It’s really kind of pathetic that people who aren’t even operating in good faith are so damn good at completely capturing and re-defining words/phrases that originated on the left.
It speaks to the impotence of the left to be unable to control their own fucking narratives while the right-wing jack booted thugs are able to twist the narrative with seemingly no effort at all or attempt to even make their false narrative make sense.
Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) meaning “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination”. Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism, and denial of LGBT rights. Woke has also been used as shorthand for some ideas of the American Left involving identity politics and social justice, such as white privilege and reparations for slavery in the United States.
The phrase stay woke has been present in AAVE since the 1930s. In some contexts, it referred to an awareness of social and political issues affecting African Americans. The phrase was uttered in recordings from the mid-20th century by Lead Belly and, post-millennium, by Erykah Badu.
I guess the history of the word in the black community doesn’t matter? Because racists co-opted it, we have to wipe away the black history of this phrase? Because @[email protected] seems to be implying the history of the phrase does not matter, because of how it is used now by fascists operating in bad faith.
I hear what you’re saying, but if I may provide an extreme example…
Try wearing a sauvastika in the western world these days and what do you think the response will be? Once a symbol of abundance and prosperity became the most prominent hateful symbol for generations. Decades after the annihilation of Nazi Germany and the swastika is still given their interpretation.
I don’t have an answer as to how to prevent this from happening all over again like it is to a lesser degree with vocabulary such as this is describing.
No, that’s not a good example at all. This is closer to Orwell’s Newspeak, in which the government makes a word mean its opposite in order to force a change to the way people think.
A more relevant example is the use of the term “fake news.” The term was originally coined to talk about Trump making up “facts” on the fly that were completely disconnected from reality. Then Trump started using the term to refer to news articles he didn’t like.
He was even asked at one point if by “fake news” he meant the story wasn’t true. He said no - he meant he thinks it’s not something the media should be talking about, true or not.
For his fans and for the media in general, it’s come to mean “false,” but that’s an inversion of the original meaning, which is that Trump was inventing “facts,” mutated to Trump thinking the media shouldn’t be reporting on his extensive dealings with Russians, and finally being interpreted as challenging whether those fully documented and verified meetings even really happened.
I did completely gloss over the fact this term existed long before it was co-opted by the right.
I’m wrong about that for certain.
If I was to make an excuse I suppose it would be that I just don’t hear leftists using this term much in its original form. It has been twisted and hijacked and that is sad.
Maybe we should take it back but IMO I’d rather just call an issue what it is rather than create umbrella terms that encapsulate a variety of really complex topics.
If it’s a feminist issue it’s a feminist issue.
If it’s a representation issue it’s a representation issue.
If it’s a systemic racism issue it’s a systemic racism issue.
I’d rather we call it what it is than ‘woke’ but fully open to criticism of this position based on the fact this is ignoring its origin.
You’re also not wrong, it is widely used on the right to discredit it.
I appreciate your thoughtful reply, and I hope you didn’t feel like I was trying to act like you’re a bad person or something. I’ve definitely done similar things, and glossed over origins. I guess I was just thinking about it, and trying to not minimize the history of it.
Also, considering black Americans are only something like 12% of the total population, of course more right wingers are using it because there’s sadly apparently more shitty right-wing dinguses in the US than there are black people. Which means traditional use of “woke” is simply just drowned out by the right.
Haha no I didn’t think you were saying I’m a bad person.
I honestly don’t mind if you did, I’ve been called much worse.
I’m genuinely appreciative of being called out. Challenge what anyone says IMO.
I really was ignorant of how far back the term was used (I was aware of the 2010’s usage etc) so it’s important context for me to learn this.
So much of black American culture is squashed and by me saying that ‘you shouldn’t use woke because right wingers use it’ is in some ways me being racist or at least culturally imperialist.
