RE: Wokeness
Any of you regard yourselves as proud proponents of #wokeness? If so, please say a few words its defense.
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.I have no use for political correctness or identity politics, they are mostly one and the same. I think that most of the time they get in the way of actual change in the status quo because they prevent people from expressing their actual truths in how they see and feel about what they experience and encounter, hence muzzling and stifling honest debate and sharing between people. But PC and identity politics are fine if the real goal of those who push them so vigorously is to restrict debate to only people like themselves who think the same as them and use the same speech codes. Yeah, that really accomplishes a lot, doesn't it?
TomMcGiverin
Level 8
Feb 27, 2020
2
I basically agree regarding identity politics, so-called intersectionality, etc. It tends to degenerate into tribalistic formulations that help no one. At the same time it's not without any basis at all. Historically, the black community has been totally fed up with the "some of my best friends are black" types of statements coming out of the mouth of people who still are casually racist -- just not in the sense of fulminating about how much you hate them and fantasize about lynching them. You can have advanced far enough not to succumb to those kinds of things and still operate on the assumption that to be poor is to be lazy, and to be in denial about how uncomfortable you still are interacting with black people, and how you wish they would act more like you, etc.
So ... I try not to judge it and I don't force myself on people but I do find all the furious virtue signaling to be tiresome.
There was an interesting story the other day that gives me hope though. Some random black guy was heading to vacation somewhere in the Caribbean via Dulles and was standing in the first class line. A white woman asked him to get out of the line, assuming as only older white people seem able, that he couldn't possibly "belong" there. He kindly showed her his first class ticket, whereupon she want back to her friends behind him in line and opined that he "must be military or something". He heard that and said, again gently, that he's too heavyset for any military to want him, but he had just bought himself a ticket like she had. Other people clapped at this rejoinder. He posted the incident on FB, figuring his friends would get a kick out of it.
When he arrived at his destination though he found it had gone viral in a big way. His immediate response, rather than to gloat, was to ask people to lay of this woman because he did not want to have it on his conscience to make some other person's life a living hell. And he apologized to her for any pain he had caused.
It's this kind of balance and humility that wins hearts and minds, not the usual story arc of people annihilating the ignorant with ridicule and memes and every possible form of shaming. The woman learned that she had some bad assumptions (hopefully) but she also learned that despite her bad behavior the person she wronged can be classy and kind and humble and forgiving. If there's any chance for that woman to even begin to change her thinking, that's how it's going to happen.
Couldn't agree more. Free speech is the star around which all other liberties orbit. It is the litmus test for any and all ideologies; a test that wokeness and PC culture repeatedly fail.
@OwlInASack I hate ID politics and the way the Dem party in the US obsesses about it because it provides a distraction and substitute for the lack of class warfare on their part on behalf of the lower classes. And too many Dems are just fine with that as they are comfortable members of the top 10% economically.
@OwlInASack I think that activism is fine. I encountered my first gay pride parade on a business trip to Seattle around 1993 or so, and I though it was rather needlessly "in your face" and not garnering them any allies that way. Over the years though I've come to see that my midwestern "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say it" ethos keeps such groups from progress. A certain amount of shock is necessary. That said ... I think I could have gone out into that street and showed my solidarity with those folks and marched with them and they would have welcomed the support. A lot of these movements (Sander's grassroots movement is a present example) have a lot of young people as the tip of the spear and they are going to be more inherently snarky and angry and subversive. That lack of restraint or wisdom is arguably a problem but it also provides a shit-ton of energy and passion, which such a movement needs.
That's the difference between how some people apply "wokeness" and simple activism. Any movement needs to be welcoming and non-otherizing, in BOTH directions.
The term arose out of the black community and there's understandable resentment on their part if white people wade into debate about "their" issues trying to score points for social consciousness. There's a sentiment that people outside the black community or at least who are not POCs should just "shut up" and not try to pontificate (often in a tone deaf or clueless fashion) on these topics, or to culturally "appropriate" the term "woke".
I think this is unfortunate because it silences, and in some cases, alienates, people who really want to be allies. It is possible for me as a white man to ally myself with the black community without somehow denigrating it or being patriarchal or condescending.
Just yesterday my wife was appalled by a video she saw of a hysterical and terrified 6 year old child (who happened to be black) being handcuffed and put in a police cruiser after she had some kind of tantrum, supposedly, in class. My wife was particularly incensed because she sees this kind of thing happening disproportionately to the children of POCs and the poor. She is neither a POC nor poor. And after she commented on it on social media she started to second guess herself and wondered if she should take her supportive posts down because POCs might imagine that she doesn't have the "right" to speak out on this issue ... as if her doing so negates their ability to speak out for themselves. I mean there is a black community, but there's also a human community that we should encourage everyone to participate in.
So I told her, no, there's nothing wrong or clueless about what you said so long as you don't dominate the conversation or convey pity or something. I encouraged her to let her posts stand. And indeed, other people -- their race I don't know and it's not really relevant -- spoke out who were social workers or school administrators and confirmed everything she pointed out.
This kind of awkward nonsense is where "wokeness" has gotten out of hand. The local Black Lives Matter community has made it clear for example that they don't particularly want whites marching with them. I think that's a tribal mistake. I understand where it's coming from, sort of, but everyone working for social justice needs all the sincere allies they can get.
mordant
Level 8
Feb 27, 2020
2
In my mind, wokeness = identity politics. It is the ideology of the SJWs. I think it is counterproductive to the cause of creating actual positive reform.
RoboGraham
Level 8
Feb 27, 2020
2
Yeah you're right about that.
I'm thinking of identity politics more along the lines of when woke liberals say they won't vote for Bernie because he is an old white man member of the patriarchy and therefore he is an oppressor.
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