"woke"

[kpete]

[Walleye]

1. They say woke because they're ashamed to say what they really want

It’s the same insult when they used to say “n-word lover”back in the day. They have a whole series of immature insults mainly based in racism because they are too immature to use the actual words, example, let’s go Brandon

[Ferrets are Cool]

5. this x 1000

[Mr. Evil]

13. They think they're being cute like a 6th grader.

Their being "immature" nails it.

[c-rational]

23. Bingo - and your key word is immature.

[Wounded Bear]

2. K & R...nt

[nuxvomica]

3. "woke" always reminds me of a short story I wrote years ago

I wrote it before the term started being used as an insult, when it just started being an identity. It was a sci-fi story about an egalitarian future where all of today's problems were solved and everyone got along. The society was kind enough that even people who didn't like living in such a perfect world could, at age 21, choose to enter isolation tanks that kept them alive but hooked up to a memory-wiping, Matrix-like simulation where they lived as oligarchs in a proto-fascist "broken world of the past." They were called "sleepers" who had rejected the normal, "woke" life. I often think that if we could offer such a technology, a lot of Republicans would go for it.

[vercetti2021]

7. Holy shit

We should start calling these people sleepers.

[KS Toronado]

9. Well they are asleep alright

Since they can't see the wool being pulled over their eyes by the likes of IQ4.5, FQX and elected repugs.

[erronis]

12. "sheepers"

[KS Toronado]

21. Sleepers, Sheepers, Where'd you get those peepers?

[nuxvomica]

14. And they have curiously latched on to the "sleepy Joe" meme

Which, like everything they use to criticize Democrats, is basically a projection.

[Grokenstein]

43. Oh no, please don't call them "sleepers."

We'll get millions of shitty Dune-based memes overnight.

[Joinfortmill]

18. Sounds like a plan!

[Pluvious]

28. Are you a fan of the great SF writer Iain Banks ?

He wrote a distant future utopian series about The Culture

Where human’s greatest challenge was avoiding boredom,
and jacked into virtual worlds of various types was an option

One of these being Hell

LMK if you’re interested, I’ll look up which novel featured that aspect

[nuxvomica]

33. I've never read Banks but I'll check it out

His sci-fi is far more ambitious than mine. My stories are mostly set on Earth and involve humans.

[Pluvious]

50. Here is the info on the specific novel...

Please note, I’d never recommend “Surface Detail” to a stranger of Banks’ works; generally, the consensus amongst his aficionados at Reddit (and myself) is to suggest “The Player of Games.”

The Wikipedia entry for SD is riddled with spoilers; its mention of the time in Hell is terribly inadequate. And I’ll add that parts of the novel are a bit dark, maybe not appealing to you :-/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Detail

From Banks’ personal entry, are some fun facts, like:

The asteroid 5099 Iainbanks was named after him shortly after his death.[58] On 23 January 2015, SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk named two of the firm's autonomous spaceport drone ships Just Read The Instructions and Of Course I Still Love You, after ships in Banks's novel The Player of Games.[59] Another, A Shortfall of Gravitas, began construction in 2018. This refers to the ship Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall, first mentioned in Look to Windward.[60]

[Ferrets are Cool]

4. K and R

[niyad]

6. Exactly.

[TeamProg]

8. K&R Thanks for posting. n/t

[paleotn]

10. And they don't believe in those things either.

[vlyons]

11. woke, as in

as a Buddhist, every day first thing in my meditation practice is to take refuge in the Buddha, dharma, and sangha, and aspire to become a completely and perfectly enlightened Buddha for the benefit of all sentient beings. So to me, woke is not an insult.

To poc, it means aware of the racism that is built into our society and institutions.

To RW racists, it means using their tax dollars to fund welfare for undeserving poor people, whom they bitterly resent. They frequently combine 'woke" with "Marxist" even tho they have never read Marx.

[Mr. Evil]

15. 'Woke' is a good thing.

Because when someone tries to blow some bullshit by my head I want to be as 'woke' as possible to recognize it immediately.

[Joinfortmill]

19. 👍

[Joinfortmill]

16. Lol

[Maine Abu El Banat]

17. And Compassionate

To care for everyone, not just a select few.

[IronLionZion]

20. Some people use the word H1B

Last edited Sun Jun 5, 2022, 12:53 PM - Edit history (1)

because they can't accept that American born US citizens are browner than we used to be. Global warming must be tanning us while also giving us American accents and passports


Sing to the tune of God Bless the USA:

Because I'm brown to be an American, where I know white H1Bs.