To be clear though that wasn’t my intent when I made up my original comment about ‘woke’ I was really just expressing my frustration that the right have adopted it so wholeheartedly seemingly every time it’s mentioned it’s always a ‘wink wink nudge nudge’ you know what we really mean when we say it and I’m pissed off about it to the point whenever I hear anyone use the term I immediately try to get to the bottom of what they really mean when they use it because invariably it’s the racist/sexist/xenophobic etc usage rather than the originally intended one.
If it’s a representation issue it’s a representation issue.
If it’s a systemic racism issue it’s a systemic racism issue.
I see how that makes sense on the surface. In effect, though, intersectionality is a vital thing to keep in mind.
Otherwise we end up fighting the same enemies separately, basically wasting time, energy and public attention by competing against each other when we should be cooperating.
I have read and had to cite multiple times Crenshaw’s paper on intersectionality so I should have been clearer with my language and known better.
What I should have said is I want specificity in the language of describing who and what problem is trying to be addressed so it could very well be a feminist, systematically racist issue affecting African American women, rather than simply ‘it’s woke’.
I’d rather just call an issue what it is rather than create umbrella terms that encapsulate a variety of really complex topics.
while i like this approach of calling things by what they are, i dont know if it helps with the problem at hand or is even achievable.
critical race theory, while not necessairily being immediatly obvious in its meaning, is relatively specific and that still did not stop rightist from making it up to be some big evil.
i doubt that even something direct like “fighting systemic racism” could not be coopted.
about the achievability, social justice causes have a very obvious relationship, highlighted even more by discussions of intersectionality.
i think people will keep using umbrella terms cor these causes because they make it easier to communicated valued quickly and find people sharing these values.
racists literally intentionally and vociferously assert their conviction that the black community doesn’t matter, so, yes literally that. if something originated in the black community, or was prominent in black history, that makes it MORE susceptible to being hijacked by fascists, because that makes it a tantalizing target to them. not only do the ethnonationalist scum get to steal something, they ALSO get to debase and undermine one of their favorite targets while they do so. of fucking course they’re going to hijack it.
Because it seems about 800 or so people agreed with the statement in the OP, which is that “woke” is a garbage word only used by fascists… which in itself is a statement that debases and undermines a right wing target (black history/AAVE). The original post is ostensibly written by a “leftist” based on the things they clearly support, but they’re taking a black phrase with a long history, and saying only fascists use that word.
I’m saying the left is being complicit by letting them, and I don’t think that’s a good thing.
Who the fuck is WE? There’s no solidarity on the left. The plurality is more interested in eating each other alive for clout, making enemies for no good fucking reason, and brainlessly applying the no true scotsman fallacy except “no true leftist”. I so fucking desperately wanted to believe there was actually some kind of community here, but every time ANYONE gets into a position where they might be able to organize something greater than themselves the FUCKING crab mentality kicks in and they got DOGPILED. And not an insignificant part of this is driven by sock puppets operated by actual right wingers who are vapidly parroting leftist aesthetics, whipping up a rabid frenzy of torches and pitchforks, and motherFUCKERS on the left KEEP FALLING FOR IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN. At this point every time I see someone on the left who is attacking anyone specific, i just drop them and stop engaging. THIS BEHAVIOR is why ‘we’ fucking lose over and over again.
Instead of trying to punish each other, we should have been working together, but THAT is what “we” have been doing to “let” the right get away with shit. If we don’t have solidarity “we” have NO shot of taking ownership of “our” messaging.
to the contrary, leftists don’t get to have snappy buzzwords UNTIL AND UNLESS there is a “WE” that has enough coordination to clearly define and DEFEND the definition OF those terms. The left needs to stick to PLAIN TEXT. No more bullshit in-group jargon. “we” can’t afford to be an “in-group”.
Okay buddy, while you’re practically screaming at me about lack of solidarity, I’ve had a nice conversation with the person who made the original quote. Get a grip. Maybe it’s you?
First of all I’m sorry it sounded like I was screaming at you.
you’re not the one at fault for the overarching fuckery.
Second of all my complaint is about a standing pattern of behavior, not specific people, and targeted harassment is the problem. I didn’t call for you–or anyone specific–to be excommunicated and shunned, so it is definitionally a separate issue.
