What is "woke" in 2024

[Brickjectivity]

What did the damage?

That's what we must stop doing.

We stopped.

What did the damage was greed and selfishness and stupidity. We enslaved Africans because we more easily could, at that time. We would have enslaved anyone else if we more easily could have, at that time.

Don't say that. We were spared from that shame. We were not alive then, so we did not.

Rich southerners used to enslave people with whips and chains and steal their lives from them. Rich northerners used to enslave people with debt and starvation and steal their lives from them. The northerners thought they were the morally superior. And the physically stronger. So they forced the southerners to stop overtly enslaving people with whips and chains and stealing their lives, and now the rich everywhere, north, south, east, and west, enslave everyone that they can, covertly, with debt, and they steal whatever they can get. Our time, our effort, our capabilities, our hopes. And in the end, leave us to die on our own.

Both northerners and southerners held slaves up until the Civil War, and slavery was the tradition from ancient times. It was the North which fought against slavery, but before that slaves from Africa were sold by Africans to Europeans in all lands. Slavery seemed like it was the eternal future. It was commonplace and accepted as necessary, even beautiful. It was English speaking Europeans first killed the slave trade. First in ten thousand or more years. If it had not ended damn. You and I would still be part of the damn system. Instead we are elevated above previous generations. We are more civily aware, more blessed. Its easy, now, to say slavery is evil. The memory of us will forever delineate us from past generations even if we do nothing. This is the most blessed generation in History ever after likely 10 or 20 or 30 thousand years of people owning people. It may be 200,000. Slavery is so natural an impulse that to question it is like abstract mathematics. Its like asking what is deep under the ground or at the bottom of the ocean. Its like wondering what the Moon is made of. That is how natural people have always perceived slavery to be until now.

There are no reparations that will ever make up for all the suffering and all the stealing and all the death. But we could finally face the greed and selfishness and stupidity that has been driving this ship of horrors for so many years. At least we could try. But that will never happen so long as we keep excusing it. And pretending that it's not what it is. And telling ourselves we can't do better. That this is all we can ever be.

How about the End of Slavery? That's not too shabby: ending thousands of years of slavery.

I'm not saying that reparations are out of the question. I *am* saying that a damned amazing thing has been accomplished that very much has changed human History for the better, should it continue.

 

[LadyJane]

I'm with General Milley.

Gen. Milley defends military studies of critical race theory: ‘I want to understand white rage’

 

[Argentbear]

You seem to be attacking a claim I'm not making

I've never claimed that the majority of people agree with the OP.

But the point is that a significant number do.

But amazon book ratings or sales of books is not evidence that ANYONE agrees with your oP list

 

[icehorse]

But amazon book ratings or sales of books is not evidence that ANYONE agrees with your oP list

There are various standards of evidence. I am using a combination of hard data, statistics, and industry knowledge, more than sufficient for this context.

 

[Argentbear]

There are various standards of evidence. I am using a combination of hard data, statistics, and industry knowledge, more than sufficient for this context.

If this context is part of a fantasy then it sure is sufficient

 

[icehorse]

If this context is part of a fantasy then it sure is sufficient

I'll stick with math

 

[Shadow Wolf]

What did the damage was greed and selfishness and stupidity. We enslaved Africans because we more easily could, at that time. We would have enslaved anyone else if we more easily could have, at that time.

Africans (Barbary pirates) also enslaved the English. It's a human problem.

Barbary Pirates and English Slaves

For over 300 years, the coastlines of the English Channel and south west of England were at the mercy of Barbary pirates. Men, women and children were kidnapped to be sold as slaves...

www.historic-uk.com

 

[Shadow Wolf]

What did the damage was greed and selfishness and stupidity. We enslaved Africans because we more easily could, at that time. We would have enslaved anyone else if we more easily could have, at that time.

Oh, yeah, and how Africans were enslaved was basically exploitation. The more profitable slavers didn't really capture anyone. They exploited humanness and got Africans to capture other Africans and inflaming conflicts among the different African peoples.
It's not a Western problem, it's a Human problem.

 

[Kathryn]

I was asking about what you mentioned your son experiencing while in the military. Do you mean that he has experienced the above things, or were there specific things you had in mind?

Are those specific enough?

 

[Debater Slayer]

Are those specific enough?

Well, I didn't find them specific, since it's a relatively long list of general assertions without any specific instances of what happened or how any of the things on the list would apply to it. No worries if you'd rather not share specific experiences, though. I was just interested to know if you had any stories in mind.

 

[Kathryn]

Well, I didn't find them specific, since it's a relatively long list of general assertions without any specific instances of what happened or how any of the things on the list would apply to it. No worries if you'd rather not share specific experiences, though. I was just interested to know if you had any stories in mind.

Pay closest attention to the DEI ones, which is one thing my son deals with on a daily basis.

 

[Argentbear]

Pay closest attention to the DEI ones, which is one thing my son deals with on a daily basis.

how so?

