Said Duke polysci prof Candis Watts Smith, co-author of "Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter," quoted in "Republicans use ‘wokeism’ to attack left — but struggle to define it/Conservatives attach the term to a host of policies they oppose, from transgender rights to climate change measures to socially responsible investing" (by Ashley Parker and Liz Goodwin in WaPo).
I thought that was an interesting quote because it so obviously applies in the opposite direction. Conservatives would, I think, have been willing to put "issues of difference" off limits and to proceed color-blind. They are a "reaction," as she says, and it's a reaction to the weaponization of "words and concepts" and the rallying of "voters around issues of difference."
This really deserves my "civility bullshit" tag, because it is essentially a call for one side to stand down and stop talking in those extreme and emotive ways.
Most of this article, though, is just the typical perseveration about the word that irks them: "woke." But it's their word. And that's how words work. Your opponent uses your word and turns it around. That's rhetoric.
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113 comments:
The Blue Way is not sustainable. It’s the path to disunity, the act of throwing sand into the gears of a well-oiled machine, and the road to ruin.
Choose life.
It means "No, we're right, keep subscribing."
Is "the right" actually struggling to define "woke"? Any more than "the left" struggles to define either social or fiscal conservatism? Or is it that "the right"'s definition of "woke" incorporates too many uncomfortable examples that"the left" would rather not shine a light on?
This clown is doing the usual Reverso move.
Woke is easily defined: Marxism in blackface.
The concept expands effortlessly to accommodate other identitarian grievance groups such as trans, queer, feminist, etc.
The key is Marxism: the will to power, implacably opposed to all competing institutions, dead set against the rule of law.
"Conservatives would, I think, have been willing to put 'issues of difference' off limits and to proceed color-blind."
What a curious thing to think.
Dark Brandon could not be reached for comment.
Remember when "Nevertheless, she persisted" became a Democrat war cry after Mitch McConnell attempted to whack Sen. Elizabeth Warren across the knuckles for speaking inappropriately in violation of the Senate rules during the Sessions confirmation hearings?
Democrats, in general, are all-world competitors in the game of psychological projection.
And nitwits like these writers don't even recognize the game.
Blind projection. This follows from either a lack of self-reflection or the inability to take the perspective of others. Children have to learn this...and today's isolated online culture makes it harder than ever.
'Woke' has indeed become negative term, and it follows 'snowflake' and 'politically correct' on the same downward trajectory. These terms typically start in academic/ideological niche cultures and receive 100% praise from true-believer insiders. As the ideas become more common, the internal errors and inconsistencies become obvious so reactions go negative.
Woke is very, very, very semantically close to religious term such as "born again," "baptized," or "saved." Society would be more kind to the woke if they accepted that they are founding a utopian new religion rather than a heaven-on-earth political action movement. But, those inside aren't yet there intellectually.
I had to look up perseveration.
It bothers them because "woke" is such a self-evidently moronic word that hearing it used by their political opponents reminds them of their own stupidity.
Spot on. "Woke" was a term the Left used (C.f. "social justice") - until the reaction to it ended up being negative. Once a large group of people recognized it as representing a toxic brew of bad ideas, then those who had earlier championed it immediately had to begin distancing themselves from it - simultaneously attacking its detractors in what has become an expected torrent of gaslighting.
The only Republicans the left can stomach are those who kneel to the left and ask for forgiveness just for getting out of bed in the morning.
This is a bullshit area of concern. They created it. And they are bothered that we use their own terminology to ridicule it. But honestly, it's so pernicious that any rational adult should be ridiculing both it and the people propagating it.
"Woke is easily defined: Marxism in blackface."
Wrong and stupid.
"History shows that you can rally voters around issues of difference"
Actually, you can also rally them around issues of commonality, like "America," as in MAGA.
"issues where their values are being challenged."
Does any movement or campaign do anything else?
"it so obviously applies in the opposite direction"
But (D) is for Different. Not having to consider the obvious in the opposite direction is the privilege of hegemony. Does it even register among prog academics?
"to proceed color-blind"
A good example of how a conservative, actually liberal, notion has been weaponized by the left. Raaacccist, you know.
"it is essentially a call for one side to stand down and stop talking in those extreme and emotive ways"
But that has been prog MO since at least the 1960s.
"We started this, now you are getting nasty so STOP IT or we call the fbi.
The problem for the Left is that they want their idea of centralized control to extend to the English language, sorta like that gang in Paris that makes pronouncements about what is 'official' French, so that when they redefine a word nobody can challenge them on it.
It may take a while but people eventually catch on to the redefinitions. See also "progressive" and "liberal".
The left are authoritarian liars.
They hate the idea of a color-blind society. The left WANT hatred, division and seperation. It gives them more power.
Indeed - the left want everyone to shut up - so they can fill the void with their lies and BS.
"Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter,"
serious question: little black kids? That are shot while stealing cars and dealing drugs? Do They Matter?
