“Woke” started out as a simple acknowledgment that a person is conscious of the systemic oppression of various groups. Now the right wing has got its claws into the term it’s been effectively neutered. Now all it means is, “stuff that right wingers don’t like”
It’s like “defund the police” which quickly became “abolish all policing”.
It’s a useful strategy for them and it works to prevent honest discussion on how to solve societal problems by preventing people from having a shared understanding of the language needed for such discussion.
Ugh, “defund the police” is a terrible phrase if you actually want the movement to succeed. I wish they would have gone with something along the lines of “police reform”. Immediately every conservative glommed onto “now they want to abolish all police!”
We do need a massive overhaul to police. Unfortunately that means better marketing of the idea of it’s going to happen.
I could be wrong but “defund the police” was just a discussion point for activists talking amongst themselves. In that context it makes sense. What happened was that this inelegant phrase was seized as a weapon by the right and then every Dem politician had to answer if they supported the idea of abolishing the police.
I’d imagine that many people would be receptive to the idea of taking some money out of police budgets so social workers and people trained in deescalation can be hired. For example cops aren’t a good fit when dealing with people facing mental health crises because they mostly turn to use of force and make a bad situation worse.
If you twist this into, “are you in favor of abolishing all police?” then most people are going to say, “hell no, what a stupid idea, you moron”.
Now any discussion about the rotten state of policing in the US had been effectively hobbled. Discussion is shut down. The right wing wins.
What happened was that this inelegant phrase was seized as a weapon by the right
I vividly remember tons of memes and posts on reddit, done in leftist grups by leftist people stating the sentence “defund the police”. The right did manipulate the meaning, but saying that they were the sole perpetrators of the popularity of the phrase is silly.
In number? idk, about 1-3 a day that was on the top of r/all with tons of comments, iirc it was when the Floyd protest were happening, alongside the BLM movement (not the organization). I don’t remember it too well, it’s been 3 years already, but I do remember that it was a whole thing with posts, comments, memes and so on.
I know the real idea behind it. I just never liked it being summarized as defund. It’s more like restructure. Personally, I would be much more aggressive with an overall. It’s rotten top to bottom.
Unfortunately police reform doesn’t necessarily imply taking police funds and diverting them to nonviolent responders instead. It’s hard to make that into a catchy phrase that can’t be misinterpreted. I could see cities implementing some rubber-stamp oversight board filled with ex-cops and saying, “see, we reformed the police! They have oversight now.”
just about every police reform has failed to provide any independent oversight, failed to address the core problems, and generally just poured more money into the already bloated and militarized police force.
For better or worse, that aspect is never going away. Places with less funds, like rural counties and cities, rely on their police to do everything that gets called in to 911 and isn’t fire/ems/construction (which, thankfully, they have dedicated teams/people for).
Ugh, “defund the police” is a terrible phrase if you actually want the movement to succeed.
I feel like these are probably astroturfed movements. Because you can say the same thing about the “antiwork” movement, whose proponents claim to actually want to work.
The designation of your movement is kind of important.
I still have a hard time how “woke” is bad. Woke means your not asleep, it means you are not guided by others. How can people turn this into a bad thing. I’m proud to be woke.
This is 100% correct. The term has no definition in their world, it is just another form of their “boogeyman” control methods to keep the stupid and scared engaged. It only works on these fearful idiots because of this fact.
Same happened to the terms “political correctness” and “social justice”. The meaning gets twisted into something grotesque by think tanks and then it’s shipped out to talking heads so Billy-Bob can regurgitate it at the water cooler.
Critical Race Theory, school libraries full of porn, caravans of migrants heading to the southern border, activist judges legislating from the bench, and so on.
“Woke” started out as a simple acknowledgment that a person is conscious of the systemic oppression of various groups. Now the right wing has got its claws into the term it’s been effectively neutered. Now all it means is, “stuff that right wingers don’t like”
It’s like “defund the police” which quickly became “abolish all policing”.
It’s a useful strategy for them and it works to prevent honest discussion on how to solve societal problems by preventing people from having a shared understanding of the language needed for such discussion.
Ugh, “defund the police” is a terrible phrase if you actually want the movement to succeed. I wish they would have gone with something along the lines of “police reform”. Immediately every conservative glommed onto “now they want to abolish all police!”
