The Fundamentals of Being “Woke”, Good or Bad, Why? (1 Viewer)

[Huntn]

To be "woke" politically in the Black community means that someone is informed, educated and conscious of social injustice and racial inequality, Merriam-Webster Dictionary states

What does 'woke' mean and why are some conservatives using it?

Conservatives are using ‘woke,’ a term coined by Black Americans, against progressive ideals of social justice during this midterm election cycle.

abcnews.go.com

Republicans are crusading against 'wokeness'

Yet lawmakers and operatives who spoke to NBC News varied in how they define the idea, while others said they didn't know much about "wokeness" at all.

www.nbcnews.com

By definition “Woke” means awareness, awareness of social injustice and racial inequality. More importantly in my mind as a fiscally moderate Caucasian who leans liberal on social issues, it is vital that we live up to the standards as put into place by our Founding Fathers, equality before the law, equal rights, and equal opportunity, in essence a level playing field for all, the right not to be discriminated against in the public market place or in public education. Btw, by standing by these principles, does this make me a conservative or a liberal?

So why are Conservatives at war against being woke And why ban it in the classroom? How can being educated about our past and social injustice be bad? Is it because:

• This stuff is all made up?
• Well it happened but don’t feel comfortable acknowledging it?
• It is still happening?
• I don’t want to be blamed for it?
• It will be used to take away personal advantages?
• Or it is going to cost me money?

Imo, the real issue here racial inequality and injustice is that not only is it not made up, it’s not in our past either. It is ongoing and we need face this responsibly.

 

[Optimus Prime]

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

does this include people who are woke agaist Drag Queens and Bud Light?

 

[SystemShock]

Oh, no! Leguizamo is boycotting the movie!!! The woke horror!!!
His head is going to explode when someone tell him that Anya Taylor-Joy (princess Peach) is Argentinian, which qualifies her as Latina... but she white, so...

Too bad Leguizamo didn't boycott the movie back in 1993.

 

[Port City JJ]

Can you be "too woke"?

 

[Huntn]

Can you be "too woke"?

If I was going to make a guess it is overreaction to any perceived slight. With all social interactions humans can go overboard, but It would be a case by case basis to describe an example as an overreaction.

And this is as compared to the Right who are trying to minimize awareness of our past and injustices, even turn such discussions into something evil, banned, and keep it in the water under the bridge category, so let’s just not talk about the prejudice and lynchings, and being dragged behind vehicles, except in many cases these Injustices, denial of liberty, equal rights and opportunities are ongoing. So it’s not really in our past.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Anyone remember the Kellog's thing? I missed it
=============================

These days, it feels like at least once a week a mainstream company comes out with a new product or campaign that — because of how it's packaged or advertised or has been modified — throws prominent conservative public figures into a tailspin because yet another American company has gone "woke."

As Salon's Amanda Marcotte pointed out in March, the GOP is "obsessed with 'woke,' but can't define it."

"That was hilariously demonstrated in a viral video clip of conservative author Bethany Mandel falling completely apart when asked in an interview to define 'woke,' a concept she wrote an entire book denouncing. Mandel couldn't do it," Marcotte wrote. "'So, I mean, woke is sort of the idea that, um…' she stammered before admitting it 'is something that's very hard to define,' and then failing utterly to get close."

But, as Marcotte wrote, this is a "feature, not a bug." It can mean whatever Republicans want it to mean in the moment, which has led to some objectively ridiculous boycotts that didn't really pan out as planned for the participants — especially in the world of food and drink.

For instance, remember in 2017 when fans of Sean Hannity destroyed their Keurig coffee machines after the company pulled its ads from Hannity's Fox News program? As Zachary Petrizzo wrote for Salon, "Hannity tried to save the advertiser (and the valuable ad dollars) by giving away 500 Keurig machines, but it was too late. By the end of the boycott, an unknown number of Fox News viewers were just left with expensive coffee machines they had tossed off balconies or otherwise obliterated."

Just a year prior, angry Breitbart readers flushed Kellogg's cereal down toilets because the cereal company didn't want to associate their brands with Breitbart News, whose former executive chairman was Steve Bannon.

But as silly and cyclical as conservatives' constant declarations of a "culture war" feel (and they certainly are both silly and cyclical) these boycotts are most often driven by hateful rhetoric surrounding marginalized people and communities, as is the case with the latest call for a boycott against Bud Light beer, which is still simmering this week.