Perseveration is also used in discussing the behavior of patients with dementia.
Perseveration is also used in discussing the behavior of patients with dementia.
Enigma: Spot on with the religious terms. Wokeism is the the third Great Awakening. It doesn't require thought, just faith.
I've been saying for some time that a direct comparison with the woke self labeling is comparable to the concept of the Elect and the Damned that permeated some 17th century theology among the Puritans. And the best thing was you didn't really have to to anything to fall into the Elect category. Of course, if you were damned you couldn't do anything about that either. Or to paraphrase the Gary Larsen cartoon featuring the deer with the marking of a target on his chest, "Bummer of a birthmark, Harv." Only here it's" Bummer of a birthright, conservative."
Republicans pounce!
It's always and everywhere a story of Republicans reacting. Reacting to what, one might ask? To which the answer is always, "These are not the droids you're looking for".
The Left can't stand Free Speech as they want to impose their will on the entire populace. That's why the Left tries to cancel and destroy their political opponents. The Left can't engage in a full and intellectually honest debate on the merits.
The Left loves to play the racist card on anyone who disagrees with them.
CAGW is the biggest scam in the history of the world. The worlds temps have been flat for 101 months despite 475 billion tons of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere.
I told Omaha Public Power District that China is building two new coal-fired power plants every two weeks. Nothing that tiny OPPD could do would make a difference even if OPPD spent $29 billion. And they do want to spend that.
On this trans business, the Left would have children become sterile and have surgery performed on healthy body parts. That's like pagan child sacrifice. We don't do medical experiments on children in America. At least not in civilized states like Nebraska.
I'll never quit fighting the Left. My next project is an article in The Nebraska Lawyer against the speech code the NSBA wants to impose on all lawyers. The Nebraska Supreme Court will never agree to this.
Temujin:
I have special contempt for spineless Republicans. They don't realize the stakes.
"Woke" is intersectionality, all the rage on campus, which requires everyone to join together to face down those damned white people, or at least white male heterosexuals. You are not allowed to pick and choose which causes you support; you either accept the entire package, or you are the enemy, as we have observed multiple times. Furthermore, there is a hierarchy of oppression and your status is based on where you fit on the hierarchy right now (subject to change at a whim) and how many oppression boxes you can check off. Currently, this is the guiding principle of the Democratic Party.
I suppose these people could be earnest and do not want the BLM movement to be bundled with the rest, to which I respond which rock they were hiding under for the past decade and if any of them were born yesterday.
If “all black lives” truly mattered to Candis Watts Smith then she’d be working her ass off to do something about inner city gangs and black on black violence, instead of the standard bitching about conservatives.
Quick Wokeman.. to the virtue signal.
The right ridicules the 'woke" not because they cannot define it. Rather there are so many on the left announcing the wokeness of today (ignore that rap from 24 hours ago) that there can be no agreement on what is woke.
And many of the self-identified woke are ridiculous.
From the post:
"Republicans use ‘wokeism’ to attack left — but struggle to define it..."
If leftists can't define it - because it's fluid - they can hardly fault anyone else for not defining it. But yes, Marxism in blackface fits as well as any definition I've seen. It disallows its proponents' efforts to dissemble about its true motivation.
Added: they hate it when Alinsky Rules are used against them.
"Conservatives would, I think, have been willing to put "issues of difference" off limits and to proceed color-blind."
THIS is the civility bullshit. Conservatives never have been and still are not interested "to proceed color-blind". Not in 1787, 1861, 1965, and not not today.
Sometimes I wish people would take responsibility for their own political opinions. You think what your think -- that's not other people's fault.
"weaponize the words and concepts..."
I'm still trying to figure out how to use sex as a weapon.
“ What a curious thing to think.”
Racial difference.
Good example of corporate media playbook.
When Republicans screw up, journalists cover the story. When Democrats screw up, journalists cover the Republican reaction.
Progressives should stop making up new words for their ancient endeavor to divide and enslave Americans under color of “reforming” democracy and “reimagining” policing and “securing” our borders. There’d be little left to argue about politically if Democrats would just agree to the Bill of Rights for starters.
It's kind of insane that "All Lives Matter" pissed off so many people on the left.
And "White Lives Matter" made the left absolutely furious.
The only thing you were allowed to say is "Black Lives Matter."
It was pure racism, period. I got no time for that.
Certainly makes me want to use it more and more. It's applicable to so many issues.
If supreme court nominees don't have to define what a woman is, then red america certainly doesn't have to define what woke is. Unlike climate change that is used anyway that suits at any moment, it at least is in one direction.
"Woke is easily defined: Marxism in blackface."
Wrong and stupid.
LOL okay Cook tell us all the parts of Critical Theory, from which all wokism flows, is NOT Marxist? Take all the space you need.
"Duke polysci prof Candis Watts Smith ..."
