What is "woke," and why do Republicans hate it so much?

[vlyons]

"Woke" is a black slang term for awake or aware. Awake to the legacy of slavery. Aware of the lies about blacks and immigrants being lazy and criminals. Awake to the suffering of poverty. Aware of the unfairness of the American justice system. Awake to the violence of some police towards blacks. Awake to the stupidity and waste of war. Aware that climate change is real. Awake to the suffering of others. Aware that non-Christians and gays can be wonderful people and great neighbors.

As a Buddhist, I find "woke" to be quite ironic, because every Buddhist aspires to become awakened, to become enlightened. Everyday, I begin my meditation practice with taking refuge in the 3 jewels and clearly stating my greatest aspiration:

I take refuge in the Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha.
I aspire to become a completely and perfectly enlightened Buddha.

So yes I don't get insulted, when a RWNJ labels me "woke." Unbeknownst to them, it's a compliment. Although from my perspective, I'm a long long way from being enlightened. Probably many eons before I get there.

The hard part about being a Buddhist is having compassion for all sentient beings, yes even the hateful and selfish RWNJs, because they don't know any better. They are unaware of how much suffering they bring into the world. Having compassion for ALL sentient beings, yes even RWNJs, is the ultimate in wokeness.

[EYESORE 9001]

1. Consider the opposite of 'woke'

‘Stupefied’ comes close.

[vlyons]

9. yes, what does it say about those for whom "woke" is something awful?

Asleep, ignorant, deceived, confused.

Consciousness in man can be awake.
Consciousness in man can be asleep.

[NCjack]

46. The Republican oppessors don't want their victims to become aware ("woke")

to the bad treatment they have received. Then, they demand equitable treatment.

[atreides1]

54. Actually

It's their base that they don't want to become aware...which is why they emphasize the term with coming from black Americans!

Because in the MAGA party, anything that comes from people of color is evil and against whiteness and their white Jesus!!!

[patphil]

51. Republicans prefer brain dead zombies.

If their people "woke" up, they'd realize how horrible their Republican leaders are.

Once you wake up, and stand in the light of God's love, you have a clear path to your soul and holy spirit, and can see through the lies, half-truths, and obfuscation in other people's words and actions.

Of course, many of the Republican base prefer being brain dead zombies...it's easier for them to let someone else do their thinking for them. And it's easier to just let them direct the inherent hatred within their base toward whomever they want.
I think there's a whole lot of people who believe that being brain dead has it's advantages...no sense of guilt or responsibility. It allows a pure expression of their loveless nature.

[tinrobot]

56. Or, perhaps "asleep"

Those who are asleep still want to drive the bus.

[mackdaddy]

57. Sleep Walking or maybe Zombified.

I still don't see how being Awakened or Aware is a bad thing.

Everything the Cons do is to take some small minority of the population that is "different" and then vilify them in some way like they are a threat to civilization.

They love the steady flow of lies to believe. Not sure how you deal with that.

[Beastly Boy]

2. The irony is, white Christians have also been singing hymns to "wokeness" for centuries.

"I once was lost but now I'm found" is the definition of it without actually using the term "woke".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Grace

They never before had a problem with it.

[Rebl2]

42. Exactly

I suppose some (not all) have a problem with a certain type of “wokeness”.

[Baitball Blogger]

3. Excellent post.

[RAB910]

4. "woke" means you care about and are nice to their Americans (and people in general)

one only need to listen to their toxic anti-American propaganda to understand they the hate and fear those concepts

[AllaN01Bear]

12. ehank you. " fear is the mind killer " dune .

[RAB910]

16. The GOP was inspired by this quote from Yoda

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”


they heard that and realized that had the core principle of their movement

[tanyev]

20. It's basically the updated version of their hatred for anything "politically correct".

Which, when you look at most of the specific things they complained about, was just being respectful and polite.