My local political scene is using French, not English nor AAVE. And yet there is a which-hunt in the academia to exclude the “wokes” and the “islamo-leftists”. Sorry if my proximate political realities are more important than etymology.
Thank you for saying this! I also doubt that replacing the word would do something, since fascists will simply do the same to any other word - except you move the goalposts into their direction, which I for one am not a fan of.
It’s exactly the same way that “alt-right” became popular around 2015 originally to self identify as a life long liberal who felt they could no longer support the political left, but also weren’t comfortable with fully supporting the political right. It was seized upon and redefined to remove those people’s ability to succinctly identify their unique position, to maintain the artificial 50/50 left/right divide in the public’s mind.
And yes I am aware that it was once used by some shithead nobody cares about before that, but I’m talking about it’s popular use in recent times.
The problem is that the alt-right exists in a bubble. They don’t leave their bubble, and right-wing media has figured out how to capitalize on that. Fear is literally an addiction, and conservative media has absolutely figured out how to drip feed that shit into their veins.
The reason that it’s hard to control a narrative, is that they’ve divested themselves from anything mainstream and have instead created their own narratives. It’s frustrating because we can easily look in on them, but they refuse to look outwards, so they will take terms or ideas that they know nothing about and twist them to fit whatever hate filled narrative gets their media more views and more money. Look at what they did with CRT, it’s a fascinating grad level subject that discusses how different policies affect different groups of people, and they figured it was some BS that we were poisoning our youth with. Like. What? No, wtf? Where did you even get that idea from? But look how it stuck.
And the fascinating thing is that they’ve learned to REALLY control those narratives. They’ll preach all about freedom of speech because it’s something they feel is important, but watch them ban LITERALLY ANYONE that doesn’t toe the line, because it threatens the narrative for everyone else. You want to question ideas instead of just getting angry? You’re banned. Want to discuss the merits of a policy instead of blindly supporting it? You’re banned.
The worst part is short of individually working with the people you know to get them out of that mindset, there’s not really a way to fix angry, illogical, and willfully ignorant people. It’s a sinkhole that pulls people in and traps them there.
It’s really kind of pathetic that people who aren’t even operating in good faith are so damn good at completely capturing and re-defining words/phrases that originated on the left.
It speaks to the impotence of the left to be unable to control their own fucking narratives while the right-wing jack booted thugs are able to twist the narrative with seemingly no effort at all or attempt to even make their false narrative make sense.
See: COVID and “My Body, My Choice.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke
I guess the history of the word in the black community doesn’t matter? Because racists co-opted it, we have to wipe away the black history of this phrase? Because @[email protected] seems to be implying the history of the phrase does not matter, because of how it is used now by fascists operating in bad faith.
I hear what you’re saying, but if I may provide an extreme example… Try wearing a sauvastika in the western world these days and what do you think the response will be? Once a symbol of abundance and prosperity became the most prominent hateful symbol for generations. Decades after the annihilation of Nazi Germany and the swastika is still given their interpretation. I don’t have an answer as to how to prevent this from happening all over again like it is to a lesser degree with vocabulary such as this is describing.
No, that’s not a good example at all. This is closer to Orwell’s Newspeak, in which the government makes a word mean its opposite in order to force a change to the way people think.
A more relevant example is the use of the term “fake news.” The term was originally coined to talk about Trump making up “facts” on the fly that were completely disconnected from reality. Then Trump started using the term to refer to news articles he didn’t like.
He was even asked at one point if by “fake news” he meant the story wasn’t true. He said no - he meant he thinks it’s not something the media should be talking about, true or not.
For his fans and for the media in general, it’s come to mean “false,” but that’s an inversion of the original meaning, which is that Trump was inventing “facts,” mutated to Trump thinking the media shouldn’t be reporting on his extensive dealings with Russians, and finally being interpreted as challenging whether those fully documented and verified meetings even really happened.
You’re not wrong.
I did completely gloss over the fact this term existed long before it was co-opted by the right.
