4 ms·

I dont even know what "anti-wokeness" means. For me, "woke" means when I, as someone who has lived in NYC / LI his whole life, learned that all the highways we

by zzzeek 1y ago

I dont even know what "anti-wokeness" means. For me, "woke" means when I, as someone who has lived in NYC / LI his whole life, learned that all the highways were built in such a way as to intentionally exclude poor and especially Black people from participating in society: https://transalt.org/blog/repeal-robert-moses https://transalt.org/blog/repeal-robert-moses and about LI's nasty history of redlining that prevented Black communities from gaining generational wealth: https://projects.newsday.com/long-island/segregation-real-estate-history/ https://projects.newsday.com/long-island/segregation-real-es... Despite growing up in these places, I had no idea about any of this - Black people, to me as a youngster, just seemed to be these people who all seemed to live in other neighborhoods and were seen in 1970's Long Island as people to be wary of. "Woke" to me meant, holy shit look how badly these people have been treated, no wonder things are this way. So then WTF is "anti-woke"? is it the claim that none of that documented, well known systemic racism for decade after decade, after 300 years of slavery, actually matters and the real reason for racial disparities is genetics or something? I mean what else could that mean ?

add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
> I dont even know what "anti-wokeness" means. It's the Current Thing you're intended to be mad at so that your attention won't be on other things.
marstall 1y ago
totally. woke means awareness, being aware of unfairness based on race, gender, sexual preference, being different, etc. So if you're "anti-woke" - you what, want to maintain all the prejudice and inequality in our country? This guy is smart on so many levels but maybe needs to check himself out on this one.
testing22321 1y ago
> is it the claim that none of that documented, well known systemic racism for decade after decade, after 300 years of slavery, actually matters and the real reason for racial disparities is genetics or something? Yes, exactly. “Anti-woke” is racism, homophobia, misogyny and a whole lot more vile attitudes repackaged with newspeak.
Jonovono 1y ago
Woke is more the opposite of what you point out. This is a better example: https://www.reddit.com/r/UBC/comments/197gid8/segregated_blackonly_student_space_opens_at_ubc/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UBC/comments/197gid8/segregated_bla... It’s weaponizing people emotions and instinct to want to “be a good person” to push policies that are actually harmful to the people they claim to care about. All this to say I still think Karp is corny.
- marstall 1y ago
  It's not the opposite, it's kind of both. It stands for good things (awareness of inequality) - but it has landed in a place where it is perceived by people as having a prescriptive or condescending tone. This is largely because of the way the right has twisted and co-opted it.
- JohnFen 1y ago
  That's the new, corrupted, propagandistic form of the term. It's not what it really means at all.
hnuser123456 1y ago
Yes, that's before the term got corrupted. If you've spent any time in the depths of brainrot mass social media (or know anyone in bigcorp HR), you'll find that there are some large cohorts out there who have taken this to an extreme that looks exactly like that type of racism but "flipped." The masses are struggling to imagine a more fair society rather than seeking revenge.
jalapenof 1y ago
[flagged]
bko 1y ago
I don't think that's what woke means. Woke to me in the simplest sense if a form of extreme egalitarianism, collectivism with some blank-slatism. Let's take your example: poor and Black people don't live on LI with equal representations based on other groups. Let's unpack that: 1. You have some definition of "Black" that's very broad. What does someone from Sub-Saharan Africa whose ancestors came here on a slave boat have to do with a 0 generation Nigerian immigrant who is significantly better off than the median American? Then you have the whole "Brown" category which is equally ham-fisted. 2. Ignoring any differences in group preference and autonomy. There could be no reason that the proportion of said group would be unequal in that area if not for some force outside of their control. You ask why aren't there enough of [group] in some extremely competitive professional field, but you don't work backwards. For instance, federal judges -> prestigious law school graduates -> prestigious undergrad graduates -> high school graduates -> parents in home. Woke ignores the chain and usually just jumps to the end result. Of course this is ignored in some domains. No one argues that prisons are overly harsh (lenient) on men (women) when it comes to criminal punishments relative to each other. Or why are there so many central / South Americans in MLB. It's uncritical. 3. Groups are the organizing force (collective guilt). [Oppressor] group did this to [oppressed group] so we need to change the balance of power of [oppressed group] in relation to [oppressed group], when in reality there are only individuals. Overall, things are simplified to oppressed vs oppressor. It's an oversimplification and leads to bad things like shutting down accelerated math programs because we don't like the makeup of the student body
- zzzeek 1y ago
  OK, so you reject the claim that systemic racism had any effect that can be meaningfully attributed (I guess sort of like how you cant blame climate change for the exact nature of a specific hurricaine). I see you carefully sidestep the instantly-disqualifying claims of "genetic inferiority" as the cause of racial disparity and instead claim..... "group preference"? or "what does Black really mean, anyway?" (what was the Civil Rights movement about, exactly? What does "Colored" mean in this sign? https://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/22/opinion/greene-racial-signs https://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/22/opinion/greene-racial-sig... who really knows, right? ) Black people "preferred" to live in poorer neighborhoods and to not buy houses in Levittown back when everyone was doing so?

