinking. We never were. But considering that most teens our age were, it was a reasonable suspicion.
I have been stopped by cops for ‘fitting the description’ only once in my life. Over the years of living in Philly, I learned that if you grew up as a black male in the city cops stopped you for no good reason at least once a week.
Yes it does. After slavery ended, black Americans were given the right to vote. The KKK and other groups used all kinds of violence and intimidation to prevent this. ‘Literacy Tests’ and other double standards were non violent methods were used. “Separate but equal” was the law for a long time. The separate part was correct. But universally the places and institutions availble to blacks were vastly inferior to the ones that were Whites Only. Today? Historically black neighborhoods still have crappier schools and such compared to historically white ones.
Using my definition of equity, I heartily agree. The definition you or others use may differ.
I don’t think privilege enters into it. If you are discussing the experience of any group, it is generally a good idea to ask members of that group and give their opinions more credence than non members.
Punching up is almost never good. I generally prefer people not punch at all. On ‘punching down’ I think it was best said by Clive Barker about J K Rowling ‘She lifted herself up to place of wealth and power by her own hard work. Instead of using her position to lift up others, she is kicking people who are already down. It’s absolute bollocks.’
Once again, I’m not sure what you mean by '“deplatforming”. If you mean what I think you do, the First ammendment applies only to government censorship. Hate speech is protected speech. I will support your right to free speech even if I disagree with what you say. However, free speech is not consequence free speech . No one is required to provide you a platform for speech they disagree with. If your employer thinks anything you say is bad for their image or the bottom line, they have the right to fire you.
Not just minorities. we should all avoid using words that are hurtful regardless of how big the group in question is.
I don’t recall making a partisan swipe. If I did make one, I’m sure I had good reason.
I stand behind those.
I will make a new demand for a cite any time any poster makes a claim that I feel requires a cite to back it up. I stand behind and may repeat any request for cites I have already made in this thread.
I’m not exactly sure why you feel my post contradicts yours. It seems to me that the two talk about very different angles.
I almost forgot. In the post with the bulletin points, you just list each belief/position and then give a mostly neutral description of it. In the OP, you made uncited claims, used undefined terms, and put a negative spin on the positions you described.
That for example. You could have just said ‘The concept of privilege was expanded’ and the given a neutral description of what new meaning it was given.
Yeah, that would be the logical assumption based on the data. Yet, by the way you present it, you seem to believe pervasive sexism and racism were not the reasons. Is that accurate? If it is accurate what would you say are the real reasons?
WTF?
Looks serious to me.
It isn’t only slavery (about which multiple people have already brought cites into this thread).
There are huge numbers of indisputable instances of bigotry having massive negative effects on the lives of various sets of people (including, but not only, Black people) throughout the history of this country, and lasting long after slavery was ended. Attempting to discuss this issue as if it were all over and done with in 1865 is not accurate history.
Yup. Also for everybody else – that’s what equality means, after all. Are you opposed to that?
It exists. Are you claiming that it does not exist?
Whether I mean exactly the same thing by the term as you do, I don’t know. I tend to doubt it.
It certainly explains some of them.
Many of the “groups” are themselves so poorly delineated as to be nonsensical, in any other sense than a social sense of how they are perceived.
If you mean “equity of outcome for each individual”, I don’t think that’s actually anybody’s goal.
If you mean “equity of actual opportunity” as opposed to “everybody theoretically has the same legal right to get a really well-paid job, so it doesn’t matter that some of them grow up with lead pipes and no money and others are legacies guaranteed to be handed a law degree if they just show up”, yeah, I’m in favor of equity of actual opportunity.
The opinion of members of any group as to any specific issue are going to vary.
People who are actively handing shit to other people should not be allowed to define it either as nutritious food, or as something that doesn’t matter. Even if they really think it doesn’t matter.
A specific member of any group may know enough about a specific issue to legitimately have an opinion on it.
“Punching up” is in some cases self-defense; and, if done right, is sometimes extremely useful. “Punching down” is usually bullying.
Speech that is genuinely harmful to other people should in general be discouraged. Whether people should be fired for it depends on the individual case.
Do you think people should be able to routinely and publicly slander and/or libel other people with no consequences?
If the language we use is harming people, shouldn’t we change it?
