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this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2023
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No one knows what the word woke means. Even people who use it can't define it. It's just a boogeyman word for things people don't like or want, and even they can't agree on it.
I’m becoming more and more convinced that a “woke” person is anyone who calls right-wingers out on being overtly racist/sexist/fascist. Or maybe anyone who just isn’t obviously racist/sexist/fascist.
It's a catch all just like "communism" and "socialism" were/are. Big words that people don't know the actual definition of that can sound scary
God damn woke communists with their BLM Antifa caravans of socialist illegals!
At least "communism" and "socialism" have theoretical definition. But yes, they were so heavily pulled into propaganda warfare, that they basically are used as synonyms for "enemy", as opposite of "democracy" and "freedom", and so on.
Btw "free speech" is another term that is watered down more and more. Also again by the right wing fuckers who complain that whenever they are criticized it would be an attack on "free speech". Which is also bullshit. You can say (mostly) what you want without being suppressed. But you can't expect those that hear it to just swallow it.
Ask every conservative screaming about their free speech being attacked where they stood on the Dixie Chicks during the Bush administration.
Woke does have a definition. The word has been in use for 80 some odd years. Regressives just latched onto it and destroyed all possible meaning in their determination to demonize anything they don't like. Woke to them just means Boogeyman.
It's anyone they think will call them out. They don't even need to be called out first.
They declare something new is woke and then we call them racist/sexist/fascist
They're the ones picking targets, not us.
Always has been.
Last December, a Federal judge asked DeSantis’s general counsel to define “woke,” and he did, thusly:
fascinating…
source
Really that's the closest we've come to an actual proper definition of the term "woke" by a conservative (and I'm like 90% confident that DeSantis' lawyers got that definition from the first few lines of the Wikipedia page on this term).
Yet, perhaps unsurprisingly, other conservatives give very different definitions, or none at all. VICE asked several conservatives at CPAC for a definition of the term and got a bunch of different answers (and vague non-answers). During an interview a conservative author who wrote an entire book about "wokeness" couldn't give a definition of the term. A few weeks ago Noah Samsen made a response to an anti-woke YouTuber by the name "Think Before You Sleep", who simply defined woke as "communism" (whatever he thinks that means).
For all intents and purposes, "woke" might as well just mean "anything vaguely progressive that I don't like".
Ok a court filing, DeSantis lawyers defined "woke" as, "the belief that there are systemic inequities in US society and the need to work against them".
Which is not bad as a definition, really.
Shit dawg then I'm woke af fr fr
And that's the point!
Sheeple woke up dawg
Woke is when I don't like it.
See also: socialism, leftism.
"Gat damned socialist liberals with their fascism" - your average proud neo-peasant
See also: the bizarre mind virus that's eating their brain alive. "No, you! Woke!"
It still means what it always meant. Being aware of society's injustices to the poor, downtrodden, or minority population and wanting to do something about it. They can't fucking stand that.
Being against being "woke" truly reveals who they are. That they just want to sweep it all under a rug and forget about it.
I think that's insufficient anymore if we are considering the right's usage of the word. Marketing or selling products to those groups counts as woke to the right.
The right doesn't use language genuinely, so personally I don't really care to consider their usages. The actual definition of words doesn't matter to conservatives, it's not how their brains work. That's why it's so easy for them to form a big tent party, they just need to say meaningless feel good phrases like "law and order", "1776", or "make America great again" to attract voters. That's also why when they get power, they dissolve into infighting and can't govern at all, because it turns out those phrases mean different things to all of them.
There's a sartre quote for that I keep around for just this circumstance
They don't use words for meaning.
That's part of what I meant. Even the length that they admit to doesn't cover the full extent of their real intent.
Isn't that what desantis team defined it as when demanded by court?
When they are forced to under oath sure but the scope of their malice extends to not just the people they hate but anyone that will interact with them or even engage in commerce with them.
No the problem is that woke does have a meaning, and most people know what that meaning is. The problem is that if republicans actually defined it out loud they'd have to admit what they actually take issue with and what they're actually fighting, and doing so would basically be admitting that they're the baddies. It'd be saying the quiet part out loud. By avoiding acknowledging the actual meaning of the word they get to pretend that wokeness is a nebulous Bad Thing that should be fought against.
Everyone knows what the word means, it's just impossible to define without sounding like a bigot. Because it means "not a bigot."
for me, for example, it means “people who are all over their head with cancel culture”; it also means people [who use the word] are probably a bunch of far right crazies.
So overall I guess it’s a way to describe the two far ends of the same thing
Cancel culture isn't a thing, or at least it's not a new thing. People are facing consequences for their actions, as they always have. The difference now is that bigots are facing consequences. Used to be, you'd get cancelled for being gay, or for refusing to sleep with a superior, or for suspicion of being a communist. Powerful people would have to fuck with someone more powerful to have their lives ruined. Now, the powerful people fear the public scrutiny, and viral social media can bring down just about anyone (with notable exceptions proving the rule). So now they've given it a name, hoping to make people fear and hate the backlash enough to make people forget why someone has been cancelled.
It's bullshit.
I wasn’t talking about that, but the weird history shame/cancellation movement
I guess you can have your own personal definition, but woke actually means being aware of systemic racial problems and working to correct them.
I guess, but it sounds like a very dumb word so I would use it to describe anything good or serious
To each their own I guess
There is actually a real definition to it. For example one day I realized that black people live in a world different than mine.
It woke me up to the realities of black existence
That’s why it’s “woke”.
When i had my kid and i read a bunch of stuff on parenting, i also came across those articles where black families needed to talk to their sons about police. It never occurred to me that people would need to so that.
Republicans are woke AF
Woke is whack
Edit: LOL I meant the concept of "woke" being pushed by current GOP morons, not the concepts being described as woke
So smurfy of you