What does "Woke" mean to you?

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Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Hairyfishnuts@feddit.online⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

Trying to see if we’re all on the same page. Thanks

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ArseAssassin@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
[deleted]
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- daggermoon@piefed.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  classic
  
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- wake@quokk.au ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Should update this somehow to include “communist” and “socialist”.
  
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  - naught101@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I think technically that would be a downdate
    
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Steve@communick.news ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Currently it’s a largely meaningless buzword used exclusively by a hate group to smear things as bad.

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- criss_cross@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  It’s my barometer of “should I take this person seriously”. If they use the term it tells me they’re a bit too far in the deep end.
  
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unmagical@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Aware of social injustices and a desire for them to be removed.

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GreenBeard@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Depends on who is using it. It’s either “Aware of structural institutional and social conditions that affect outcomes absent individual intent” or “Everything I personally feel is bad or makes me uncomfortable.” Most people use it to mean the latter these days, and it’s a meaningless shibboleth that describes everything in general and nothing in particular. Trans is woke, LGBT+ is woke, race is woke, education is woke, government is woke, private companies are woke, my stove is woke, beer is woke, whiskey is woke, Christianity is woke, Atheism is woke, everything is woke, and nothing is woke, and no one knows or cares what it means but they’re very mad about it.

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IWW4@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
To me woke means a term that right wing sexist miserable shitty people use.

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- breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Hey now, don’t forget about the racists! It was adopted as a pejorative by the racist far-right because it “sounds” black.
  
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  - Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Technically, it IS black. That’s where the term started.
    
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  - IWW4@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Oh man,good point.
    
    Eddited.
    
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- daggermoon@piefed.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  It didn’t use to be. Lead Belly was an early user of the word.
  
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1egg4u@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
As a definition? Someone covered it already: aware of social injustices at bare minimum. As a flag? Basically a stand-in for a word that would get someone else banned on a platform. Woke to a rightoid means a woman, ethnic, or of a culture that isnt white/christian/cishet nuclear family profile. I have heard “woke” used to describe Latin Jazz before. It literally just meant ethnic to him.

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communism@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Initially used by Black USAmericans to mean “aware of the racist reality we live in”. Then racists started mocking Black people for saying it and using it as a slur against social movements. Now people mostly treat it as a meme word meaning vaguely left-wing, but in a funny way.

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VinegarChunks@lemmus.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Caring about other people

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Venator@lemmy.nz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Depends on the context: When used positively it means being aware of social injustice or having empathy for your out group.

When used negatively it means anything/anyone they don’t like, and they mostly don’t like people who are a different color skin, gender, ablement, or sexual orientation to themselves.

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reksas@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
at this point its more of a way for assholes to out themselves by raving about how “woke” everything is.

but essentially it means to me being aware of things (more than just racism)

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BradleyUffner@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Aware of, and trying to fix structural inequality

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disregardable@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Calling something “woke” is basically saying “I am an idiot.” The usage of the word means indicates literally nothing about the subject and only reflects the speaker’s lack of education.

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Pissmidget@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I have always thought of it as having just stopped sleeping, but I think it’s been reworked into a slur used on people capable of empathy. I’m still not clear on why empathy is a bad thing though.

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Diddlydee@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Recently stopped sleeping.

Or.

How twats refer to anything they don’t agree with, anything that involves a minority, or any person or thing or institution they don’t like.

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ilinamorato@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Actual meaning? Being “awakened” to the incompleteness of civil rights, aware of the long and difficult social justice work that needs to happen to make oppressed peoples equal, and willing to learn and act in response to that knowledge; particularly as it pertains to the position of Black people in the United States, but generalized more broadly to oppressed peoples outside that group.

But today? It’s been co-opted by the Worst People You Know to mean “anything not regressively conservative,” and synonymous with “socialist” (the definition of which they also don’t care about). It is often a red flag that the person you’re talking to holds an extremely propagandized view of modern life; and at best thinks that civil rights is done, and at worst thinks that people of color are subhuman.

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ChristerMLB@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
“Woke” is the latest term used by American Republican strategists to paint the left as self-righteous, superficial and condescending. It’s taken over for “Social Justice Warrior”

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- bstix@feddit.dk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The word has existed in American politics since the 1930s.
  
  It is only recently that it is being used by Republicans as a negative term.
  
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  - ChristerMLB@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    sure, yeah, and I’m sure they didn’t invent “Social Justice Warrior” either, or “Politically Correct” before that
    
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pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Anything the right doesn’t like basically. Solar panels? Woke. No war crimes? Woke. Trans rights. Absolutely woke.

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- Burninator05@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Agreed. It’s whatever conservative leaders want their base riled up about.
  
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the_xboxkiller@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Eyes open, you can see thru the bs.

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UpAndAtThem@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It’s just a new flavor of an old shit sandwich, In my lifetime:

Bleeding heart

PC thug

SJW

Woke mob

It’s all the same bullshit class warfare in reality.

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AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
When someone wants a group of people to not like something without giving them a reason to, they label it “woke”, usually for political reasons.

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AstroLightz@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
The past tense of wake of course.

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daggermoon@piefed.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I started calling myself a woke libtard ironically. Woke just means you give a shit about your fellow human beings. A wild concept for right wingers.

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EffortlessGrace@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Awakened to the historical and contemporary socio-economic and political realities surrounding the colonialist and native populations’ ruling classes’ manipulation, subjugation, and exploitation of marginalized peoples who were and are deemed as the “others”.

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gibmiser@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Caring about people outside of your friends and family.

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piskertariot@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Woke is caring about how someone who uses the handicap bathroom stall.

Trans people, disabled people, elderly people. If you stand and watch someone go in and out of the handi-cap bathroom, and think that them existing is not fair to you… you’re anti-woke.

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blindbunny@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
As an American, the acknowledgement that we live in a state that was started by slavers on land that was stolen from indigenous people.

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Pamasich@kbin.earth ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
To me personally, "woke" means living in the real world.

A lot of people nowadays reject reality and prefer to live in a world of falsehood. They desire a simpler world, so they refuse to acknowledge the complexities of the world.

Woke people don't do that. They engage with reality, not fiction. Which is what makes them a danger to those that do prefer to escape to a simpler fictional world. Hence them denying and opposing woke. It's a defensive reaction to a perceived threat to their alternate worldview.
Or at least that's how I see it.

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southsamurai@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Originally, it was all about the awareness of systemic injustice, particularly surrounding African Americans.

Eventually, it shifted to an awareness of systemic flaws in general, and social imbalances and injustice, outside of purely governmental bounds.

Now? It’s turned into a clear and easy way to tell someone is a moron because nobody else uses it any more, so it’s always someone saying that woke is bad without eve. Understanding what it is

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unknown@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I use ‘woke’ and ‘sjw’ with a heavy dose of irony when dealing with bullshit from people who get off on tone policing and acting holier than thou.

It’s truly sad how many of these bigots are lefty/liberal/anarchist identifying, hence the irony.

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WingsofLove03@retrolemmy.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Woke means being good and genuinely accepting of all human beings regardless of anything. Also being accepting of human rights also and not being afraid to speak up for goodness too.

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