 

[anna.]

What I'm saying is that a significant percentage (say 40%), of the people who buy these books and go to these talks are woke.

Agreed so far or not?

No, not agreed, because how woke the people who buy those books are, wasn't your original argument. Your argument was that woke meant agreeing to your list and is a big problem because two books are selling and being rated on Amazon.

But amazon book ratings or sales of books is not evidence that ANYONE agrees with your oP list

There are various standards of evidence. I am using a combination of hard data, statistics, and industry knowledge, more than sufficient for this context.

Please lay out your methodology step by step, and thanks in advance.

 

[PureX]

Pay closest attention to the DEI ones, which is one thing my son deals with on a daily basis.

So your son is upset because the military is trying to practice "diversity, equity, and inclusion"?

 

[Stevicus]

Pay closest attention to the DEI ones, which is one thing my son deals with on a daily basis.

how so?

I found this article which was rather interesting, outlining a concept called "prescriptive racism," as opposed to traditional racism.

There’s a kind of racism embedded in DEI

Sadly, as one of the few Black kids in the neighborhood and one of the even fewer who spent any time with white peers, I was a daily target of racist bullying. In fact, one could say it was a pastime of sorts. In some neighborhoods, kids got together to play tag or a pickup football game; in my neighborhood, picking on me was the organized game. Who I saw as a friend or an enemy changed all the time. Someone being nice to me on Tuesday would be leading a racist horde on Wednesday, only to be friendly again on Thursday. (It’s amazing I don’t have trust issues.)

My only reprieve came when I did something considered “Black”: like praise a rap song, dance, or do well in a basketball game. All my other attributes were ignored.

So I was excited about graduating from the eighth grade and going to a regional high school with a large Black population. I could finally leave my misfit status behind and enter a diverse environment where I would feel included.

However, these hopes were quickly dashed. The Black peers I encountered the most did not accept me either. To them, having grown up in a predominantly white neighborhood had made me white — too white for their tastes. Politeness on my part was considered weakness. My general disposition was not “real” enough in their minds. In this school, too, I was usually left alone if I was behaving in ways coded Black, but there was more to me than that.

The most disheartening aspect was that both my previous white tormentors and my new Black ones were implying the same thing: You’re not fulfilling our ideas of what a Black person is, and for that you must pay.

A specific example of the "prescriptive racism" the writer describes:

Once, I committed the sin of saying that knowledge of standard written English may be valuable to all students, regardless of skin color. For this, I endured vitriol. Because standard English came from England and was used by imperialists and slaveholders, I was told, it was inherently racist to teach it to nonwhites. On a now-defunct academic listserv, I was accused of white supremacy, of being unconcerned with how such thoughts, coming from my Black body, were doing harm to other Black people.

These academics would deride me to each other while ignoring my explanations and clarifications. Many who did not participate in these online degradation ceremonies cheered on those who did. For wanting to teach standard English, and for wanting to have a real conversation about its efficacy in American life, I was deemed a pariah.

It was remarkably reminiscent of the bullying I experienced while growing up.

To be clear, I was not being denigrated for simply having a particular outlook; my transgression was having that outlook while Black.

Unlike traditional racism — the belief that particular races are, in some way, inherently inferior to others — prescriptive racism dictates how a person should behave. That is, an identity type is prescribed to a group of people, and any individual who skirts that prescription is deemed inauthentic or even defective. President Biden displayed prescriptive racism when he said “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, you ain’t Black,” a statement that implicitly prescribes how Black voters should think.

The writer gives a more detailed explanation of prescriptive racism:

“Prescriptive racism” is probably a new term for most readers, but it’s not exactly a novel concept. It has a historical analogue: the concept of the “uppity Negro,” a Black person who dared to act like an equal to whites. One of this term’s most famous usages is attributed to Lyndon B. Johnson, who apparently said: “These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness.” Clearly, “uppity” was meant to describe people of color who exercised “agentic” power — that is, they were competent and did not need a white person’s heroism. These “uppity” Black people were forgetting their scripted lines, as it were.

However, prescriptive racism casts a broader net, disadvantaging people for not abiding by a long list of things a Black person shouldn’t do. A prescriptive racist may not mind that a Black person has a master’s degree, but he may scoff at the sight of a Black man watching the Masters — especially if Tiger isn’t playing. A white prescriptive racist would look at a Black person speaking standard English the way a Black person would look at a white person wearing a dashiki. Lest you think that last statement is mere speculation, I have met several people who have voiced derision and irritation upon hearing standard English come out of my mouth. My use of language was an affront to their expectations and sensibilities.

Many prescriptive racists are often people of the same minority group. A Black person lambasting another Black person for acting in ways deemed racially inauthentic — for example, speaking in dialects coded “white” — is engaging in prescriptive racism.

The writer then goes on to point out that prescriptive racism has become institutionalized and become a central component of DEI.

