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"Woke" was originally an AAVE term, popular in the midcentury civil rights era and beyond. Literally meaning "awake [to what's happening to you and your communi

• themaninthedark 2y ago
  Generally the reaction is not to minorities(non-white, is what I am assuming you mean) but to people from outside of a group trying to tell a group what words to use i.e. LatinX. An aside: If someone who is white is talking to the Spanish speaking community, would they be considered a minority? If so, then the parent premise would hold true.
  • spondylosaurus 2y ago
    I mean any kind of minority, although I would generally say "marginalized group" instead of "minority." But this is HN, so trying to stick to more commonly-known terminology :P I also think the "latinx" thing is overblown and generally used as an "anti-woke" shibboleth by people who want to get mad at something. Literally never seen an Anglophone yelling at a Spanish speaker about it before, only queer Spanish speakers who use it to refer to themselves. Also worth noting that there have been other variations that predate "latinx" and have seen more widespread usage. There's "latine," and "latin@", although the former is both easier to write and to pronounce.
    • svieira 2y ago
      > Literally never seen an Anglophone yelling at a Spanish speaker about it before, only queer Spanish speakers who use it to refer to themselves. You and I move in different circles. I was definitely running into "normal" Spanish speakers for the past few years who's awakening experience with "wokeness" was seeing the word "Latinx" on some HR form and being told that the reason was "for Hispanic comfort" ... which every single one of them found gaslighting in the extreme (since none of them liked it, even a little bit).
      • dalmo3 2y ago
        > seeing the word "Latinx" on some HR form Yes, very common in job application forms. I don't find it offensive per se, but it makes me wonder if this is the kind of company where bullshit reigns in the workplace.
        • deleted 2y ago
          [deleted]
      • spondylosaurus 2y ago
        Ah, HR... and here I thought we were talking about real people! ;) I've been condescended by (generally well-meaning) corporate diversity initiatives on many occasions, but I think it's hard to take that as a statement about progressive movements in general. Corporate shit tends to be toothless and cringey across the board.
        • svieira 2y ago
          > I think it's hard to take that as a statement about progressive movements in general True, but remember that many people's experience of any movement will be through an interface that is both lossy and hostile (whether it be government, corporate, clan leadership, what have you). "The effects that this had were well beyond the scope of what we intended" is so old it's in the Old Testament (but there as an answer-in-advance): > These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle and donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day. ~ 1 Samuel Chapter 8 via https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%208%2C1%20Samuel%2028&version=NRSVCE https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%208%...
    • deleted 2y ago
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  • UncleMeat 2y ago
    Latinx is a great example of the overreaction. Some people use this term. It was briefly catching on among groups with power, but ultimately never did. But it is spoken about like Harris was saying "latinx" in all of her campaign videos and that people are being fired for using "latino" or "latina" or even "latin." Ultimately, I think it is important that groups are able to try things and then later determine that they weren't the best idea. Shouldn't this be ceelbrated?
    • jl6 2y ago
      It would indeed be nice if these things were introduced as “let’s try a new thing and then choose to accept or reject it later, based on results”, rather than “we have determined there is only one correct way of thinking about this topic, and if you don’t like it, you’re a Nazi”.
      • UncleMeat 2y ago
        I suppose I would ask where you've seen or heard this sort of ultimatum about Latinx.
        • dolni 2y ago
          Isn't it interesting that your response here is questioning and perhaps dismissive? If a minority were sharing their perspective about whatever their lived experience was with regards to racism, would you respond this way? I'll answer that: no, you wouldn't. Which very quickly lifts the curtain. The movement is not about empathy or understanding. It's about empathy and understanding for people you deem worthy of receiving it.
          • UncleMeat 2y ago
            I really don't understand how this relates.
            • dolni 2y ago
• llm_nerd 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • spondylosaurus 2y ago
    It's not "racially gated," lol. It's a word that was popularized and primarily used by black activists, just like how "bikeshed" as a verb was invented by and mainly used by software engineers.