Here's a breakdown of five recent conservative boycotts that tell us a lot about the ways in which members of the Republican party rely on fanning fears of ambiguous "wokeness" to make their constituents feel like they are under attack.

01 Bud Light
You've probably seen the video of Kid Rock tearfully shooting cases of Bud Light off a folding table in a field — but what you may not know is why exactly he punctuates said video with the sign-off, "F**k Bud Light and f**k Anheuser-Busch."

While Rock doesn't explain in the video, as Salon Food reported last week, the musician released the clip on Twitter after other other conservative public figures said the beer brand had become"woke" because of an Instagram partnership between the Bud Light and trans actress and activist Dylan Mulvaney.

The partnership itself was pretty minimal: Mulvaney posted a single photo in her Instagram grid featuring herself with a few cans of the beer, then in her Instagram stories, shared a photo of a can of Bud Light branded with her face.............

02 M&M's
In January, less than two weeks into the New Year, Fox host Tucker Carlson gloomily announced that "woke M&M's" had returned. You may remember that in January 2022 — a full year prior to Carlson's most recent candy rant — he had dedicated an entire segment on his program to picking apart the revamped looks of the anthropomorphized M&M's mascots.

As Brett Bachman wrote for Salon, the company released new packaging in which the brown M&M swapped out her signature stilettos for kitten heels, while the Green M&M's go-go boots were replaced with white sneakers.The relatively benign changes were meant to promote "inclusivity" and bring the female-presenting characters in line with "current" trends that are more "representative of our consumer," Anton Vincent, the company's president, said.

That didn't fly with Carlson, though, who attempted to connect "Mars' decision to make its cartoons 'less sexy' to the decline of American society."..........

03 Oreo
"COOKIE!" Newsmax host Greg Kelly wrote on Twitter above a photo of Sesame Street's Cookie Monster in April 2022. "I love COOKIES. C is for COOKIE. COOKIE IS FOR ME. I do NOT like GAY COOKIES. 'Sexuality' has NOTHING TO DO with the Cookie experience. Cookies are for ALL! Basically Cookies are 'asexual'---why is the WOKE LEFT messing around with OREOS?!?! STOP THE INSANITY."

This … statement was prompted by a video that had been released by Oreo a few days prior.

"The Note," which was directed by Alice Wu ("Saving Face" and "The Half of It"), depicts a young Chinese-American man practicing a coming-out speech before a few close family members. Before the young man shares his truth with his grandmother, his mom slips him a note. "She might be my mother," it reads, "but you are my son."

The video ends with a message for viewers to pay it forward. "Coming out doesn't happen just once," it says. "Be a lifelong ally."

It's honestly a beautiful short film about an important part of the queer experience (and one that was refreshingly not released during Pride Month), but it prompted conservative public figures, including Kelly and Ben Shapiro, to call for a boycott against the cookie brand. At the time, Lila Rose, the founder of a movement dedicated to ending abortion, told Oreo to "stop sexualizing children.".............

04 Cracker Barrel
In August 2022, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store accidentally joined the culture war when they decided to add plant-based sausages to their menu. The company wrote in a Facebook post: "Discover new meat frontiers. Experience the out of this world flavor of Impossible™ Sausage Made From Plants next time you Build Your Own Breakfast."

Note that I said "add" — the Impossible Sausage was not replacing the pork sausage on the menu, but its customers saw the change as a sign that the restaurant was caving to the whims of liberal vegans.

"We don't eat in an old country store for woke burgers," one commenter wrote, while someone else added: "I just lost respect for a once great Tennessee company." ..........

05 Coca-Cola
In April 2021, Donald Trump's former legal advisor Jenna Ellis, distributed a statement from the former president on Twitter. It read: "It is finally time for Republicans and Conservatives to fight back—we have more people than they do—by far! Don't go back to their products until they relent. We can play the game better than them.".......

MSN

 

[MT15]

They need to call it cancel culture, not anti-woke. They always do what they accuse others of doing.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Conservatives appear to believe that the CEO of Anheuser-Busch was planted by the CIA in order to make the company go "woke."

Brendan Whitworth, who joined Anheuser-Busch in 2013 before working his way up to CEO in 2021, is the latest target in a boycott against Bud Light following the company's decision to issue a commemorative can to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney

After noticing that Whitworth previously worked for the CIA on his public LinkedIn profile, conservatives began concocting conspiracy theories regarding Bud Light's direction.