[Walleye]

23. Yes. I was brought up to be considerate of other people's feelings. Apparently they weren't

[Marthe48]

36. Racists seem to be the first to commandeer cool ethnic stuff

Ethnic genres of music come to mind (jazz, rock, rap) getting hijacked from black musicians by white performers. Slang. Clothing styles.
Even food.
And in my white bread town, the people blasting rap on their car radios, using ethnic slang and dressing in clothing styles that black people made popular are r's or the offspring of r's. They have no sense of irony. In no way are they honoring the myriad contributions of all ethnic cultures. They notice trends and do what they want to be 'cool' If people still wore suits, tan would be a popular color :/

[Caliman73]

59. Basically yes, but a little more than that, which is really important.

Conservatives can be polite and respectful, to their "equals". This is where we diverge from conservatives in our world view. While we recognize differences in the abilities of people, which can lead to more lucrative jobs, or positions in society with more expertise and more weight given, we recognize the in terms of human dignity, there is an equality and people should be treated with fundamental respect. Whether you are a ditch digger, a school teacher, or the governor, you have equal human dignity, and in a democracy, you each have one vote.

Conservatives think the idea that each of the adults I described above have an equal vote is a bad thing. The "cream rises to the top" and the cream deserves more then the dregs at the bottom.

They see liberals who value different life experiences (the experiences of LGBTQ people, Black people, women, etc...) as trying to upset the natural hierarchy. Trying to "cheat" the system and put people higher on the "pryramid" than they should be.

It is about being respectful and polite, but it is also about recognizing inherent equality, which conservatives do not believe in.

[Joinfortmill]

5. I'm fated to never be awakened. But I am woke.

[Emile]

6. They did the same thing with the word entitlements.

To me entitlement means I am entitled for something that I earned. Somehow they twisted it to be welfare.

[JHB]

37. "Entitlements" covers anything you are entitled to by law if you qualify

That includes earned benefits like Social Security and safety net programs like the assorted programs that get lumped together as "welfare".

As for "how," it was the usual trick of misdirection followed by playing on prejudices.

In the late 70s and the 80s, conservative organizations would send speakers on tours to address various local groups: Service club (Rotary, Shriners, Masons, Odd Fellows, etc.) lunches, church groups (not from the pulpit, but at social lunches), College Republicans events, veterans groups, etc. Name any potentially conservative-leaning group that gathered people and hosted speakers, and they got someone in there to speak.

They'd start off speaking about entitlements, throwing out big scary numbers about how huge a portion of the federal budget went to entitlements. Then they'd talk about welfare, without ever mentioning that the lion's share, by far, of those big scary numbers was Social Security and Medicare. But if they'd shown only the welfare portion, they wouldn't have gotten the audience alarmed like they wanted to.

The goal was to leave in the audience's minds the impression that their taxes were high because of a vast army of layabouts living on the dole. With enough dog whistles thrown in to point the audience toward who their prejudices would assume are the main groups "living off of MY tax dollars."

The ultimate goal of the conservatives is to do away with all entitlements, including Social Security and Medicare. They used welfare (and race) as a wedge issue to demonize the term "entitlements."

[Emile]

52. +1 spot on!

[druidity33]

61. And the word liberal...

notice how everyone is "progressive" lately?

[Emile]

62. Gingrich use to roll the word liberal off his tongue like he was puking.

[Walleye]

7. If it is Black slang, they just use it as a code for their racism as everything else

They know what they’re talking about to each other. Woke means Black people. And they hate them

[2Gingersnaps]

17. I was unaware it was black slang, I would have credited it more with a Bhuddist mind set,

I really took it as some more authoritarian anti hippie projection of silliness we saw in the 60's and 70's. Like we were gonna nail sandals to their feet and force them to eat tofu. So thanks for the origin story there, makes sense.

The only thing I would disagree on is that "they don't know what they are doing." Yeah they do, it gives them a sense of power when they feel powerless to stop evolution of civil society. Luddites throwing sandals into the machinery to stop the industrial revolution.

[vlyons]

30. What I mean by "they don't know what they are doing" is

from the Buddhist perspective that they don't realize how harmful is their anger, hatred, and fear to themselves. All that hatred and fear keeps them locked into more future hatred and fear.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

8. I'm a comic book fan, and this trend has made me realize how many comic book fans

are RWNJs. The number of "I'm not going to the new Thor movie because I'm sick of this woke shit" replies I see in comic related groups online is just tiresome. Any time there is a woman in the lead. Or they bring in a character that's LGBTQ+. Or, god forbid, make a character a POC when they weren't in the original source material.

The fragility of their world is so obvious when they get mad about things like this.