And prescriptive racism is not just a social phenomenon; it is now being institutionalized. More and more, it is erroneously labeled diversity, equity, and inclusion, and it is winning out over initiatives more in line with the civil rights movement and classical liberal values like individuality, free speech, reason, and even equality. It is becoming policy in academia, corporate America, and even the military. To put it another way, contemporary DEI is prescriptive racism.

In academia, I’ve found, Blackness is a role, a “pre-script,” to which Black people are expected to conform if they want to be accepted or, sometimes, acknowledged at all. A Black scholar cannot simply study and write about Plato; she has to write about Plato from a Black perspective. Nobody shows much interest in a Black graduate student drafting a dissertation on American Transcendentalism that isn’t focused on its relevance to the Black experience. In this sense, applying for graduate school or a professorship is akin to auditioning for “Black person” in some live-action role-playing event.

In a nutshell, the writer is criticizing DEI as discouraging individuality and freedom of choice.

At the end of the day, the founders of Free Black Thought are exercising our freedom of association to combat an almost tyrannical conformity imposed from an annoyingly indignant moral high ground.

For me, DEI done right is DEI based on traditional liberal values. These values make for social justice if we can live up to them fairly and universally.

To come full circle, experiencing racism in my childhood may have been arduous, and perhaps I was victimized. But that didn’t make me a victim. It opened my eyes to the nonsense of race and identity, and it forced me to embrace my individuality. For that, I am grateful. Prescriptive racism and other forms of prescriptive essentialism rob people, especially young people, of their ability to make their own paths and cultivate their own individuality. After all, we want our youth to think, not to have a group ideology think for them. They all, regardless of race, should be emboldened to let their thoughts be free.

 

[PureX]

I found this article which was rather interesting, outlining a concept called "prescriptive racism," as opposed to traditional racism.

There’s a kind of racism embedded in DEI







A specific example of the "prescriptive racism" the writer describes:





The writer gives a more detailed explanation of prescriptive racism:





The writer then goes on to point out that prescriptive racism has become institutionalized and become a central component of DEI.





In a nutshell, the writer is criticizing DEI as discouraging individuality and freedom of choice.

Most of this is not really a race problem, but a human problem. And is the story of people either rising above it as they grow up, or not.

If there were no single black kid in that all white neighborhood, then they would have bullied the single over-weight kid. Or the effeminate boy, or the masculine girl, or the too tall or the too short kid, or the dyslexic slow learner, or the smart kid, or whatever kid is perceived as being a little different from the rest. Because the kids in that neighborhood were not taught by their parents to appreciate each other's differences. So instead, they attack them to try and make themselves feel 'normal'. To be seen as the 'different' one puts a target on their back.

Some people grow past this as they get older, but some do not. And so this idiocy persists into adulthood, and into the job market, and into politics. (Trump mimicking the paralyzed reporter to humiliate him, and all those supporters that laughed and thought this was an acceptable thing to do.)

The people that practice "DEI" don't use that terminology. For them, it's just about being a grown up. About expressing emotional maturity. And all those people complaining about it are the ones that didn't grow up. That still think it's 'cool' to insult and humiliate anyone that's 'different' from them. And that now resent anyone that dares to point out how immature and hurtful that is. Especially when it's allowed to continue on into the adult world, as "free speech".

 

[Augustus]

The people that practice "DEI" don't use that terminology. For them, it's just about being a grown up. About expressing emotional maturity. And all those people complaining about it are the ones that didn't grow up.

There is also the view that it is counterproductive.

It is both intuitively true (at least for me) and also supported by scientific studies that the make emphasis you put on differences between people, the more these points of difference encourage discrimination (conscious or subconscious).

Well meaning people often create systems and structures that end up operating against their stated purposes.

Regardless of whether it is morally desirable, much of DEI is highly ideological and based on very limited evidence for it efficiency (regardless of whether it will turn out to be for the best in the long term).

This is the problem of conflating a normative goal of increased DEI with the positive reality of bureaucratic implementation of policies within organisations.

 

[Twilight Hue]

My conclusions from a common person's thoughtful perspective: "woke" means gives considerable weight to human rights issues.

The talking-points from the list in the OP are propagandist projections from those who want to violate human rights as a means by which to deflect their wishes to violate human rights away from themselves.

Woke as a term pretty much started with the "Social Justice Warrior".

 

[Stevicus]

Woke as a term pretty much started with the "Social Justice Warrior".

Back in the day, they were called "pinkos" and "bleeding heart liberals."

 

[Spice]

Pay closest attention to the DEI ones, which is one thing my son deals with on a daily basis.

Isn't your son biracial? I would think he would be a proponent of Diversity, Equality, Inclusion, even if not a fan of the emphasis placed upon the label.

Personally I see the label as a modern day version of "token," and feel we should be able to live the belief without the labeling. I get it that we as a society, as a whole, aren't there yet, and unfortunately having to draw attention to it just prolongs the need, IMO. It's a catch 22 situation.