My understanding is that the words ‘being woke’ is away for some people to mock other people who believe in addressing societal issues, mostly racial and social justice. If you think there is another “valid” explanation, I’d be happy to hear it.
I enjoy engaging with people who have different thoughts about matters and are willing to both talk AND listen. However, my experience with radicals (at both extremes) is that they do neither and engaging them is a waste of time. For example, I have yet to meet a white supremacist who would qualify as “good people.” But that’s just me.
I sometimes ask people exactly what they mean by “woke.” I’ve never heard the same explanation twice. People are sure being woke is bad, even if they don’t really know what it is. For example, some people like Elon Musk. So anyone who boos Musk must be woke, and therefore bad and can be dismissed.
We live in a society where ghost walking through the gift of life is a norm. Being woke, which I assume has something to do with self-improvement based on self-awareness of your impact on the lives of others, strikes me as a preferable way of living.
That’s the key here. As far as I can tell, the term woke is mainly used as a derogatory term. It has become an insult used by the political right against anyone working on social justice issues - racism, sexism, and similar.
I have not heard those working for social justice call themselves “woke”. At least not recently, not in the last several years.
So when I see or hear “woke”, I react the same way I would react to any other insult.
Musk can think anything he wants. When people don’t buy a product from a company I hold shares in because the boss ticks them off (for any reason), I wish he would keep his opinions to himself. At some point, losing my money over his comments causes me to lose interest in investing in the company which he is associated with. This is not a comment on his projected opinions, but rather on the financial ramifications as it affects me.
I caught a piece on youtube earlier today, that includes an official definition of “woke”.
Background. A state prosecutor signed a pledge that he would use his prosecutorial discretion to not prosecute people under state laws that purport to criminalize abortion or gender reassignment therapy. The Governor suspended the prosecutor, without pay, saying the prosecutor was “woke”. The prosecutor sued.
The case is now before a judge. The judge asked representatives of the Gov, what “woke” meant. Here is the official word, as stated by government representatives, in open court.
Taryn Fenske, (the Governor’s) Communications Director said “woke” was a “slang term for activism…progressive activism” and a general belief in systemic injustices in the country.
Asked what “woke” means more generally, [Governor’s General Counsel Ryan] Newman said “it would be the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.”
Newman added that (the Governor) doesn’t believe there are systemic injustices in the U.S. He also emphasized he believed Warren’s “wokeism” led him to sign the pledge not to prosecute abortion crimes, the primary factor that led to his suspension.
So there you have it. If you think there are systemic injustices in Shiny-land: injustices in opportunity, injustices in treatment by the law, injustices in treatment in the workplace, and you think something should be done about it, you are guilty of the thought crime of being “woke”.
Steve…plenty of links about this, but they name political names.
Jeff the more that Musk tweets the cheaper the stock gets. There is nothing wrong with the company but it sure makes the current investors nervous. As for me, who has been looking to buy in, every tweet he puts out is music to my ears. I think I will just start buying and keep buying every 10 percent more it drops.
That is how I see it but adding the time dimension the second definition was how the term originated and is clearly very well intentioned.
The first definition is the reaction to the unfair methods used to try implement the original good intentions, quota systems, sidelining dissenters, and shadow banning, for example.
The boss is free to espouse any Sleepy rightist view they want, but I am “bad” if I decide to not spend my money with the boss because of their view. And your solution is that I should live under a dictatorship to teach me how bad it is to freely express my views?
And yet you’re OK with Sleepy rightists using government power and resources to financially punish a corporation that expresses different views than Sleepy rightists support.
Or having Sleepy rightists forcing everyone to adhere to Sleepy rightist’s religious views.
Apparently, when you’re a Sleepy rightist, dictatorship isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.
That is one aspect of it pertaining to racism and misogyny. But the idea of shouting “woke” every five minutes on Fox is to denigrate minorities and women even more…Not sure the right should be off the hook by that sort of flanking action…
Lets turn this around. What is non-woke? Satisfaction with the status quo, where white men have most of the opportunity, most of the privilege, and run most of the country? In “Wealth And Poverty”, George Gilder suggested that offering women any opportunity was a waste of time, because they were only killing time until they got married and quit to raise children. (now dog whistled as “traditional family values”) And we hear plenty of people pushing “replacement theory” as a threat to the white male status quo.
Bill O’Reilly holds forth on white, male, supremacy as the natural order of things, and the big conspiracy of others (now dog whistled as “woke”) to upend the status quo, at the 20 second mark.
