The Demise of Woke Culture?

I don’t think anybody but far right populist nuts think that no more improvement is necessary. The conflict is how you go about it, and is the cure worse than the problem.

 

The difference per the authors is that used to maybe 1/3 of the time was dealing such issues, and now it is almost all the time, to the point even in left leaning activist organizations they can’t complete their core mission because people want to talk about George Floyd at work.

 

- A lot of this is definitely fueled by the pandemic. The ubiquity of Zoom means you can have way more meetings, which is sort of the opposite of activism, getting out and doing stuff. So its way easier to get in the weeds on whatever, just to feel like you are doing something.

- Whenever there are idealistic people without much power, there will be a tension between trying to live your values in the present before they have taken hold vs. overlooking certain things in the name of expediency to move things forward. Sometimes that non-profit or whatever is the only space where you have any power to do anything, so its easier to try to affect change within than on the outside, where you have a political system that ruthlessly enforces the status quo.

- 'Hyper-Individualism' is baked into American institutions everywhere, though it manifests in different ways

 

I would concur, and submit that it has by an enormous margin, and on a consistent trajectory.

I'm not sure about the distinction here, because you almost make the counter point, in attempting to make your point, b/c your example of the KKK--itself such a ridiculously antiquated concept, it's essentially a vestige of history.

When I was growing up in contrast, I knew ppl who knew ppl who were KKK. Today, I don't even know of any actual KKK chapters in the State. Local Grand dragon Byrd (D) was in Congress. National Grand Dragon David Dukes was a household name.

So sure, there are still vehemently racist human beings around. Racism is still a thing.

...but it's far less than it was before.

What's more, even today's racists are milquetoast compared to yesteryear's racists.

Well before my time, lynchings were common. In my time, there were barely fights.

Today's racist, are nothing but hot air and talk, IF you can get them to even own their racism.

My question was essentially rhetorical.

It's really not even debatable.

America, and Americans--have as a whole an as a collection of individuals, become far more accepting of 'others', and equal--from races and ethnicities to the sexes, to sexual preferences, and even to gender bendy shit (e.g.--Bruce Jenner being publicly accepted as a female).

...yet the late as hell to the party Woke folk, want to revive the divisions of yesteryear, so they can pretend to be Atticus Finch--when all they are, is part of a new mob, since they're now comfortably the majority, and so now they get to be the bully.

 

This is the beginning of the end of the crazy train Liberals from south Texas.
This is what the legal Mexican immigrants look and act like.

She's about to CRUSH the Woke...

About Mayra - Mayra Flores For Congress

 

My whole thought on this story was that most of these organizations must have had terribly ineffective leadership to let things get that out of hand. Organizations that have effective leadership are quick to pitch the folks at the oars that aren't willing to row toward a common goal overboard. Real leadership isn't creating a team of unified voices, its taking a talented group of diverse voices and motivating them to strive toward a common goal. My Father told me a long time ago that if a leader's goal is to be popular and liked by everyone then he isn't much of a leader at all.

 

Let me put it differently. I believe that, for the most part, the Americans who were racist/sexist/bigoted 40-60 years ago are still racist/sexist/bigoted. Their hearts haven't changed over the decades. It's largely by the expanded grace of each subsequent generation that America as a country and as a culture (as much as we can claim a monolithic American "culture" exists) has improved in these areas.

And so now, today, we don't see these large incidents of racial violence like Ax Handle Saturday in Jacksonville, anymore. But some of the men who beat black people with axes and baseball bats in Jacksonville back in 1960 are still alive, and most of them are probably still racist assholes. They're just more likely to hide their opinions in public because it's no longer socially acceptable or tolerated.

 

To some extent this is fed by all the corporate PR stuff about how "we're like a family here, we care about your values, etc" to head off unionization or employee organization. So if they have to do therapy, they sort of signed up for it, if they talk about how they love their employees like family, but tell them to go pound sand when they have concerns, then they are dealing with a revolt or a union drive, which defeats the point of all the feel-good PR and touchy-feely propaganda in the first place. Its a trap of their own making.

 

Less in the last 60...more under Obama and Biden but this one is shifting because all people of all colors and race are having the same issues.

 

I guess my question for the "progress" people is that do they believe "backsliding" is possible? I mean, a guy just shot up a supermarket full of black people for racial reasons, so its hard to say large incidents of racial violence are behind us. They may manifest in different ways than from the past that make them seem "different" I guess.

 

You mean like how elected officials that don't put on the kneepads for Trump get primaried out of a job? That kind of destroying themselves from within?

 

I agree. Personally, my objection is to those few who ridicule it, thereby implying a complete rejection of it. THEY are the problem, not those of us who might reasonably bicker over the details.

 

This is just my point. Leader's lead and sometimes have to do the unpopular thing for the good of the organization. For all Elon's faults he appears to demand the team that he pays be willing to work hard toward a common goal. These so-called leaders running around afraid of their own shadow will never accomplish anything of any real significance if they are too afraid to stand up to the malcontents that are so self-absorbed that they don't care if they help steer their organizations into the rocks.

 

well, She’s got five months to Crush the woke, because republicans are gerrymandering her out of a district in 2022…. republicans eating their own so a few more “white” districts could be made.

 

The term woke is just another word for being aware of injustices, especially in the area of racism. The opposite of woke is ignorance. So those cheering for the demise of wokeness is also cheering for willful ignorance.

Some have taken things too far like when the Me Too movement wanted people fired for merely saying they looked nice, and the same with people deciding to sue the airline industry because they were too fat to sit in their seats. But those are few and far between.

 

The difference to me is in how society views the incident. I think almost all Americans learned about the Buffalo shooting and viewed it as awful and abhorrent, as opposed to a decent chunk 60 years ago viewing the racially motivated violence and on some level supporting those actions. But that's one man's opinion, likely ignorant of many factors and nuances.

Additionally, I firmly believe that progress in almost all things is very much a "two steps forward, one step back" kind of deal.