I’m wrong about that for certain.
If I was to make an excuse I suppose it would be that I just don’t hear leftists using this term much in its original form. It has been twisted and hijacked and that is sad.
Maybe we should take it back but IMO I’d rather just call an issue what it is rather than create umbrella terms that encapsulate a variety of really complex topics.
If it’s a feminist issue it’s a feminist issue.
If it’s a representation issue it’s a representation issue.
If it’s a systemic racism issue it’s a systemic racism issue.
I’d rather we call it what it is than ‘woke’ but fully open to criticism of this position based on the fact this is ignoring its origin.
You’re also not wrong, it is widely used on the right to discredit it.
I appreciate your thoughtful reply, and I hope you didn’t feel like I was trying to act like you’re a bad person or something. I’ve definitely done similar things, and glossed over origins. I guess I was just thinking about it, and trying to not minimize the history of it.
Also, considering black Americans are only something like 12% of the total population, of course more right wingers are using it because there’s sadly apparently more shitty right-wing dinguses in the US than there are black people. Which means traditional use of “woke” is simply just drowned out by the right.
Anyway, cheers.
Haha no I didn’t think you were saying I’m a bad person.
I honestly don’t mind if you did, I’ve been called much worse.
I’m genuinely appreciative of being called out. Challenge what anyone says IMO.
I really was ignorant of how far back the term was used (I was aware of the 2010’s usage etc) so it’s important context for me to learn this.
So much of black American culture is squashed and by me saying that ‘you shouldn’t use woke because right wingers use it’ is in some ways me being racist or at least culturally imperialist.
To be clear though that wasn’t my intent when I made up my original comment about ‘woke’ I was really just expressing my frustration that the right have adopted it so wholeheartedly seemingly every time it’s mentioned it’s always a ‘wink wink nudge nudge’ you know what we really mean when we say it and I’m pissed off about it to the point whenever I hear anyone use the term I immediately try to get to the bottom of what they really mean when they use it because invariably it’s the racist/sexist/xenophobic etc usage rather than the originally intended one.
I see how that makes sense on the surface. In effect, though, intersectionality is a vital thing to keep in mind.
Otherwise we end up fighting the same enemies separately, basically wasting time, energy and public attention by competing against each other when we should be cooperating.
Yes you’re correct.
I have read and had to cite multiple times Crenshaw’s paper on intersectionality so I should have been clearer with my language and known better.
What I should have said is I want specificity in the language of describing who and what problem is trying to be addressed so it could very well be a feminist, systematically racist issue affecting African American women, rather than simply ‘it’s woke’.
‘Woke’ wasn’t defended by the left b/c the AAVE community didn’t want white people using it.
So the only white people that used it were the ones that didn’t care about the opinions of black people.
while i like this approach of calling things by what they are, i dont know if it helps with the problem at hand or is even achievable.
critical race theory, while not necessairily being immediatly obvious in its meaning, is relatively specific and that still did not stop rightist from making it up to be some big evil. i doubt that even something direct like “fighting systemic racism” could not be coopted.
about the achievability, social justice causes have a very obvious relationship, highlighted even more by discussions of intersectionality. i think people will keep using umbrella terms cor these causes because they make it easier to communicated valued quickly and find people sharing these values.
racists literally intentionally and vociferously assert their conviction that the black community doesn’t matter, so, yes literally that. if something originated in the black community, or was prominent in black history, that makes it MORE susceptible to being hijacked by fascists, because that makes it a tantalizing target to them. not only do the ethnonationalist scum get to steal something, they ALSO get to debase and undermine one of their favorite targets while they do so. of fucking course they’re going to hijack it.
…and that means we should just let them?
Because it seems about 800 or so people agreed with the statement in the OP, which is that “woke” is a garbage word only used by fascists… which in itself is a statement that debases and undermines a right wing target (black history/AAVE). The original post is ostensibly written by a “leftist” based on the things they clearly support, but they’re taking a black phrase with a long history, and saying only fascists use that word.