by zzzeek 1y ago

add-sub-mul-div 1y ago

> I dont even know what "anti-wokeness" means. It's the Current Thing you're intended to be mad at so that your attention won't be on other things.

marstall 1y ago

totally. woke means awareness, being aware of unfairness based on race, gender, sexual preference, being different, etc. So if you're "anti-woke" - you what, want to maintain all the prejudice and inequality in our country? This guy is smart on so many levels but maybe needs to check himself out on this one.

testing22321 1y ago

> is it the claim that none of that documented, well known systemic racism for decade after decade, after 300 years of slavery, actually matters and the real reason for racial disparities is genetics or something? Yes, exactly. “Anti-woke” is racism, homophobia, misogyny and a whole lot more vile attitudes repackaged with newspeak.

Jonovono 1y ago

Woke is more the opposite of what you point out. This is a better example: https://www.reddit.com/r/UBC/comments/197gid8/segregated_blackonly_student_space_opens_at_ubc/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UBC/comments/197gid8/segregated_bla... It’s weaponizing people emotions and instinct to want to “be a good person” to push policies that are actually harmful to the people they claim to care about. All this to say I still think Karp is corny.

marstall 1y ago
It's not the opposite, it's kind of both. It stands for good things (awareness of inequality) - but it has landed in a place where it is perceived by people as having a prescriptive or condescending tone. This is largely because of the way the right has twisted and co-opted it.
JohnFen 1y ago
That's the new, corrupted, propagandistic form of the term. It's not what it really means at all.

hnuser123456 1y ago

Yes, that's before the term got corrupted. If you've spent any time in the depths of brainrot mass social media (or know anyone in bigcorp HR), you'll find that there are some large cohorts out there who have taken this to an extreme that looks exactly like that type of racism but "flipped." The masses are struggling to imagine a more fair society rather than seeking revenge.

jalapenof 1y ago

[flagged]

bko 1y ago

I don't think that's what woke means. Woke to me in the simplest sense if a form of extreme egalitarianism, collectivism with some blank-slatism. Let's take your example: poor and Black people don't live on LI with equal representations based on other groups. Let's unpack that: 1. You have some definition of "Black" that's very broad. What does someone from Sub-Saharan Africa whose ancestors came here on a slave boat have to do with a 0 generation Nigerian immigrant who is significantly better off than the median American? Then you have the whole "Brown" category which is equally ham-fisted. 2. Ignoring any differences in group preference and autonomy. There could be no reason that the proportion of said group would be unequal in that area if not for some force outside of their control. You ask why aren't there enough of [group] in some extremely competitive professional field, but you don't work backwards. For instance, federal judges -> prestigious law school graduates -> prestigious undergrad graduates -> high school graduates -> parents in home. Woke ignores the chain and usually just jumps to the end result. Of course this is ignored in some domains. No one argues that prisons are overly harsh (lenient) on men (women) when it comes to criminal punishments relative to each other. Or why are there so many central / South Americans in MLB. It's uncritical. 3. Groups are the organizing force (collective guilt). [Oppressor] group did this to [oppressed group] so we need to change the balance of power of [oppressed group] in relation to [oppressed group], when in reality there are only individuals. Overall, things are simplified to oppressed vs oppressor. It's an oversimplification and leads to bad things like shutting down accelerated math programs because we don't like the makeup of the student body

zzzeek 1y ago
OK, so you reject the claim that systemic racism had any effect that can be meaningfully attributed (I guess sort of like how you cant blame climate change for the exact nature of a specific hurricaine). I see you carefully sidestep the instantly-disqualifying claims of "genetic inferiority" as the cause of racial disparity and instead claim..... "group preference"? or "what does Black really mean, anyway?" (what was the Civil Rights movement about, exactly? What does "Colored" mean in this sign? https://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/22/opinion/greene-racial-signs https://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/22/opinion/greene-racial-sig... who really knows, right? ) Black people "preferred" to live in poorer neighborhoods and to not buy houses in Levittown back when everyone was doing so?