We do need a massive overhaul to police. Unfortunately that means better marketing of the idea of it’s going to happen.
I could be wrong but “defund the police” was just a discussion point for activists talking amongst themselves. In that context it makes sense. What happened was that this inelegant phrase was seized as a weapon by the right and then every Dem politician had to answer if they supported the idea of abolishing the police.
I’d imagine that many people would be receptive to the idea of taking some money out of police budgets so social workers and people trained in deescalation can be hired. For example cops aren’t a good fit when dealing with people facing mental health crises because they mostly turn to use of force and make a bad situation worse.
If you twist this into, “are you in favor of abolishing all police?” then most people are going to say, “hell no, what a stupid idea, you moron”.
Now any discussion about the rotten state of policing in the US had been effectively hobbled. Discussion is shut down. The right wing wins.
I vividly remember tons of memes and posts on reddit, done in leftist grups by leftist people stating the sentence “defund the police”. The right did manipulate the meaning, but saying that they were the sole perpetrators of the popularity of the phrase is silly.
How many in number, would you say? 100? 200?
In number? idk, about 1-3 a day that was on the top of r/all with tons of comments, iirc it was when the Floyd protest were happening, alongside the BLM movement (not the organization). I don’t remember it too well, it’s been 3 years already, but I do remember that it was a whole thing with posts, comments, memes and so on.
That makes more sense.
I know the real idea behind it. I just never liked it being summarized as defund. It’s more like restructure. Personally, I would be much more aggressive with an overall. It’s rotten top to bottom.
Were “the right” the ones at protests holding up hundreds of signs that said “defund the police”?
Unfortunately police reform doesn’t necessarily imply taking police funds and diverting them to nonviolent responders instead. It’s hard to make that into a catchy phrase that can’t be misinterpreted. I could see cities implementing some rubber-stamp oversight board filled with ex-cops and saying, “see, we reformed the police! They have oversight now.”
just about every police reform has failed to provide any independent oversight, failed to address the core problems, and generally just poured more money into the already bloated and militarized police force.
I like “unburden the police”. Take away things that aren’t actual policing. Cops don’t need to be out there doing animal control for example.
For better or worse, that aspect is never going away. Places with less funds, like rural counties and cities, rely on their police to do everything that gets called in to 911 and isn’t fire/ems/construction (which, thankfully, they have dedicated teams/people for).
I see that, but it doesn’t mean that bigger cities couldn’t have different departments handle it
I feel like these are probably astroturfed movements. Because you can say the same thing about the “antiwork” movement, whose proponents claim to actually want to work.
The designation of your movement is kind of important.
I still have a hard time how “woke” is bad. Woke means your not asleep, it means you are not guided by others. How can people turn this into a bad thing. I’m proud to be woke.
Woke means that if you’re in a privileged position in a society, more equality is a threat to your status and should be suppressed.
That’s the Bs meaning they’re giving. It’s like the way they change the definition of patriotism to match nationalism.
This is 100% correct. The term has no definition in their world, it is just another form of their “boogeyman” control methods to keep the stupid and scared engaged. It only works on these fearful idiots because of this fact.
Same happened to the terms “political correctness” and “social justice”. The meaning gets twisted into something grotesque by think tanks and then it’s shipped out to talking heads so Billy-Bob can regurgitate it at the water cooler.
Critical Race Theory, school libraries full of porn, caravans of migrants heading to the southern border, activist judges legislating from the bench, and so on.
Except activist judges legislating from the bench is real, and they seem to be the worst possible humans doing so. “Seem” being key.
You see, when justices make ruling based on personal rights of people conservatives hate then they are activists.
When they allow conservatives to stomp all over the rights of minorities then they are just using ‘common sense’ or something.
You’re not wrong and that’s sad.
“It’s like “defund the police” which quickly became “abolish all policing”.”
It’s actually the other way around. The radical demand got watered down but it didn’t slow the fearmongeringbl even a little bit
Maybe? I don’t have a definite timeline and there were lots of groups talking to each other.
theyre_the_same_picture.jpg
But yes. The right has polluted yet another word and tried to turn it into a pejorative.