"Hey guys, I think I found the problem," conservative commentator Benny Johnson wrote. "The CEO of Budweiser is a CIA operative. No, really."

The popular right-wing Twitter user known as DC_Draino made similar insinuations, suggesting that Whitworth, who is a registered Republican, was ordered to spread "the regime's Leftist agenda."

"Bud Light’s Woke marketing makes a lot more sense when you realize their CEO was in the CIA," he tweeted. "He’ll never apologize for what AB did b/c he’s a foot soldier for the regime’s Leftist agenda."

Whitworth initially intended to become a doctor after attending Bucknell University in Pennsylvania following high school. Instead, he joined the Marines in 1998 and served three years before joining the CIA in 2001, where he recruited and handled spies both domestically and abroad. Whitworth then went on to attend Harvard Business School.

Despite Whitworth spending eight years climbing the ranks at Anheuser-Busch before becoming CEO, his stint in the CIA still has many conservatives convinced that he was inserted into the company to push progressive politics.

"I just learned that the current CEO of Anheuser-Busch is actually former CIA. Boy, does that explain A LOT," another user wrote. "We all know how involved the Clowns In America are in pushing Communist/Marxist agendas all over the world. Playbook known."

Yet outside of conservative circles, the attempt to connect Whitworth's former CIA employment to the Mulvaney backlash was largely mocked.

"6-7 years ago, if you went around yelling at people 'THE CIA MADE MY BEER GAY' you would be politely escorted to a social worker and a possible psych hold," journalist Adam Rawnsley wrote. "Now it could probably get you a Daily Wire podcast."................

‘THE CIA MADE MY BEER GAY’: Anheuser-Busch CEO’s past employment with CIA sparks theory government is secretly pushing ‘woke beer’

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

This should still be the correct diagnosis..
"6-7 years ago, if you went around yelling at people 'THE CIA MADE MY BEER GAY' you would be politely escorted to a social worker and a possible psych hold," journalist Adam Rawnsley wrote. "

 

[Huntn]

Anyone rememebr the Kellog's thing? I missed it
=============================

These days, it feels like at least once a week a mainstream company comes out with a new product or campaign that — because of how it's packaged or advertised or has been modified — throws prominent conservative public figures into a tailspin because yet another American company has gone "woke."

As Salon's Amanda Marcotte pointed out in March, the GOP is "obsessed with 'woke,' but can't define it."

"That was hilariously demonstrated in a viral video clip of conservative author Bethany Mandel falling completely apart when asked in an interview to define 'woke,' a concept she wrote an entire book denouncing. Mandel couldn't do it," Marcotte wrote. "'So, I mean, woke is sort of the idea that, um…' she stammered before admitting it 'is something that's very hard to define,' and then failing utterly to get close."

But, as Marcotte wrote, this is a "feature, not a bug." It can mean whatever Republicans want it to mean in the moment, which has led to some objectively ridiculous boycotts that didn't really pan out as planned for the participants — especially in the world of food and drink.

For instance, remember in 2017 when fans of Sean Hannity destroyed their Keurig coffee machines after the company pulled its ads from Hannity's Fox News program? As Zachary Petrizzo wrote for Salon, "Hannity tried to save the advertiser (and the valuable ad dollars) by giving away 500 Keurig machines, but it was too late. By the end of the boycott, an unknown number of Fox News viewers were just left with expensive coffee machines they had tossed off balconies or otherwise obliterated."

Just a year prior, angry Breitbart readers flushed Kellogg's cereal down toilets because the cereal company didn't want to associate their brands with Breitbart News, whose former executive chairman was Steve Bannon.

But as silly and cyclical as conservatives' constant declarations of a "culture war" feel (and they certainly are both silly and cyclical) these boycotts are most often driven by hateful rhetoric surrounding marginalized people and communities, as is the case with the latest call for a boycott against Bud Light beer, which is still simmering this week.

Here's a breakdown of five recent conservative boycotts that tell us a lot about the ways in which members of the Republican party rely on fanning fears of ambiguous "wokeness" to make their constituents feel like they are under attack.

01 Bud Light
You've probably seen the video of Kid Rock tearfully shooting cases of Bud Light off a folding table in a field — but what you may not know is why exactly he punctuates said video with the sign-off, "F**k Bud Light and f**k Anheuser-Busch."