[KentuckyWoman]

22. Some Trumper said recently to avoid woke food and woke gasoline.

Considering most of the restaurant chains in America have come out in support of diversity I can only assume they'll stop eating out after church on Sunday. Plus will be walking everywhere to avoid buying those evil electric vehicles or woke gas.

The whole thing really boggled the mind.

[gulliver]

24. All Dems should be firmly against "woke" (and for the other things)

We need to be vocally, adamantly against "wokeness". I don't know who on our side would consider themselves "woke." I think it's a tiny few maybe, and they can get used to not using that word.

[FakeNoose]

25. "Woke" did used to mean something for liberals, before the racist RWNJs co-opted it

We can't use the term "woke" because if we do, we'll sound like those racists.

We can't use the old hand signal for "OK" anymore, because if we do, we'll look like we're signaling for white supremacy.

So I've just stuck with the middle finger signal, because everyone knows what that means.

To all right-wingers everywhere:

[BumRushDaShow]

27. Huh?

Like so many other things, it's something (a cultural slang term) that the white community TOOK from the black community, and then ran in all kinds of directions with it.

(unless you forgot the sarcasm thingy)

[gulliver]

29. I'm not sure of where it comes from

It's a bad concept and a bad expression, so I'm not sure anyone would want to either take it or take credit for it.

[panader0]

30. I'm not sure why you think it's bad.

I was asleep, then I woke up. Being awake, figuratively, is much better than being asleep. Being aware
is better than being unconscious.

[gulliver]

31. Well, who's awake?

It would be presumptuous and arrogant for me to say, "I'm awake." Not to mention wrong. We're all fallible and our points of view are invariably limited and unclear. No one can say they're really awake.

And, it's insulting to others to imply that they are not awake. Gratuitously insulting others in a sanctimonious way is the very opposite of enlightenment. It's a sign of endarkenment.

[BumRushDaShow]

32. I told you where it came from

being I'm from that origin community. But go ahead and throw the true Democratic base "under the bus" rather than go after the GOP loons who co-opted it while our Dem colleagues stood there like a deer in headlights.

[gulliver]

34. Well, that's just one person saying something, no offense

I really would like to know where the word "woke" came from. If you have something authoritative about its history, like a link to content where it was first used, that would be helpful. Otherwise, who knows where it came from? We could find out that some racist Republican created the word to mock people and create contempt for empathy and knowledge.

[BumRushDaShow]

35. The term was being bandied about by black millennials like my 30-some year old nieces

for years along with terms like "lit", going back during the mid-late 2000s, when they lost me with the newest slang.

There is a cultural difference between blacks and whites when it comes to use of certain terminology that gets completely dismissed and distorted, and that has been the case for many decades.

For example, another "co-opted" black term now popular here in Philly is "jawn", that goes back at least to the '80s or even before.

[meadowlander]

51. Why don't you try researching that then

before you come to the conclusion that it's a bad concept and a bad expression?

It's the same concept in the 60s as having your consciousness raised. It just recognises that we are all limited in our perceptions of the world by our background and our past experiences and that we should endeavour, as decent human beings, to try to expand the limits of those perceptions by understanding other peoples' experiences and where they are coming from.

It's only a "bad concept and a bad expression" if you are a self-satisfied conservative know it all who thinks your experiences are all anyone needs and that any attempt to understand where other people are coming from is a waste of time. If that's what you actually think, what are you doing here?

[gulliver]

52. Nope, it's obvious to the casual observer that it is bad

No one wants credit for it. I'm not sure why you're saying it comes from the sixties. People who speak of and even think they honestly appreciate the wonderfulness of things like higher consciousness need to evince it much more than they tend to. Claiming to see a virtue and being it are hugely different.

A time-honored way to distinguish wiser people from the less wise is that wiser people know how dumb they really are. They don't judge themselves "woke" or "possrssing higher consciousness." That's a fairly reliable sign of mediocrity, pseudo-virtue, or even destructive vanity.

[meadowlander]

53. Wise people strive to do something about how dumb they are.

It's only a higher consciousness when compared to your own past. I didn't understand something. Then I learned about it. Then I woke up.

I don't see why you feel the need to be so defensive about the concept of learning and empathy being good things.

Clinging to your right to be ignorant and inconsiderate of others and calling it wisdom isn't exactly a hallmark of enlightenment either.

