A very succinct description.
I understand the distinction you're making, but it seems like an imperfect fit when applied historically. Was the Civil Rights movement actually largely successful in convincing poor whites that they would be uplifted by civil rights for blacks? Poor whites in the South were certainly harsh opponents of equality for blacks, and even after the Civil Rights Act was passed that simmering racial resentment was weaponized by Republican strategists as part of the Southern Strategy. Racial resentment among lower-class whites has remained a key part of Republican strategy for decades; it hasn't just occurred naturally and recently as a backlash to "woke" moralizing. And I think you'd be hard pressed to find many lower-class whites who agree that the Civil Rights Act "advanced economic justice for everyone." It was really as much about social advancement as economic advancement, and it was pretty clear that it was advancement for people who had been socially and economically marginalized based on the color of their skin.Though the civil rights movement was focused on advancing equality for Black people, they did so through an inclusive message that sought to uplift all marginalized groups, including poor white people. The March on Washington was called the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom for a reason.
Civil rights organizers knew the way to tackle systemic racial inequality in this country was through advancing economic justice for everyone. This is how to build a broad enough coalition to pass meaningful change as they did. They understood that economic domination girded racial domination.
The modern “woke” movement, on the other hand, seeks to address racial disparities at the individual level rather than the societal level. They say: If we can just get enough white people to acknowledge their “white fragility”, then that will advance racial equality. This sort of individual moralizing does not work, and civil rights leaders like Bayard Rustin stood in direct opposition to this sort of outlook.
Wokeism has done very little to dismantle racial inequities in this country, and it seems to have meaningfully contributed to putting Trump back in the WH. As a political movement, it has failed to produce its desired outcome.
All of super’s points about solidarity in this country are correct. My historical area of study is antebellum American history, so I’m quite aware of this. Very few serious leftists think that the work of creating cross-race solidarity is easy anywhere, let alone in this country.
But, what do you think is more effective in building a cross-race working class coalition in this country: telling white people that they are innately racist because they’re white or convincing poor and working white people that their economic advancement is innately linked to that of poor and working minorities?
This is a very limited understanding of modern DEI practices that has little basis in reality. I personally agree that trying to frame DEI as "who has the most victim points based on their background" can be unproductive, but that is a small proportion of the things that conservatives lump in with "DEI." it's the epitome of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. At a fundamental level, most DEI programming is simply about trying to understand and empathize with people who come from different backgrounds, and to understand how and why things that seem innocuous to many people can be hurtful and marginalizing to others. I find it hard to believe that most people would really disagree that trying to understand each other better and treat everyone fairly are worthy goals. The disagreement is just about methods and message, but many of the people who criticize DEI and ?woke" have a very warped understanding of how varied those methods and messages really are.
1. I have been railing against "white privilege" for a long time, probably before you ever saw this board. It's idiotic messaging. It's not so much that it's wrong, per se, as much as it adds nothing but vituperation. Any claim you want to make on the basis of white privilege, you can make with a framing of black disadvantage. That can be a unifying message. White privilege is anti-solidarity.
That doesn't seem terribly controversial, especially not now. I'm not sure the lack of a universalist message is the issue as much as stupid messaging. "Let's continue the fight of the Civil Rights movement to help create a better and more thorough form of equality" isn't universalist; it's also not "white people with white privilege, you should analyze all the ways you are privileged and we're not going to tell you what good will come from it."
semantics. the skeletons should've been disqualifying.
I never really understand that objection. Semantics refers to the meaning of words. The meaning of words is important! It's how we communicate.
I think this analysis is too simplistic from a historical perspective. I think what this boils down to is "The Civil Rights movement in the 1960s was successful, so they must have done things the right way; the current "woke" movement (which to be clear I detest as a term meant to describe anything broadly and collectively, but will accept for the sake of this framing) is on the decline, so they must have done things the wrong way." When in fact I think there are a lot of factors external to those movements that go a long way to explaining their different results.
point taken.
OK, I suppose. It's unclear to me what "he's unfit and therefore unqualified" adds to "he's unfit" but sure. Won't argue about it.
i guess....simply leaving it at unfit is probably tidier but isn't fitness part of qualification? anyway, good talk.
While I think there is some overlap between wokeness and DEI, I definitely don't see them as the same.
This is, candidly, just about the most insane definition of "wokeness" I have ever seen. I can understand that if someone has internalized the above definition as what "wokeness" is, they would hate it. But you would be hard pressed to find anyone in the world who endorses the statement above, much less some sort of official program or grant that has been made in support of it. Not even the proponents of "white privilege" (which I know super hates!) would define it this way.
My definition may not be complete or scholarly and doesn't take into consideration the historical meaning of woke, but, in the real world and as far as how the two concepts overlap, I think you would be hard-pressed to dispute what I said.
Kendi has written pretty much what Zenmode said. That guy couldn't help the GOP more if he tried.
It's true of Kendi and maybe a couple of others and rejected by 99.9%.
If we're talking about how The concepts of wokeness and DEI are expressed in the real world, can you tell me what in my description is functionally inaccurate?