I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:
Those of us on the left needs to be more concerned with our optics and police ourselves better.
Catch-phrases like “all cops are bastards”, “defund the police”, “
math is racist”, “black lives matter”, “trans-women are women” etc., do not help to promoteliberalprogressive ideologies and push the people on the fence away.For the record, I’m not saying that the ideas behind the words are bad*, but the phrases themselves act as a litmus test; If anyone questions the phrases, the divide has occurred, and they’re a fascist (another word which is used far too often).
Many of these are so easy to correct for, “Reform the Police”, “Black Lives Matter Too” are the most obvious and easy changes.
There are those who’ll say that conservatives are going to complain about it anyway, and many of them are set in stone, but there are far too many people going to the right, as a result of the left making fools of ourselves.
The strength of the right is that they’ll accept anyone who isn’t left. Proud Boys, Neo-Nazi’s, and KKK are tolerated by the right because their strength is in numbers, not ideas.
*I support the ideas behind all of them, but how they are perceived by conservatives is not how they were intended to be understood.
EDIT: The conversations about liberal and liberalism have been draining. There is one definition which is practically synonymous with progressivism - this is what I meant, not Liberalism.
Not a single person on the left has ever said math is raciat. That was something Tucker Carlson wholesale made up after we started asking why black kids did worse in school. As for “black lives matter” I’d say that’s pretty self-evident, and the only possible rebuttal (“don’t white lives matter too?”) has a one sentence counter (“obviously. but white lives aren’t under threat right now.”)
More to the point, respectability politics in general is a trap. We could have better slogans, that’s true, especially in the “getting people on our side” phase, but compromising what we believe in to be more palatable to moderates, even in the slightest, is unacceptable. “Sure, I’m cool with trans people (maybe I’m even trans myself), but neopronouns are where I draw the line” is their in. Once conservatives see that we admit some point is too far to our side, once they see the bubble of people we protect can shrink, they won’t stop until it’s shrunk all the way.
I wouldn’t go so far as calling those people leftists (same as tankies aren’t leftists) but “math is racist” is definitely a thing that happens. People were suing in Canada that the tests to become accredited as teacher includes maths tests, and because some statistic somewhere showed that black folks score statistically lower on maths, they claimed that the requirement to pass it is racist. That completely ignored that they could re-take the test as often as they pleased and that plenty of education was given to prospective teachers that enabled them to pass those tests. A lower court agreed with the claim of racial discrimination, the constitutional court then struck it down pretty much saying “lulwut” in legalese.
No, maths is not racist. The people claiming it is racist were the racists here, thinking that being black makes you somehow inherently incapable of passing those tests, so much that you can’t even pass them with studying. Also I bet the disparity in maths scores by skin colour vanishes if you control for socio-economic status but the complainants would’ve needed maths to understand that so they didn’t.
OTOH, optically those kinds of fucks are associated with leftism and I’d say it’s important to openly respond to that kind of silliness with “lulwut” before the courts get around to doing it.
As to black lives matter: I think it was a strategic mistake to oppose “all lives matter”. The slogan, that is, not the racist fucks. Instead, it should’ve immediately been appropriated by the movement precisely to define it and to leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that you don’t mean “non-black lives don’t matter”, which is understandably a reading lots of people had because they’re projecting their own racism, or just racist realism.
“Sure, I’m cool with trans people (maybe I’m even trans myself), but neopronouns are where I draw the line”
Neopronouns are an enby thing, not trans and yes I’m completely fine with calling you they/them and have no issues with your ingroup using as many different pronouns as there are members, but I’m not going to fucking remember all of them. I very much draw a hard, red, line at “difficult on purpose” as that would validate people’s vulnerable narcissism, “prove that you don’t hate me by jumping over random hoops I come up with”. Leftism is not the defence of maladaptive personality traits.
Just to shoot myself in the foot, the meaning behind “math is racist” is a nuanced discussion, but it wasn’t the left who distilled the idea down to “math is racist”, it was Fucker.
My problem is with phrases which fail to capture the meaning behind the words, phrases which are vague or easy to strawman, and phrases which are needlessly imflammatory.
There are many more which bother me but I’m drawing a blank. Thanks metacognition
I stand corrected, though it says a lot that I believed that there would be a group from the left making that claim.
The left gets massacred for prosaic slogans like “Black lives matter” and “Trans rights are human rights” while the right straight up chants “Jews will not replace us” and nobody bats an eye. So I don’t think the left’s tone is the problem here.
And yes, for the record, black lives matter and trans women (note, no hyphen) are women.
The Left are the adults in the room. We need to speak clearly so the children do not think we are taking them to the dentist (we totally are but there’s no need to trigger them).
The Right cannot change, it’s in their nature. It’s practically pointless to try. The best we can do is be tactical, and avoid scaring them.
And how well has being the adults in the room worked for us? In the US, it’s done nothing but marginalize the left time after time. Our choices for leadership boil down to a contest between center-right and fascist, and fascist is winning.