I'm sure the students at Duke get their money's worth out of that one.
THIS is the civility bullshit. Conservatives never have been and still are not interested "to proceed color-blind". Not in 1787, 1861, 1965, and not not today.
Wrong.
"All Lives Matter" is an attempt to be color-blind.
People on the left hated that motto and mocked the shit out of it.
Pay attention to reality and get out of your negative fantasies.
:Blogger Dave Begley said...
Temujin:
I have special contempt for spineless Republicans. They don't realize the stakes."
Exactly, this is serious business we are into now.
Anyone who wasn't sentient in the early '60s can have no "lived experience" memory of how quickly the majority in this country adopted MLK's credo.
Authenticity now requires the belief--or at least assertion--that we're now more racist than we were then.
This gets to why a Nigerian nurse told me five years ago that her first choice for her three daughters' spouses was Nigerian men. Second choice: white men. "Not black men?" No, she said. "They're not on the list." "Why?" "Their culture."
Well zombie woke is a rhetorical concession to them
Conservatives never have been and still are not interested "to proceed color-blind". Not in 1787, 1861, 1965, and not not today.
@Daniel12, that’s a lie and you’re a liar. I am old enough to have participated in a handful of civil rights demonstrations in the mid-sixties, though by 1965 most of the big battles over civil rights were over. Go read the lyrics to “We Shall Overcome.” Did you get to the line “Blacks and whites together. Blacks and whites together. Some da-ay-ay”? I’m in my seventies now and I won’t live to see it. But that’s not the fault of conservatives. That’s the fault of race-baiting hucksters. Like you.
My brother's in town.
He's on the internet all the time. He's become a very angry and isolated atheist. It would help him to go to church, make friends and learn relationship skills. (It would help him to get out of the house and get off the internet).
I'm trying to get him to come to our church, which is an Episcopal church, a liberal church. In his mind he divides the world into Secular Liberal and Right-Wing Christian. He can't conceive of the possibility of liberal Christians.
(My brother and I have never been close, but in our 20s we got along really well. But then in our 30's we both "woke up" to politics, and I went right and he went left. And our relationship has been a nightmare ever since).
My brother thinks I'm trying to seduce him to the dark side by getting him to church. I want him to be happier. He's fucking miserable all the time.
Anyway, I make the mistake of saying that the Episcopal church is "woke," and he explodes at me.
"The only people who use the word woke are right-wingers, it's an insult, you're fucking insulting me again, you asshole, you're such an asshole."
It was hopeless.
"Woke" is a Post-modern concept. Of course it is difficult to define. Post-modern deconstructionism makes it very difficult to define.
Even if you explain it as "an awareness of the inequity of power structures." You are are still fighting against the Motte and Bailey rhetorical trick that all Post-modern concepts rely on to hide their true deconstructionist purpose.
They shall endeavor to persevere!
The word "prejudice" comes from "pre-judgment." It's making a judgment before all the facts come in. We all do it. So it's a good skill set to try to not jump to conclusions.
All Lives Matter should be non-controversial. Who the fuck could argue with that?
Woke people on the left argued with that.
Woke people who believe black lives are more important than white lives, at the moment, because of historical injustices that need to be rectified. And these same people are furious about Proud Boys, who are led by some brown guy.
And when a black cop shoots a black citizen of my town, Charlotte, with a black mayor, idiots in the media think the South is a hotbed of race riots. That's because you have ideas and ideologies but your opinions are fact-free.
Because of George Floyd - we cannot have a police force.
Critical Racists' Theory (CRT) presumes diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry) that denies individual dignity, individual conscience, intrinsic value, normalizes color blocs (e.g. "people of color"), color quotas (e.g. feminism), and affirmative discrimination (e.g. "Jew privilege").
Did you know Jesse Jackson used to be pro-life?
Read this!
And here's a marvelous interview with Jackson. If he said that shit today, the woke monsters would throw him under a bus!
Jesse! We invite you into the Republican party! We are a big tent.
Class-disordered ideology. Redistributive change (e.g. progressive prices). Some, Select [Black] Lives Matter. DIEversity practiced under a State-established ethical religion. #HateLovesAbortion
right-wingers
Libertarians, and anarchists of the far-right in the left-right nexus is leftist.
"Conservatives never have been and still are not interested "to proceed color-blind". Not in 1787, 1861, 1965, and not not today."
Stop lying about me.
define what woke is
Woke and morally broke.
That said, pro-Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, without DIEversity and its class-disorder Posterity (e.g. racism, sexism, ageism).
Racial difference.
While [color] bias is intrinsic, prejudice is progressive, and rationalized through political congruence. #HateLovesAbortion
Robert Cook @ 8:37:
"'Woke is easily defined: Marxism in blackface.'
Wrong and stupid."
Could you develop your point? I'm all ears.
Daniel 12 is eager to show us his ideology.