While Rock doesn't explain in the video, as Salon Food reported last week, the musician released the clip on Twitter after other other conservative public figures said the beer brand had become"woke" because of an Instagram partnership between the Bud Light and trans actress and activist Dylan Mulvaney.

The partnership itself was pretty minimal: Mulvaney posted a single photo in her Instagram grid featuring herself with a few cans of the beer, then in her Instagram stories, shared a photo of a can of Bud Light branded with her face.............

02 M&M's
In January, less than two weeks into the New Year, Fox host Tucker Carlson gloomily announced that "woke M&M's" had returned. You may remember that in January 2022 — a full year prior to Carlson's most recent candy rant — he had dedicated an entire segment on his program to picking apart the revamped looks of the anthropomorphized M&M's mascots.

As Brett Bachman wrote for Salon, the company released new packaging in which the brown M&M swapped out her signature stilettos for kitten heels, while the Green M&M's go-go boots were replaced with white sneakers.The relatively benign changes were meant to promote "inclusivity" and bring the female-presenting characters in line with "current" trends that are more "representative of our consumer," Anton Vincent, the company's president, said.

That didn't fly with Carlson, though, who attempted to connect "Mars' decision to make its cartoons 'less sexy' to the decline of American society."..........

03 Oreo
"COOKIE!" Newsmax host Greg Kelly wrote on Twitter above a photo of Sesame Street's Cookie Monster in April 2022. "I love COOKIES. C is for COOKIE. COOKIE IS FOR ME. I do NOT like GAY COOKIES. 'Sexuality' has NOTHING TO DO with the Cookie experience. Cookies are for ALL! Basically Cookies are 'asexual'---why is the WOKE LEFT messing around with OREOS?!?! STOP THE INSANITY."

This … statement was prompted by a video that had been released by Oreo a few days prior.

"The Note," which was directed by Alice Wu ("Saving Face" and "The Half of It"), depicts a young Chinese-American man practicing a coming-out speech before a few close family members. Before the young man shares his truth with his grandmother, his mom slips him a note. "She might be my mother," it reads, "but you are my son."

The video ends with a message for viewers to pay it forward. "Coming out doesn't happen just once," it says. "Be a lifelong ally."

It's honestly a beautiful short film about an important part of the queer experience (and one that was refreshingly not released during Pride Month), but it prompted conservative public figures, including Kelly and Ben Shapiro, to call for a boycott against the cookie brand. At the time, Lila Rose, the founder of a movement dedicated to ending abortion, told Oreo to "stop sexualizing children.".............

04 Cracker Barrel
In August 2022, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store accidentally joined the culture war when they decided to add plant-based sausages to their menu. The company wrote in a Facebook post: "Discover new meat frontiers. Experience the out of this world flavor of Impossible™ Sausage Made From Plants next time you Build Your Own Breakfast."

Note that I said "add" — the Impossible Sausage was not replacing the pork sausage on the menu, but its customers saw the change as a sign that the restaurant was caving to the whims of liberal vegans.

"We don't eat in an old country store for woke burgers," one commenter wrote, while someone else added: "I just lost respect for a once great Tennessee company." ..........

05 Coca-Cola
In April 2021, Donald Trump's former legal advisor Jenna Ellis, distributed a statement from the former president on Twitter. It read: "It is finally time for Republicans and Conservatives to fight back—we have more people than they do—by far! Don't go back to their products until they relent. We can play the game better than them.".......

MSN

How ironic or sinister that being awake could be turned into an evil phrase to feed Right Wing politics, and we have a group of people who revel in showing their true colors. There is that…

 

[zztop]

sad

Alabama education director ousted over book's stance on race

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has replaced her director of early childhood education over the use of a teacher training book that the Republican governor denounced as teaching “woke concepts” because of language about inclusion for all families and battling racism. Barbara Cooper was forced out as head...

apnews.com

The book is a guide for early childhood educators. It is not a curriculum taught to children.

The governor’s office, in a press release, cited two examples from the book — one discussing white privilege and that “the United States is built on systemic and structural racism” and another that Ivey’s office claimed teaches LGBTQ+ inclusion to 4-year-olds. Those sections, according to a copy of the 881-page book obtained by The Associated Press, discuss combating bias and making sure that all children feel welcome.

 

[cuddlemonkey]

sad

Alabama education director ousted over book's stance on race

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has replaced her director of early childhood education over the use of a teacher training book that the Republican governor denounced as teaching “woke concepts” because of language about inclusion for all families and battling racism. Barbara Cooper was forced out as head...

apnews.com

The book is a guide for early childhood educators. It is not a curriculum taught to children.