The fact is, people want anger. People understand anger. People are angry, and for good reason. Our society is completely, utterly fucked, and everyone knows it, even if they don’t quite know how or why. And it’s precisely that sentiment that fascists like the MAGA movement prey upon. They give people something to blame for everything being fucked, while what laughingly passes for the left continues pretending everything is fine. And so people go to the right, over and over and over again, because at least the right acknowledges their anger.
There’s a reason that the last time the left had a real moment in this country was when there were massive protests all over the nation, screaming at the top of their lungs, “BLACK LIVES MATTER!” and “DEFUND THE POLICE!” We finally let our anger show, and guess what? This country stood with us, over and over, and mobilized like hell to get Trump out of office. And then the Biden administration abandoned us and called for “civility” and “reaching across the aisle” like we all knew they would, and now the fascists are back.
We are not going to get anywhere as long as we keep trying to be the “adults in the room” and try to be “civil”. We need to get fucking mad, and stay fucking mad, and do the work to make real change whether the other guys want it or not.
We can offer hope instead of fear. The right is steeped in fear, it fuels their entire ideology. If we are able to offer hope, hope is more powerful than fear.
But being the adults in the room we must remember who we are speaking to. We have to converse with them, not at them. If you converse at them, they will simply retreat into the fear bubble because it is familiar, comfortable, and makes them feel safe.
I’m not saying we don’t offer hope. But hope and anger are not incompatible.
You can’t offer hope for a better tomorrow unless you are willing to point out and fix the problems of today. And as long as we are avoiding scaring the right, we cannot do this.
Anger and hope are absolutely compatible, I have no idea why you would even say that.
You can point out and fix the problems of today while offering hope and solutions that lead to a better tomorrow.
I have no idea What kind of weird thought process led you to believe that these concepts are mutually exclusive.
I’m not sure why you think I think they are mutually exclusive. I said the exact opposite of that.
The Right cannot change, it’s in their nature.
The right will change, and we’ll figure out how. That or their immutability will figure into the great filter of the human species.
It’s more that we need to wait for the old ones to die off and let the new generations who have slightly less hate, but are still unwilling to change replace them.
Conservatives would not change their minds. They listen to whatever their talking heads tell them, and they would turn that around and make a counter protest. That’s all conservativism is.
There are no “sensible” right-wingers, they’ve had their values thoroughly corrupted by a media-machine designed to split the worming class against itself. Changing optics would do nothing, so instead the left should focus on continuing grassroots efforts.
Also, liberals are not leftists, liberalism is pro-capitalism.
I’m feeling like you’re deliberately misunderstanding me.
The people I’m appealing to are centrists. The last thing we need are more votes for Trump. It was too close last time, and it’ll be too close this time too.
Liberals are centrists, and they voted for Biden. Fascists are voting for Trump, not moderate right-wingers. What democrats need to appeal to is leftists, who they have largely scorned.
American Liberals are a different thing from those who subscribe to (non-American) liberal ideology.
Democrats have a really low bar to score. “Not Trump” is shockingly low. Leftists are in agreement, “not Trump” is better than “Trump”.
I really don’t think the democrats need to do much at all to convince the left, besides remind everyone how fucked it was four years ago.
I think it’s more important to prevent people migrating to the right (as we see with GenZ Andrew Tate fans), and pull in as many moderate right-wingers as possible.
It seems impossible at first glace, but I’ve seen viseos of republicans openly trying to convince their peers that Trump deceived them. It gives me a sliver of hope.
Liberals are liberals, no matter the country. Liberalism refers to a Capitalist ideology centered around individual freedom and private property rights, and it originated in the Enlightenment.
Gen Z is more leftist than it is fascist. There’s a reactionary rise in fascism as fascism is really just a response to the decay of Capitalism and the rise in Socialism, as the bourgeoisie protects itself violently.
American liberals are not a different thing.
I’m just tired of discussing semantics at this point so I just don’t care enough to argue about what Liberal means.
I learned my lesson, I cannot use that word online to express what the definition of Liberal means to me based on the contexts of how it was used academically/philosophically.
GenZ is generally more progressive, but there has been a worrying rise in anti-feminism within GenZ men. The amount may be small in relation, but the fact that it is rising at all is concerning.
Liberal, as it was and always has been used academically and philosophically, refers to Liberalism, an ideology centered around private property rights and individual liberty as core values.
You are using it as a synonym for open-minded and forward thinking, which are certainly good traits, but not exclusive to nor expressive of leftism. Leftism is about worker ownership of the Means of Production, plain and simple.
As for Gen Z, yes, there is a rising reactionary movement just as there is a rising Leftist movement. Socialism is more popular than ever among Gen Z. The fact that fascism is also rising, albeit at a slower pace, among Gen Z is just a symptom of the rising Socialist sympathies. Fascism has always been expressed as a defense against rising Socialist sympathies as the bourgeoisie violently protects itself. People don’t just decide to become fascist, nor do they just decide to become Socialist.
History is driven by material conditions, not by people and ideals. Look for root causes.
At this point I abandoned any hope to convince people that talking and talking about Trump, when he’s actually got no power right now, is going to serve the presidency to him on a silver plate.
I see constant whining about the right on these “leftist” spaces. How can they not understand that this is meaningless?