Sometimes I wish people would take responsibility for their own political opinions. You think what your think -- that's not other people's fault.
Democrats owned slaves, fought a bloody war to keep them, then, once Reconstruction was ended in 1876 to settle a tied presidential race, they instituted segregation. Now, having convinced many blacks that you will provide free stuff, you are back to segregation. Take responsibility, as you said. Which party filibustered the 1964 civil rights bill ?
The "host of policies they oppose" are inextricably linked in the platform of the Left and the democrat party. It is not an arbitrary collection of things they oppose and they only oppose them because the Left is pushing them. They were all in Biden's SOTU speech. It is the Left that wants to impose all sorts of rules and restrictions, from forbidding gas stoves and incandescent bulbs to shutting down pipelines to covid lockdowns to speech codes and pronouns to men in women's sports and locker rooms to making energy more expensive. There is almost no conservative policy proposal that is restrictive or imposing anything on anyone except abortion and needing ID to vote.
I'm somewhat pleased by this article and the recent Sara Silverman clip because they suggest there is a perception on the Left that the term woke itself, as well as hodgepodge of Lefty goals and ideals it encompasses, is trending negatively among the general populace. And when it comes to politics and culture the emotional connotation of terms is probably more important than their actual literal definitions. I'll gladly trade having a clear definition of woke for most people hearing woke and feeling that it is silly, dangerous, and bad.
The word "weaponize" has been weaponized. When I hear it I usually disregard the rest of the argument.
It is also worth noting that the Chinese internet came up with a term that is at least synonymous with woke, it is "Baizuo". It also doesn't have a clear definition but means roughly "The naive concerns of white lefties who prioritize things that don't matter over things that do." The term is a pejorative. Also remember leftists before you quibble with the Chinese diagnosis of the American left, if you do so it makes you racist and imperialist.
Duh WOKE = CT = Marxism straight up. That’s why they squeal like stuck pigs. They hate to admit that this hateful ideology based on envy is at the root of all the Left does. 100% including their fervent denials that this is the plan is all according to the Marxist agenda.
Did you never wonder why conservatives are proud of America and progressives hate it? That’s why. They must destroy it to “remake” it.
Robert Cook said...
"Woke is easily defined: Marxism in blackface."
Wrong and stupid.
Wouldn't it be cool if one of these 95 IQ marxists like Cook could actually try to engage?
We know that Cook is too ignorant and really just too stupid to get past a 3 word rejoinder.
The only thing the "woke" people want is to take our stuff and tell us what to do.
That defines marxists like Cook perfectly.
Daniel12 said...
"Conservatives would, I think, have been willing to put "issues of difference" off limits and to proceed color-blind."
THIS is the civility bullshit. Conservatives never have been and still are not interested "to proceed color-blind". Not in 1787, 1861, 1965, and not not today.
Sometimes I wish people would take responsibility for their own political opinions. You think what your think -- that's not other people's fault.
The Democrat party was founded on racism.
The policies it pushes today are racist.
You are a racist.
We are just pointing out that you are a racist.
I suppose they feel it's more honorable to do a respectful substitution like "anti-choice" for "pro-life".
Certainly not a weaponization of words...
So maybe exchange "Woke" for "Dope".
Wokism defined:
1. A movement to eliminate the individual and assign blame for all past wrongs based on group identity.
2. An attempt by government to seize power over individual wealth and redistribute it to favored groups.
3. An attempt to grant favored status to groups based on race.
4. A poorly disguised cover for ideological favoritism in hiring and redistribution of wealth using the government monopoly of force.
Just replace White Male with Jew and you see right where these people are going.
All this fretting about whether the right can define woke. Can the left define woke?
Perhaps someone should ask them. The reality is, they keep it vague on purpose so that they can always say the right is misusing it. Same thing with CRT, social justice, trans, the whole fetid ball of leftist wax.
Defining "wokeism" is not a struggle.
Wokeism is an affliction common to progressive activists and gullible rank and file Democrats characterized by belief in numerous misguided social, economic and scientific bromides that further the cultural revolution to the detriment of the United States. For example:
• The United States was built on slavery.
• Global warming is a dangerous, urgent condition that can be alleviated by creating energy dependence in the U.S.
• Closed schools, masks and vaccines prevent the spread of the Covid virus.
• Open borders are somehow beneficial to America (or some such).
• People who never owned slaves ought to pay reparations to people who never were slaves.
• "Christian nationalism" exists and is a threat to the "democracy."
• Etc.
They desperately pander to blacks because they can't afford to lose another percentage or two of the black vote. If they do they never win another fair election.
All this fretting about whether the right can define woke. Can the left define woke?
The Left needs to define "woman" first.
THIS is the civility bullshit. Conservatives never have been and still are not interested "to proceed color-blind". Not in 1787, 1861, 1965, and not not today.
This is arguably true if you define the Democrats of those times as conservative and Republicans as activists.