[Wounded Bear]

34. Yep, and it's all wrapped up in some weird pop-psych reasons people act the way they do...nt

[IronLionZion]

10. Because they benefit from not having it

Way too many people think success requires stepping on someone else. They compare what they have to what someone else has and feel better knowing that the other person has less.

You can tell a lot about a person's priorities by which category they think about for this: like money, housing, education, civil/human rights, or even the right to live in this society. They'll point out some wealthy celebrity as "proof" that people of that demographic can't be experiencing bigotry. And then point to impoverished folks somewhere else as "proof" that they don't have privileges and benefits. For those folks, wealth is a priority.

[Walleye]

24. LBJ had it right. Make the lowest white man feel like he's better than the best black man.

He will empty his pockets for you

[AllaN01Bear]

11. i the following badges with pride,, communist pinko pig by a high school instructor.

slacker by a guidence counsler in highschool . snow flake . libtard , etc . wear with a smile. good explnation for the word woke .

[LaMouffette]

13. Thank you for your post, vlyons. It's so hard for me not to hate them right back, and this was

a good reminder for me.

I also try to remember when Nancy Pelosi was asked if she hated Donald Trump and she replied, "No, I don't hate him. I'm a Catholic and my heart is filled with love, not hate" (or something along those lines). And Gandhi, too, when he said, "Love is the strongest force the world possesses, yet it is also the humblest."

Peace to you!

[vlyons]

31. I frequently imagine that the Dalai Lama is right beside me,

and I ask him to take me by the hand and help me to see what he sees.

Whatever that is, that's what I want to see too. I'm certain that it ain't hatred or anger or fear.

[sop]

14. So, being anti-woke is simply a return to the narrow-minded superstitions of the Dark Ages?

You know, the "good ol' days"...when women accused of witchcraft were burned at the stake, peasants believed the earth was flat, cruelty ruled the day, science and medicine didn't exist, monarchs ruled commoners and the Church was in charge.

[FalloutShelter]

15. Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu.

🙏🏻

[ProudMNDemocrat]

18. To Republicans, being 'woke" is a THREAT to their rule.

The Genie has been out of the bottle for such a long time. Their efforts to put it back in is being met with a resistance they had not anticipated.

INFORMATION is POWER. TRUTH is POWER.

Keep up the pressure.

[gab13by13]

19. Love your thread.

I have read a lot of Buddhist books, I like the path they follow. I had a satori moment one time in my life while driving through the countryside of New York on my way to work in Toronto. I will never forget how at peace I was for those several minutes, just looking at the scenery.

I have found there are common threads that run through Buddhism and other inspirational books.

Ekhart Tolle's books, beginning with "The Power of Now," have common threads with Buddhism.

Yeah, it can be tough, I find myself catching a bug in the house and releasing it outside instead of crushing it.

Old monk training a new disciple how to meditate. A mosquito lands on the trainee's ear and he flicks it away. The old monk shakes his head and says, I would have said hello my friend, drink your fill and have a safe trip home. I can't do that.

[vlyons]

32. Although some of the compassion stuff is not what we can do today,

we can still aspire to be able to do it later, tomorrow, in a minute of so. It's all about training the mind to hold a certain point of view. "Woke" is a point of view.

[Cracklin Charlie]

21. They don't hate it.

They stole it.

They steal everything from black people. Maybe stealing their culture is a way of keeping black people unorganized, or a way of diluting black people’s influence. I don’t know.

But the also steal from everyone, not just black folks. Maybe it’s just that they lack original ideas, so they are left to steal some.

[Walleye]

26. Yes, no originality that's a big part of it. Plus they love the black culture, and hate admitting it

[Cracklin Charlie]

40. They steal everything.

Maybe they’re just thieves.

[Zambero]

22. Indeed, the New Testament was "woke"

Compared to what had preceded it. Not much "Good Samaritanism" to be found in the Old Testament! The mere thought of having to put Christian Biblical admonitions into actual practice is most upsetting to right-wing Evangelicals.

[vlyons]

35. Many fell asleep in the church pew during the sermon about blessed are the peasemakers.

also the sermon about the Good Samaritan.

[Farmer-Rick]

43. The new testament woke?????

Where Jesus just accepts slavery, polygamy, child brides and infanticide?