It’s really kind of pathetic that people who aren’t even operating in good faith are so damn good at completely capturing and re-defining words/phrases that originated on the left.
It speaks to the impotence of the left to be unable to control their own fucking narratives while the right-wing jack booted thugs are able to twist the narrative with seemingly no effort at all or attempt to even make their false narrative make sense.
See: COVID and “My Body, My Choice.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke
Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) meaning “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination”. Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism, and denial of LGBT rights. Woke has also been used as shorthand for some ideas of the American Left involving identity politics and social justice, such as white privilege and reparations for slavery in the United States.
The phrase stay woke has been present in AAVE since the 1930s. In some contexts, it referred to an awareness of social and political issues affecting African Americans. The phrase was uttered in recordings from the mid-20th century by Lead Belly and, post-millennium, by Erykah Badu.
I guess the history of the word in the black community doesn’t matter? Because racists co-opted it, we have to wipe away the black history of this phrase? Because @Custoslibera@lemmy.world seems to be implying the history of the phrase does not matter, because of how it is used now by fascists operating in bad faith.
racists literally intentionally and vociferously assert their conviction that the black community doesn’t matter, so, yes literally that. if something originated in the black community, or was prominent in black history, that makes it MORE susceptible to being hijacked by fascists, because that makes it a tantalizing target to them. not only do the ethnonationalist scum get to steal something, they ALSO get to debase and undermine one of their favorite targets while they do so. of fucking course they’re going to hijack it.
…and that means we should just let them?
Because it seems about 800 or so people agreed with the statement in the OP, which is that “woke” is a garbage word only used by fascists… which in itself is a statement that debases and undermines a right wing target (black history/AAVE). The original post is ostensibly written by a “leftist” based on the things they clearly support, but they’re taking a black phrase with a long history, and saying only fascists use that word.
I’m saying the left is being complicit by letting them, and I don’t think that’s a good thing.
Who the fuck is WE? There’s no solidarity on the left. The plurality is more interested in eating each other alive for clout, making enemies for no good fucking reason, and brainlessly applying the no true scotsman fallacy except “no true leftist”. I so fucking desperately wanted to believe there was actually some kind of community here, but every time ANYONE gets into a position where they might be able to organize something greater than themselves the FUCKING crab mentality kicks in and they got DOGPILED. And not an insignificant part of this is driven by sock puppets operated by actual right wingers who are vapidly parroting leftist aesthetics, whipping up a rabid frenzy of torches and pitchforks, and motherFUCKERS on the left KEEP FALLING FOR IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN. At this point every time I see someone on the left who is attacking anyone specific, i just drop them and stop engaging. THIS BEHAVIOR is why ‘we’ fucking lose over and over again.
Instead of trying to punish each other, we should have been working together, but THAT is what “we” have been doing to “let” the right get away with shit. If we don’t have solidarity “we” have NO shot of taking ownership of “our” messaging.
to the contrary, leftists don’t get to have snappy buzzwords UNTIL AND UNLESS there is a “WE” that has enough coordination to clearly define and DEFEND the definition OF those terms. The left needs to stick to PLAIN TEXT. No more bullshit in-group jargon. “we” can’t afford to be an “in-group”.
Okay buddy, while you’re practically screaming at me about lack of solidarity, I’ve had a nice conversation with the person who made the original quote. Get a grip. Maybe it’s you?
First of all I’m sorry it sounded like I was screaming at you.
you’re not the one at fault for the overarching fuckery.
Second of all my complaint is about a standing pattern of behavior, not specific people, and targeted harassment is the problem. I didn’t call for you–or anyone specific–to be excommunicated and shunned, so it is definitionally a separate issue.
My local political scene is using French, not English nor AAVE. And yet there is a which-hunt in the academia to exclude the “wokes” and the “islamo-leftists”. Sorry if my proximate political realities are more important than etymology.
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
–Jean-Paul Sartre
Thank you for saying this! I also doubt that replacing the word would do something, since fascists will simply do the same to any other word - except you move the goalposts into their direction, which I for one am not a fan of.
Dude, I didn’t know this - this is super interesting. Thanks a lot for sharing!
Meanings of words and the way they are used change over time especially when their is an active movement to change the meaning to harm others. I have no idea if woke could be taken back by left for its original purpose or if it’s too far gone but OOP is not wrong. That is how the word is used now most of the time. This doesn’t make its original definition irrelevant but it does make it difficult to use around the general public. You can’t simply ignore a co-opt
Perfect. And then next I will screenshot this comment and repost it to 197 or however it works lol.
Back in the day woke was used to describe people that pretend to care about issues without any understanding of it
Like “we have to use clean coal to fight climate change” would have been considered woke
The term was sarcastic, no idea when it became mainstream
Bigots are bigots are bigots
Memba when it was “virtue signalling”? Fash love mental gymnastics to try to turn being an asshole into a moral imperative.
The overbearing censorship of any idea that doesn’t wholeheartedly agree with those of the community moderators is toxic af
grok
This is accurate and versatile statement, since my chonk of a dog is basically a pig.
i thought woke only meant ‘‘too lgbtq+’’