This thread is a perfect example of why there are so few leftists on this blog. And the few that show up are so intimidated by the incisiveness and effectiveness of the arguments that all they can muster are brief rejoinders with no serious attempt at counterarguments. Disappointing.
Also, concerning. One wonders how long this blog can continue to avoid being targeted for surveillance and cancellation efforts. Great to be a part of it for as long as it lasts.
Someday, students with revolutionary aspirations against the Deep State will have Althouse posters on their walls and T-shirts.
Robert Cook said...
"Woke is easily defined: Marxism in blackface."
Wrong and stupid.
*************
The Oracle Speaks!!!
snort
Robert Cook said...
"Woke is easily defined: Marxism in blackface."
Wrong and stupid.
I tend to agree with you, at least the first part, because it goes far beyond race at this point. It is intersectionality totalitarianism with race only being part of the portfolio. It does use the oppression dynamic of the civil rights movement as its core though, as has most things that came afterwards. It is all about the oppressed and the oppressors, whether that be race discrimination, sex discrimination, and even "climate change." It is classic us vs. them, not something that Marxism invented, but something Marxism has embraced from the beginning.
Champions of Marxism will use anything to implement Marxism. They don't really care who gets hurt in the process, as long as they get their utopia. Never mind that their utopia never materializes. If they think they could get it through via white male Christians, they would champion white male Christians. If they could get it through overt racism, they would. The end is the same. The means are negotiable.
Social/racial/whatever justice is an oxymoron. Socialism is slavery.
"Woke" is a slang term for "awareness and empathy," invented by black youth for their own empowerment. So when those brainwashed by conservative propaganda brand themselves as anti-woke, what they're really doing is saying they hate young black folk -- and that's how young people, black proos, and their many allies hear it. I fail to see how this will help Republicans win elections, as Boomers die off and diverse, multicultural millennials and Zoomers come to dominate the election. And, in fact, having nothing to offer voters but a noun, a verb, and woke didn't help Republicans in 2024, when Democrats stood their ground thanks to the youth vote.
This is why clueless old people who don't know what they're talking about should keep black culture out of their mouths. #StayWoke
Robert Cook said...
"Woke is easily defined: Marxism in blackface."
Wrong and stupid.
I thought it was pithy and, while short on details, pretty accurate in sense. After all, Marxism preaches a kind of social evolution, right, from capitalism to communism, and from individual to collective? Aren't those essentially the same things that wokeism is based on? Rejection of free markets in favor of lots more government intervention in all parts of commerce, from who can be hired to what businesses can say and sell to what consumers can buy and how much of it and who makes it and when it must be gotten rid of - a roadmap for how to get from capitalism to communism? Privileging of group identity over individual identity, particularly when the group was historically disadvantaged - the serfs turned proletariat?
How is it wrong and stupid, RC?
Robert Cook said...
"Woke is easily defined: Marxism in blackface."
Wrong and stupid.
Neither wrong nor stupid, just outdated.
Croix said...
""All Lives Matter" is an attempt to be color-blind."
No, it isn't -- it's just a troll move. There's no All Lives Matter movement against police violence. There was no All Lives Matter movement before BLM. There's no All Lives Matter agenda, no rallying call for change, set of demands. All Lives Matter is only ever said in response to BLM, as a way to say go fuck yourself.
"Democrats owned slaves, fought a bloody war to keep them, then, once Reconstruction was ended in 1876 to settle a tied presidential race, they instituted segregation. Now, having convinced many blacks that you will provide free stuff, you are back to segregation. Take responsibility, as you said. Which party filibustered the 1964 civil rights bill?"
Note I said conservatives, not Republicans. Another host of trolls whose history of political parties and alignment in this country always ends in 1964, just as the entire Dixiecrat Southern Strategy mass shift of white supremacists from the Democratic to the Republican Party was picking up steam.
Remember Strom Thurmond? He was a Democrat and a virulent racist, the kind of person who reveled in what Achilles accurately described as a party founded on racism. He led a walkout out of the 1948 Democratic convention over civil rights, and ran for president as a Dixiecrat on the continuation of Jim Crow. He became a REPUBLICAN in 1964, where he found a comfortable home for the next six decades.
Achilles said...
"The Democrat (sic) party was founded on racism."
Correct! (Except there is no Democrat Party in this country, the term is just troll language. But you know that and are referring to the Democratic Party.)
So let me ask you:
If a political party formed in 1828 was founded on racism, what does that tell us about the strength, longevity and persistence of racism in the United States as a political force?
Conservatives were anti-slavery, anti-diversity, pro-life.
All Lives Matter is a pro-life movement counter to Pro-Choice including Some, Select [Black] Lives Matter.
Democrats... Democratics? past, present, and progressive are pro-redistributive change, pro-diversity, pro-gender, pro-choice.
Republicans represent American/conservative principles: pro-Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of
Happiness, under a constitution that mitigates authoritarian progress.