The governor’s office, in a press release, cited two examples from the book — one discussing white privilege and that “the United States is built on systemic and structural racism” and another that Ivey’s office claimed teaches LGBTQ+ inclusion to 4-year-olds. Those sections, according to a copy of the 881-page book obtained by The Associated Press, discuss combating bias and making sure that all children feel welcome.

Perhaps the most self-loathing governor in the country.

 

[wardorican]

I always took the pejorative version of 'woke' to mean, pushy/snobby/hypocritical version of 'awareness'. Like, the awareness isn't the issue, it's the 'well, you know..." part of it.

There is a growing number of folks who can't have a disagreement or conversation around something without wanting their pound of flesh. This applies to many different ideologies.

Going back to the pejorative woke... I think of the Vegan ex-boyfriend in Scott Pilgrim.

 

[MT15]

This is all well and good Ward. Except I think the awareness is very much what the right is objecting to right now. I think what you are describing is the way old school Rs felt about inclusion and diversity. The new Rs want everyone who is different from them to go away, be erased.

 

[zztop]

Now people can finally do something about that woke beer

 

[MT15]

I’m not watching that, I just ate lunch.

 

[Optimus Prime]

As you’ve probably noticed, the word “woke” has been entirely wrung of any meaning in recent years. BlackRock and Silicon Valley Bank are “woke”, according to the right. Walt Disney is woke. Pope Francis is woke. Even the US military industrial complex is woke.

The newest target? Miller Lite. Conservatives are hopping mad after discovering a two-month-old Miller Lite commercial that was released during Women’s History Month.

What exactly is the problem with this ad? Well, it seems that people are taking extreme offense to the fact that that the ad humorously points out that there is a long history of misogyny in beer advertising, including Miller’s own legacy of using women in skimpy bikinis to sell lager. Fully-clothed women drinking beer? Woke!…….

People have every right to express their opinions and to boycott brands. (Unlike many conservatives, I strongly support the right to boycott.) But what happened with Bud Light – and what’s being repeated with Miller Lite – was nothing less than a targeted harassment and intimidation campaign.

Outraged conservatives found the marketing executives responsible for the campaign and hounded them online. Trolls went through social media and found embarrassing photos of Alissa Heinerscheid, who oversaw the partnership between Bud Light and Mulvaney, in college in order to try to paint her as a hypocrite for saying that Bud Light needed to update its “fratty” image. Her face was splashed all over rightwing media sites. She reportedly got death threats…….

Conservatives, it should be noted, have been getting outraged at adverts since the advent of television. You don’t have to do much to trigger the right, after all; you just have to remind them that they live in the 21st century. In 2013, for example, a Cheerios ad with an interracial family sparked online outrage from the right (yes, you read that right: 2013).

Then in 2016, Old Navy was similarly accused of “anti-white propaganda” because there was an interracial family in its ads. So none of this outrage is new. What does feel new, however, are the targeted attacks on marketing executives and the coordinated attempts to get them fired.

The right has a history of using online mobs to get journalists it doesn’t like fired, and now it’s using this playbook to target and censor other industries….

Women drinking beer clothed: why are rightwingers melting down over Miller Lite?

A commercial pointing to longstanding sexism in beer ads has sparked outrage – and led to a campaign of harassment

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

and from right wing new sources
======================

There are countless videos on TikTok and Twitter depicting woke individuals who are generally problematic. Generally, they are seen as loud, outspoken and irrational. Furthermore, it seems that an actual study done by Pew in 2020 states that liberals have a higher tendency to have mental illness.

According to WIBC, a study discovers that individuals identifying as conservatives are notably less likely to receive diagnoses for mental health issues. This is in comparison to those identifying as either liberal or “very liberal.”

Disturbingly, young white women are facing the most severe impact. Among white women between 18-29, liberals are receiving mental health diagnoses from medical professionals at a staggering rate of 56.3%. Following that, moderates are experiencing it at a rate of 28.4%, and conservatives a rate of 27.3%.

End Wokeness, a growing and popular movement on Twitter states that this political ideology is a mental health crisis. Furthermore, another Twitter user posts a conservative’s definition of woke. It states that these people are unintelligible people seeking for the injustice happening everywhere else except for their own behavior..........

MSN