You yourself said:
I don’t think that honest teaching of American history actually does make kids, including white cis male kids, feel guilty about immutable characteristics. Teaching them that people with those characteristics have done awful things to people without them, and that other people with those same characteristics tried to stop those things, does not put the blame on the characteristics of the children currently in school – they can always consider emulating the people with those characteristics who tried to fight bigotry, instead of the ones who favored it.
But as you oppose content that could make kids feel guilty – why do you not appear to oppose content that could make other kids feel worth essentially less than others, based on those same “immutable characteristics”?
And if you do oppose such content, then what do you think is wrong with “deplatforming” it?
I think it’s pretty fair to assume they believe there are innate differences between races that prevent equality. And that liberals are preventing us from being realistic about the differences between races.
…the best definition are the official ones:
Note the distinctions here: DemonTree’s definition calls it “ideas believed by and spread by the Social Justice movement”, where the definition talks about “issues of racial and social justice.”
It isn’t a matter of “belief.”
It’s a matter of awareness.
And it’s not about the “movement.”
It’s about the issues.
Everything else in the OP has nothing to do with “woke.” If anything, along with Fretful_Porentine’s definition, have more to do with “virtue signalling” than anything else. Perhaps that’s the phrase they should be using.
“Privilege” hasn’t expanded at all. It’s original meaning wasn’t “being rich or well-connected.” Its always meant “someone gaining a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favour.”
And now you are conflating privilege with institutional sexism and racism.
It’s a neat trick.
But it’s still a trick.
And the rest of the OP is essentially the very same trick. Distilling a myriad of different ideas, concepts, theories, and lived-experiences down to a single word: woke. It isn’t an accurate summation of the social justice movement. If you want that, it goes back to Plato.
If you want to co-opt the word, then just say so. But it really isn’t a “large and complex phenomenon.” And if you want a debate about what social justice warriors like me actually think, then feel free to ask.
Yeah, that’s basically what it is at this point.
I absolutely agree here. I used to use “woke” to describe the above description of liberal/left excesses. But then it became this political snarl word used by conservatives to describe anything that scares them. So now it’s this hate thing, and I don’t use it anymore.
But as an example of what’s described above, the term “LatinX” has been a hobby-horse of mine. It’s a superficial thing invented by do-gooders, a bunch of lemmings jumped on the bandwagon. I could tell it was going to be one of those performative fads. Sure enough, it’s being displaced by “Latine” which I’m sure will be replaced by something else in 3-4 years.
Anyway I don’t haggle that sort of thing anymore because I don’t feel it’s really useful to punch left anymore, I would rather resist creeping authoritarianism than quibble about the minor rhetorical excesses I see on the left. I wish they’d knock it off, but we have more important things to quibble about now.
Maybe. But that is a serious accusation. As I have said repeatedly, I am not a telepath. It is entirely possible DemonTree believes something else. I have asked her (IIRC that is the correct pronoun) to explain what exactly she meant and what she believes. She deserves the chance to answer.
I’m fine with the people LatinX is identifying not wanting that word to identify them. But it’s really rich when the ideology that complains that ‘But Latinos don’t want your woke name!’ has for my entire life rejected what ‘melanin enhanced Americans’ choose to be identified by.
That’s how I use it as well. Hell, even Rhonda Santis’ General Counsel used similar wording when a judge asked him to define it:
the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them
Seems pretty straightforward to me.
Obviously, we should not use words that are hurtful. I have mentioned many times that I have known Howard for about thirty years now. He is like a brother to me. He HATES being called “Howie”. He told me that early in our friendship and I have never referred to him by that name. It is just that simple.
There are of course, outliers.
I work in a virtual call center helping people apply for SNAP (formerly foodstamps) or medical assistance from the state. One of the questions I am required to ask any applicant is their race. This usually only takes a second or two. I do however remember two instances that stuck out.
#1 “I am black! Black! Not Affrican American. Black!”
#2 “I am African American. I am not black. I am African American!”
So I am not entirely sure what the proper term is in general. I am confident that the average person will not fly into a rage if I accidentally use the wrong term, name or pronoun. At least ninety five percent of the time, they will gently correct me. I will give a brief apology and life will move on.
What I’ve seen, in recent years, is that there is, at this point in time, no one term with which everyone agrees, and there is some percentage who are angered by one, or the other.
Maybe so, but I think we can agree that we should try tio find the right term and to use ther right term even if it varies from person to person.
Absolutely agreed.