"The Democrat party was founded on racism."
Founded and evolved. As the party of diversity [dogma], political congruence, redistributive change, and super electors, they are antithetical to the spirit and letter of democracy.
IG @DudeKembro @ 1:28: “… This is why clueless old people who don't know what they're talking about should keep black culture out of their mouths. #StayWoke”
That’s me, bro. I guess I should apologizesce for appropriating jargon belonging to Soul Brothers, but guess what, language is a shared resource. Your argot either perishes in obscurity or it becomes a living thing intoned and inflected by every single person —even senescent supremacists like me— who chooses to use the term. It’s no longer yours, it’s everyone’s.
I encourage you not to stamp and pout.
A foul-mouthed leftist lecturing conservatives on racism.
That's rich.
"Woke" is a slang term for "awareness and empathy,"
"Woke" is a slang term for diversity, inequity, exclusion, which developed under the Pro-Choice ethical religion, wallows in politically congruent constructs, gender reductions, which denies dignity, agency, and value of human life, and normalizes color blocs (e.g. "people of color"), color quotas, and affirmative discrimination under class-disordered ideology and wicked solution.
Most of this article, though, is just the typical perseveration about the word that irks them: "woke." But it's their word.
So who are "them" people?
Woke, it says here in Merriam-Webster, is a slang term that comes from black dialects, when "awake" is often rendered as "woke", as in, “I was sleeping, but now I’m woke.”
"Woke," it seems, is now being used in social media as a mantra when discussing things involving the concept of social awareness. But those of us who stay away from social media can't even find a way to use the slang, because we don't define the concept beyond woke means awake.
What is, is; otherwise, imagination finds conspiracy.
Ah, 1964. The Civil Rights movement was winning. The struggle was nearly over. By the mid 1970s, if you didn't believe a colorblind society was the American ideal, you were in a rapidly shrinking minority and you kept it to yourself (even Strom Thurmond, of all people, mostly backed off from his racist stances). And then came the late 1980s and the black community began to experience the systemic societal catastrophe caused by Johnson's welfare state and we saw the rise of divisive grifters from Sharpton to Kendi who had a fiscal interest in keeping America out of the Promised Land.
There is no "White Supremacy" in America. The Klan is long gone. Equality before the law is absolute from a legal standpoint. American conservatives have been ready to embrace a colorblind world for nearly my whole lifetime. But nothing could be more disastrous for the Party than to lose the monolithic vote of Black America. An independent black voter is a terror to them. What would the Party do if Black America woke up? Black America must be kept dependent. So the Party wraps blacks in the chains of a destructive welfare system and lies to them with fables of White Supremacy.
The idea of Race (that absurd survival of deluded 19th century science) endures in America because the Party needs it to.
Gadfly @ 3:25: “… "Woke," it seems, is now being used in social media as a mantra when discussing things involving the concept of social awareness. But those of us who stay away from social media can't even find a way to use the slang, because we don't define the concept beyond woke means awake.”
The mountain labors and brings forth a mouse.
But not even a living mouse. It’s a stuffed imitation mouse that ignores the fact that language is organic, dynamic and endlessly analogically, a series of likenesses and metaphors. The world starts its usage of “woke” from a rudimentary or rumored guess of a meaning, but it soon creates and enriches that meaning. So I don’t see “woke” as deficient in definition.
I will stop using the term "woke." (I never used it anyway).
I would suggest "completely fucked up" instead.
"Woke is easily defined: Marxism in blackface."
Wrong and stupid.
Thanks, Cookie. Three more substitutes!
Except there is no Democrat Party in this country, the term is just troll language. But you know that and are referring to the Democratic Party.
@Daniel12, can you identify any of their recent policies that are actually democratic (small ‘d’)?
"Conservatives never have been and still are not interested "to proceed color-blind". Not in 1787, 1861..."
I plead guilty of not being interested in.... well... anything in 1787 or 1861. But that's because I'm barely into my 70s.
Daniel
I say we quit dividing people into races on the census. Quit counting "the races" altogether. I say we mock the shit out of race as a scientific concept, and point out how irrational it is.
What say you?
"So let me ask you:
If a political party formed in 1828 was founded on racism, what does that tell us about the strength, longevity and persistence of racism in the United States as a political force?"
To this day it is a prime motivation for Democrats.
Daniel12: "... just as the entire Dixiecrat Southern Strategy mass shift of white supremacists from the Democratic to the Republican Party was picking up steam."
A pathetic and oft repeated lie pushed by our lying democraticals.
Name the dixiecrats the changed parties.
Name them.
And then, identify what year the state legislatures in the South changed from democratical to republican.
Answering just those 2 questions alone will be more than sufficient to tuck that lie to bed for another day.
There's no All Lives Matter movement against police violence.
I think that's true enough.
The All Lives Matter movement was a revolt against the racist agitation of the Black Lives Matter movement.