Where give unto Caesar is recommended, while Ceasar and Rome are crucifying and torturing people for minor crimes?

To tell you honestly, I don't think you can use the word "woke" any earlier then the 1800s and even then I question it.

I get your point that it's more aware then the old testament. But it's not just filled with love thy neighbor and do unto others. I guess it's a matter of degrees.

[gab13by13]

25. I wish that a Magat would call me woke,

there are a lot of simple ways to respond, like, of course I am awake, aren't you?

Magats don't understand that once our democracy is abolished, everyone is going to lose our freedom, including them.

[Walleye]

27. They always believe they will be able to force their rights through violence

[Thomas Hurt]

28. Just new christofascist newspeak for politically correct.

Cancelled means you have been called, challenged, insulted about your racist behavior.

What is new is that the christofascists are no longer going to be "cancelled" by their own christian morals. They have abandoned those entirely. When was the last time you family values bandied about? The culture war has escalated.

[Martin Eden]

29. Rightwing strategy is to turn something positive into a pejorative

Before "woke" they partially succeeded into making "liberal" a bad word to use in attacks.

[sop]

41. It's called the "Luntzification" of political speech.

Luntzification is an actual word, defined as "when a word, words or a phrase is repurposed for nefarious and/or political intent and consequence through thought manipulation."

[Laura PourMeADrink]

44. Very true. And sadly it works. The Democratic party did great

when they stood strong and proud with the label liberal.

[bdamomma]

33. Repigs

hate a "woke" society once we loose our awareness we are finished as a society. An informed electorate is a threat to them.

[dchill]

38. What it really means is not an issue for them.

To them, it's a racist epithet they can USE. ON THE TV!

[PatrickforB]

39. Quite. When some Republican talks about 'them woke libruls,'

I shake my head and think that the opposite of 'woke' is asleep.

[sop]

45. Asleep at the wheel.

[DownriverDem]

47. Sometimes

I just don't know what to do with my hateful feelings towards white repubs. (I'm white) They want a time that was not good for minorites, poor folks and women.

[Mad_Machine76]

48. My general understanding

is that being "woke" is basically the newer version of "political correctness" and Republicans just get off on being mean to people and rebelling against any suggestion that they should treat people different from them with respect.

[Warpy]

49. I learned a glossed over version of slavery in grammar school

and got a taste of what the real thing was like at 10 when I visited the slave auction museum in Charleston, SC. I realized school history was rubbish and developed a passion for it on my own, learned about the genocidal Indian Wars and the massive corruption inherent in all wars in high school. Then I moved to Boston and learned about block busting, red lining, and slumlords, mostly the hard way. I've been awake to the screw job POC have gotten for a very long time. I'm also awake of the damage done to me as a woman.

Just don't call me "woke." I have much less faith in current social, cultural, religions, and political institutions than they do.

[greblach]

50. Excellent Post

I have always tried to be considerate of other's views and desires. Have always skewed towards an egalitarian perspective in my thinking and acting towards others. But I have to admit that the RWNJs make it exceedingly difficult.

[Midnight Writer]

53. "Woke" in their usage is a command word to elicit a conditioned response.

Just like saying "treat" or "walk" or "squirrel" to a dog.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

58. Woke, Snowflake, Fake News, Cancel Culture.

All those terms have been applied to both sides. First it was the Russians creating fake news. Then tfg sought it for himself to cover his criminal behavior. It's unified lying that makes fake news. Cancel culture started with Me Too, but they took it and ran with. I think progressives liked the term woke in the beginning, but uniformly cons turned into an accusation. I think we just need to define it and wear it well.

What they have in spades is a machine - talking points - that puts them in line to all say they same thing. Dems can't create talking points for some reason. Too much freedom of speech, I guess.

[Skittles]

60. it means educated

and we know repukes cannot have that when fear and ignorance is what they run on

[betsuni]

63. Right-wingers and others make new definitions.

Liberals, social justice warriors, political correctness, woke, feminism ("I'm not a feminist, but ...&quot , progressive -- a lot. Then when anyone says those words it's "OMG right-wing talking points!"

[NowsTheTime]

64. Hope John doesn't mind my posting this here........

......but I like his definition....

https://johnpavlovitz.com/2021/05/05/when-republicans-say-woke-they-really-mean-human/