[gulliver]

54. How do you know your new understanding is higher and not lower?

I mentioned above that the term "woke" is gratuitously insulting to people in addition to being vain. In what sense does it display considerateness to imply other people are "asleep?" To me, that rings dehumanizing.

[meadowlander]

55. I didn't understand something. And now I do.

It doesn't imply other people are "asleep". It implies I was asleep, then I learned something, and now I'm not asleep. Being born and raised white in a town with three black kids in a high school of 2,000, I didn't automatically know very much about the black experience in America. Then I listened to black people talk about their experience. Then I understood things I didn't understand before.

That awakening of consciousness and understanding has nothing to do with third parties, although it is quite telling that some people decide to make it about somehow about them.

Instead of getting defensive about the term, why not ask yourself if there are things you could still learn by listening to other peoples' experiences?

I'm also non-binary and neurodiverse. In living memory people like me were sent to gas chambers, institutionalized for life as toddlers, dissected for anatomy textbooks, sterilized against their will, and denied access to higher education, jobs and housing. Even today only 15% of college-educated people with Asperger's are in full time paid employment.

So I'm sorry but your argument that other people describing their own personal journey to "wokeness"/understanding of someone else's point of view is somehow dehumanizing for you is laughable and sad.

Perspective. It's your friend.

[Ron Green]

36. I first heard the term many years ago used by Black musicians

with whom I was playing. I’m honored to use this word today, referring to people (I include myself) who are aware of the load of bullshit that’s been handed to us disguised as American history.

I encourage you to not reject the word, but to use it consciously and boldly.

[gulliver]

37. My question is usually...

Does taking a certain action cause a child to not get a school lunch or a good education? I'm glad very few Dems use the word "woke" now. It's used by Republicans.

I don't care about pride or origin or history. Handing Republicans a victory indirectly through misguided wording is, for me, unacceptable. Intentions aren't worth a dime.

[Ron Green]

59. Don't let Republicans tell you what to do,

or not to do.

Stay woke, Brother.

[BarackTheVote]

40. WTAF?

Everyone should endeavor to be “woke”; to be “woke” is aspirational. It means being aware of the systemic mechanisms in place that stymie Black advancement and support white supremacy; it can be applied to any group that suffers from systemic oppression in a society built to favor cis white Xtian men. For white allies, it became a call to identify the passive racism that may have crept into their own ideologies from a lifetime of swimming in the White Privilege Pool. It’s also a call to political activism. It’s been used in the Black community for *decades* and entered the mainstream with Black Lives Matter protests against police violence.

The RW latched onto it (while Q, ironically, looks forward to “the great awakening”) because “woke” is an example of African American Vernacular, and Right Wingers are racist asspots who think AAV sounds funny.

Cripes on a cracker—stop RUNNING SCARED every time the RW appropriates our fking language! They made liberal, progressive, affirmative action, social justice, political correctness, bleeding heart, critical race theory—even green and Democrat; they’ve made them all gddamn scare words for their legion of little sheep! This shit is straight out of Big Brother’s playbook, take the language, take the ideas, leave your opponents with no words to express themselves. Stop letting them run away with our language!

I won’t say I’m woke, but I gddamn ENDEAVOR to be woke every single day.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

42. lol what on earth

[keithbvadu2]

26. Ask them if 'coming to Christ' would be 'woke'.

Ask them if 'coming to Christ' would be 'woke'.

For the newly converted types.

[BrightKnight]

38. Using messaging to substitute for good writing does not serve the message.

In woke writing the moral is the way more important than anything. This IS a problem because the message is far more effective when it is imbedded in quality writing.

If you can’t afford good writing then just sprinkle some woke messaging on top and nobody will notice.

It reminds me of the reality TV movement that took off during the writer’s strike.

[Catherine Vincent]

39. It really ticks me off how the foul conservatives took over that word...

and changed its meaning to fit their narrative.

[hunter]

41. I embrace "Social Justice Warrior" as well.

What's the alternative?

Brain dead zombie?

[BarackTheVote]

45. Social Justice Warrior

AND Bleeding Heart Liberal!

[hunter]

46. Labels proudly embraced.

.

[czarjak]

44. Woke, as opposed to...?

[IronLionZion]

58. Unconscious

in a deep sleep

[calimary]

47. There ya go! This absolutely, positively, and definitely!

[Initech]

48. "Woke" means any opinion that doesn't fall 100% within what the Fox / MAGA cult wants.

[hatrack]

56. It's the new "Libtard", but shorter and easier to pronounce . . .

That's all.

[Loki Liesmith]

57. Sick burn