BLM fuckers pretend like every policeman is white and every black person who gets shot is an innocent victim.
Police shootings are difficult and painful, regardless of the races involved. Why racialize an incident or talk about the skin colors? Maybe our journalist class should try to calm people down instead of instigating racial hatred and fear!
Here are the fucking idiots in the BBC, talking about a "race riot" in Charlotte.
The violence that erupted in North Carolina's largest city this week following the fatal police shooting of a black man
This is media racism at its finest. If you're going to identify the color of the victim ("black man") then maybe you ought to fucking identify the color of the police officer who shot him (also a black man). The racist fucking BBC omits the color of the officer so the reader believes this was a racist shooting (white cop shooting innocent black man). The reality was that this was a black cop shooting a black man.
My assumption would be that a black cop shooting a black man isn't a fucking racial killing at all. Maybe it is, but you have to investigate that shit and prove it. What's irresponsible and racist as shit is to try to stir up hatred against white people and/or police officers. Fuck you, BBC!
"Woke" is a slang term for "awareness and empathy," invented by black youth for their own empowerment.
IG: @DudeKembro (hope I got that right), surely you realize the term has been co-opted by the larger left. Going out on a limb, I'm assuming it's meaningful to you in the sense you expressed. If so, I'm sorry to tell you it's been co-opted by people who don't mean well for you.
This really deserves my "civility bullshit" tag, because it is essentially a call for one side to stand down and stop talking in those extreme and emotive ways.
Nobody's interested in anything resembling a dialogue anymore; they want the other side to admit their sins, and then shut up, forever.
Rudy, then I guess racism is baked into the politics of this country since at least near the start. And you say it continues to this day, which I think is true too.
Saint Croix, I'm a sociologist so it's tough for me to let go of comparable census data. Plus if you don't collect that piece of information, you can't look at differences by it -- so you'd never know how much worse maternal mortality is among black women v white women (including controlling for income), for instance, and therefore never know to do something about it.
When people look at the data and it shows the odds are stacked against them, and that fits with their experience, telling them we need to be blind to it is wrong. I'm not trying to be clever about what color blind means, but honestly that's exactly what would happen. The higher maternal mortality would still be there among Black women, we just wouldn't see it.
Totally agree on mocking race as a scientific concept. But we're stuck in a society where it's dug in as a social concept, with a lot of tendrils. I doubt we disagree on the end goal, more about the journey and where we are on it.
Woke is an extension of the NewAge Movement, like that other more-acceptable idiocy wellness. How people can miss that, reminds me: they allowed Obama to campaign with Oprah, without skepticism, or considering the consequences,...
Saint Croix, I'm a sociologist so it's tough for me to let go of comparable census data. Plus if you don't collect that piece of information, you can't look at differences by it -- so you'd never know how much worse maternal mortality is among black women v white women (including controlling for income), for instance, and therefore never know to do something about it.
Daniel,
Dividing humanity into "races" and counting the races is inherently racially divisive. Stop doing it, brother. Stop doing that to human beings.
Yes, I have heard that black women have "worse maternal mortality." I have also heard that black women have higher rates of abortion. I don't know if this sort of sloppy social science data is true or not true. (I loath much of our social science and I particularly loath analysis-via-statistics).
Anyway, I connect the dots. So the reason (I suspect) that black women have worse maternal mortality is that black women have higher rates of abortion, and abortion can screw up your maternal health and future pregnancies.
There have been scientific studies that have linked abortion with future healthcare risks. For instance, any time you do a surgical abortion, the doctor has to break through a woman's cervix. That's the tough little muscle that holds an unborn baby in place for nine months. When you do a surgical abortion, you break that muscle. And you hope it heals. But if the surgeon weakens the cervix, then future pregnancies are going to be dangerous. The cervix can't hold the baby's weight anymore and the pregnancy becomes premature.
Anyway, you don't need "racial division" to figure out scientific problems with abortion for women. You just look at aborting women.
Race is irrelevant in almost any situation (a rare exception would be a race riot, or maybe if you were in prison and everybody is in race gangs, and racial attacks are high). Race is important when people make it important. When people diminish the importance of race, its importance diminishes.
Imagine a parallel universe where left-handed people were mad about the injustices done to them by the majoritarian, right-handed people culture. And they went on and on and on about it. That culture should strive to be normal and just stop talking about whether people are left-handed or right-handed. It's like pigment, a really silly way to divide human beings.
I can see why, to a sociologist, that racial division should be a continued practice.
According to the CDC black women are five times more likely to have an abortion. I think that is because the organizations that promote abortions are more likely to be near black neighborhoods or advertise to appeal to black women. Which is, of course, racist.
Daniel12: "Except there is no Democrat Party in this country, the term is just troll language. But you know that and are referring to the Democratic Party."
Yes. Remember when those 80 million "Democratics" turned out for QuidProJoe in 2020. LOL!