I’m saying the left is being complicit by letting them, and I don’t think that’s a good thing.
Who the fuck is WE? There’s no solidarity on the left. The plurality is more interested in eating each other alive for clout, making enemies for no good fucking reason, and brainlessly applying the no true scotsman fallacy except “no true leftist”. I so fucking desperately wanted to believe there was actually some kind of community here, but every time ANYONE gets into a position where they might be able to organize something greater than themselves the FUCKING crab mentality kicks in and they got DOGPILED. And not an insignificant part of this is driven by sock puppets operated by actual right wingers who are vapidly parroting leftist aesthetics, whipping up a rabid frenzy of torches and pitchforks, and motherFUCKERS on the left KEEP FALLING FOR IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN. At this point every time I see someone on the left who is attacking anyone specific, i just drop them and stop engaging. THIS BEHAVIOR is why ‘we’ fucking lose over and over again.
Instead of trying to punish each other, we should have been working together, but THAT is what “we” have been doing to “let” the right get away with shit. If we don’t have solidarity “we” have NO shot of taking ownership of “our” messaging.
to the contrary, leftists don’t get to have snappy buzzwords UNTIL AND UNLESS there is a “WE” that has enough coordination to clearly define and DEFEND the definition OF those terms. The left needs to stick to PLAIN TEXT. No more bullshit in-group jargon. “we” can’t afford to be an “in-group”.
Okay buddy, while you’re practically screaming at me about lack of solidarity, I’ve had a nice conversation with the person who made the original quote. Get a grip. Maybe it’s you?
First of all I’m sorry it sounded like I was screaming at you.
you’re not the one at fault for the overarching fuckery.
Second of all my complaint is about a standing pattern of behavior, not specific people, and targeted harassment is the problem. I didn’t call for you–or anyone specific–to be excommunicated and shunned, so it is definitionally a separate issue.
My local political scene is using French, not English nor AAVE. And yet there is a which-hunt in the academia to exclude the “wokes” and the “islamo-leftists”. Sorry if my proximate political realities are more important than etymology.
Thank you for saying this! I also doubt that replacing the word would do something, since fascists will simply do the same to any other word - except you move the goalposts into their direction, which I for one am not a fan of.
Dude, I didn’t know this - this is super interesting. Thanks a lot for sharing!
It’s exactly the same way that “alt-right” became popular around 2015 originally to self identify as a life long liberal who felt they could no longer support the political left, but also weren’t comfortable with fully supporting the political right. It was seized upon and redefined to remove those people’s ability to succinctly identify their unique position, to maintain the artificial 50/50 left/right divide in the public’s mind.
And yes I am aware that it was once used by some shithead nobody cares about before that, but I’m talking about it’s popular use in recent times.
The problem is that the alt-right exists in a bubble. They don’t leave their bubble, and right-wing media has figured out how to capitalize on that. Fear is literally an addiction, and conservative media has absolutely figured out how to drip feed that shit into their veins.
The reason that it’s hard to control a narrative, is that they’ve divested themselves from anything mainstream and have instead created their own narratives. It’s frustrating because we can easily look in on them, but they refuse to look outwards, so they will take terms or ideas that they know nothing about and twist them to fit whatever hate filled narrative gets their media more views and more money. Look at what they did with CRT, it’s a fascinating grad level subject that discusses how different policies affect different groups of people, and they figured it was some BS that we were poisoning our youth with. Like. What? No, wtf? Where did you even get that idea from? But look how it stuck.
And the fascinating thing is that they’ve learned to REALLY control those narratives. They’ll preach all about freedom of speech because it’s something they feel is important, but watch them ban LITERALLY ANYONE that doesn’t toe the line, because it threatens the narrative for everyone else. You want to question ideas instead of just getting angry? You’re banned. Want to discuss the merits of a policy instead of blindly supporting it? You’re banned.
The worst part is short of individually working with the people you know to get them out of that mindset, there’s not really a way to fix angry, illogical, and willfully ignorant people. It’s a sinkhole that pulls people in and traps them there.