    • UncleOxidant 2y ago
      > like how "bikeshed" as a verb was invented by and mainly used by software engineers How dare you occupationally gate this term! (if it's not clear /s)
      • llm_nerd 2y ago
        [flagged]
        • UncleOxidant 2y ago
          Oh, thank you for this rebuke kind sir!
          • llm_nerd 2y ago
            Oh such a polite and wonderful retort! Love your thoughtful contribution! (/s)
    • llm_nerd 2y ago
      [flagged]
      • spondylosaurus 2y ago
        > Did I misunderstand? Yes, and perhaps deliberately so, lol. "Woke" was a word invented by black activists in the context of civil rights activism and is now being used disparagingly by people who are against modern forms of progressive activism. (I didn't use the word "white" once in the comments you're replying to, and you can CTRL+F me on that.) I also think it's telling that a lot of people like to die on the hill of "retarded used to be a clinical term!" but far fewer people are willing to die on the hill of "mongoloid used to be a clinical term!", despite both being true in roughly the same context.
• pessimizer 2y ago
  > "Woke" was originally an AAVE term, popular in the midcentury civil rights era and beyond. Literally meaning "awake [to what's happening to you and your community]," as opposed to being ignorant and asleep. This is distorted history. "Woke" is just the word in a bunch of black dialects for "awake." We just say "are you woke?" instead of "are you awake?" What happened is at some point some white woman somewhere had a black person explaining their political beliefs to her. It was likely a black person who was working for her (doing her nails, washing her clothes, or serving her food) who she had a faux friendship with and considered a spiritual guru and a connection to the real world and real suffering, in that way white people do (magical negro.) She carried these pearls of wisdom to her white friends, or to her students at the university, or to the nonprofit that she worked at, and it entered into the white lexicon as a magic word. If a white hippie, in the middle of a righteous rant, said "you've got to stay awake, man..." as many have, it wouldn't have been so exotic and interesting to tell their white friends. Or as useful to get yourself a job as a consultant. At that point, it became a thing that white people would use to abuse other white people as racists. The sin wasn't calling white people racists, it's that a certain self-selected white elect declared themselves to be not racist, or even anti-racist, in order to attack other white people. And they decided this gave them the right to control how other white people speak. And a government who hates the way people can talk to each other on the internet about what the government is lying about supported them whole-heartedly. Woke policing was an excellent way to use legal means to keep people asleep. And black people got blamed, as always. Because America is racist. Black people didn't benefit an iota from any of this. Approximately 0.0% of DEI managers are black men. Black people got poorer during the entire period. Now the anti-woke are going to unleash their revenge on black people, and the ex-woke are going to resent black people for not recognizing their sainthood. > Perhaps not a coincidence that reactionaries have now co-opted black slang to mean "things minorities do that I don't like." Meanwhile, the first step of wokeness was to erase black people altogether and replace them with "minorities" and "people of color," as if the only thing important to note about black people is their lack of whiteness. Or, since sexual minorities are included in "minorities", black people now have no problems that can be distinguished from the desires of white upper-middle class transwomen. Wokeness erased slavery and Jim Crow, and all that money that white people inherit, just as much as anti-wokeness did. Now the real crime was that white people weren't feeling the right things, and weren't saying the right things. Complete Caucasian auto-fixation. The only thing racial about black people's problems is that white people used race as the criterion to enslave. Slavery and Jim Crow were the point, and all of the freebies handed from government to people's white ancestors that weren't given to slaves and ex-slaves, and all of the labor and torture visited on slaves and ex-slaves turned into profit that went into the pockets of white people and was taxed into government coffers. There were blond-haired blue-eyed slaves; the "race" stuff is a white invention, not something they get to act like is an imposition from their ex-property. And that experience is not something that everybody non-white or non-straight gets to steal.
• archagon 2y ago
  When you’re woke, it’s bad. But when you’re red-pilled, it’s apparently good?