Not to pile on
Hillbilly style
But Blackmun (a Republican) suggests in his opinion that racial discrimination might be a secret motive for the Supreme Court's opinion.
The history of birth control (if you're not aware) is racist as shit.
In the third fucking paragraph of Roe v. Wade, Blackmun writes...
In addition, population growth, pollution, poverty, and racial overtones tend to complicate and not to simplify the problem.
Daniel12 said...
Achilles said...
"The Democrat (sic) party was founded on racism."
Correct! (Except there is no Democrat Party in this country, the term is just troll language. But you know that and are referring to the Democratic Party.)
So let me ask you:
If a political party formed in 1828 was founded on racism, what does that tell us about the strength, longevity and persistence of racism in the United States as a political force?
It tells us that the people that hate the United States use race to divide the people against themselves. Racism is a pervasive force in human history and is behind many facades.
Eugenics morphed into Planned Parenthood.
Slavery became Jim Crow which became Affirmative Action.
Our public education system is perfectly segregated by socioeconomic status.
All of these institutions are supported and implemented by democrats and specifically progressives.
Democrats and Progressives are racists and morally decrepit shitheads. The GOP machine is on their side.
Both of these parties fight against the decent people of the United State who overwhelmingly want government and society to be color blind.
Our entire political class is wretched and vile.
I'm not following you into a discussion about abortion. I'll only say that in your world, we wouldn't know that black women have higher maternal mortality or higher numbers of abortions.
Yes I do know about the history of racism among population controllers. I'm glad to see that you are aware that race is unfortunately incredibly relevant. Wishing it were not -- which I think we all do -- is not a strategy. Nor is pretending it's not, by halting collection of data that show disparities by race.
"Race is important when people make it important. When people diminish the importance of race, its importance diminishes."
I agree with this. But diminishing the importance of race requires actually doing something to keep reducing the extent to which race is a factor in how people's lives play out in this country. Blinding ourselves by refusing to collect data on it does nothing and also gaslights people who every day experience it as a factor.
Achilles, I agree with a lot of what you write, though I would add Republicans, conservatives, and MAGAs to your list of racists and morally decrepit shitheads. Race is a pervasive force in human history indeed, and from our founders on down people have used it to divide the people against themselves. Most certainly the left included.
By the way, how this played out in the development of laws and the legal system in this country is basically critical race theory (not the boogie-man version, but the actual legal theory and field of analysis).
I'll only say that in your world, we wouldn't know that black women have higher maternal mortality or higher numbers of abortions.
We don't need to know that, is my point. Why would we need to know that? It's like studying the number of black people in prison or the number of black people who play basketball or the number of black people who play hockey.
Racist statistics are still racist statistics, regardless of who is collecting them, or why.
Why Do So Few Black People Listen To Classical Music?
I have no idea if that headline is true or not true. Damn if I'm polling that shit. But my question to you, Daniel, is a simple one. Is that a racist headline? Are you singling out a bunch of people because of their race and saying shit about them?
Regardless of your intent, people read that shit and many conclude, "I guess black people don't listen to classical music." And you've just spread yet another racist meme.
Stop doing it!
"We don't need to know that, is my point. Why would we need to know that?"
So women don't die having children.
So women don't die having children.
Again, the relevant class is aborting women.
You don't need to know "race" to study that.
Daniel12: "I'll only say that in your world, we wouldn't know that black women have higher maternal mortality or higher numbers of abortions."
As to the former, if true, how does it necessarily relate to the latter, which is virtually universally known even in our world?
And: "Blinding ourselves by refusing to collect data on it does nothing and also gaslights people who every day experience it as a factor."
Does refusing to collect data comport with refusing to acknowledge data? For example during discussions of incarceration rates refusing to acknowledge that black males commit a vastly disproportionate number of violent crimes in this country.
"Again, the relevant class is aborting women.
You don't need to know "race" to study that."
I mean, the fact that you ideate a link on a bulletin board with a cite to a ten year old press article about a study that does not actually look at maternal death, and then add in a Dr Google lesson in obstetrics probably cribbed from the same article or some talking point somewhere, does not actually mean anything. As you said, "I connect dots," and lo and behold, your dot connection ended at one of your favorite political issues. You don't actually need to know anything about anything to do that.
When we stop collecting data, it gets even easier for bullshitters with axes to grind to fill the gap.
Hombre: "virtually universally known" is a result of data collection. Also I didn't make any link between maternal mortality and abortion -- that was all Saint Croix.
"Does refusing to collect data comport with refusing to acknowledge data?"
Collecting data does not guarantee people actually use it in decision making, or draw accurate conclusions from it -- not even close. However, not collecting data does guarantee no use of data in decision making. Not getting into your pet issue though, same as I don't want to get into Saint Croix's.
@Daniel12 (2:19): Nice dodge. I expect we'll meet again.
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