Official Announcement: Effective immediately, the correct response to anyone using “woke” as a pejorative is “ok kneeler.” Anyone doing so is a chronically aggrieved kneeler. Approved variants: kneelster, kneelhead, kneelman, the kneel crew, kneel squad.
The true etymology of "woke" was explained to me by a Black man from the west side of Chicago:
Every Black child remembers this moment of transition: they've heard about race prejudice, the race line. But it's an abstraction until that first time some white bigot treats them poorly because they're black.
"Who? Me? Is this bigot singling me out because I'm black?" It's the sound of a thousand doors slamming shut, that thud of recognition - he hates me because I'm black.
That child is now Woke.
The phrase was "Stay woke". Stay aware of prejudice, don't accept it, even if it is a fact of life. Yes, you are different, stay woke to its meaning.
Dima, you really want to take on this battle and try to return "woke" to this original meaning? Much as it is valid, It would seem that horse has bolted.
It is too loaded now to get into declaring and defending how anti woke is anti communist... "Woke" is just too widely appropriated now, similarly to "feminist".
OK maybe if you have a genuinely interested listener and you can go through the process of pre-defining language and terms, then discuss.
That said, there's a huge bunch of people out there with a bizarrely diverse range of ideas on what communism is also.
I'd rather a term for those who think they are woke, but aren't, are even maybe incapable of being woke, and yet go about the place bemoaning others for not being woke; not to use this new term in a derogatory form, but just to have it available.
As for those who use woke in this way, well I'd give them a chance to declare their definition of woke and then maybe ask them to compare that with the one above a then most likely politely suggest dropping the term from their vocabulary.
@keith @tuban_muzuru I'm with tuban, don't give bigots an inch, nothing more to say here.
@keith @tuban_muzuru @dk if you think polite suggestions are appropriate, might I politely suggest you give your head a wobble, kneeler?🤣
@keith @dk
As progressives, we go through this sanctimonious writhing and mea-culpa-ing every time the bigots start sneering and throwing our usages back in our face. Consider all the pejoratives they've created in this way: every 19 months or so we have to coin a new term for disabled people.
We need to start telliing these bigoted jackasses to fuck off.
I should continue what I learned about Woke - in the black community it was always used as a warning, "stay woke", mostly from the black separatists, Marcus Garvey, that letting down their guard, failing to perceive social injustice, would only perpetuate the abuse.
We need to steal "woke" back from the bigots and quit shrinking from their sneering.