Does The "Woke" Crowd Need To Take a Nap?

[Arc F1]

I agree that "not seeing colour" is a very positive characteristic but I am also convinced that you were overly optimistic in claiming that such people constitute a majority. Most people fail to recognize their own prejudices be they racial or not. When I hear someone say "You know that I don't have a racist bone in my body but ------", I know instantly that I am about to hear something that is overtly racist.

Depends on the definition of racism. Used correctly there is very little racism.

 

[Desk trauma]

Let's bring those manufacturers back and let people work for a living. Nobody worth anything wants a hand out.

All we have to do is undercut Laotian labor costs and we will see the return of low skill labor jobs. At least until suck work is totally automated.

 

[rambot]

Which has nothing to do with the fact that black people only make up 13% of the US populace.

If I fill a bowl with 100 M&M's, and 87 of them are red, and I start eating them, I expect that my hand will contain far more red M&M's at any given moment.

Fair. White folk make up 76% of the US population so you'd expect them to have 76% of any job (of course. So let's take a quick look at board rooms or management positions.
Well, 1% of Fortune 500 companies, and only 18 companies (since 1999) have ever had a black ceo.
Why so many black business professionals are missing from the C-suite

You may see this article in Fortune:
White Men Account for 72% of Corporate Leadership at 16 of the Fortune 500 Companies
with the headline "
White Men Account for 72% of Corporate Leadership at 16 of the Fortune 500 Companies"
and think "wow! Well, that's pretty close to the representation of whites in America.

Of course, they are now tlaking about a smaller subgroup of the population. If whites make up 76% of the population, white males only make up 38%. So yeah, that's over representation by more than a little bit.

 

[rambot]

Yet, then we hear comments like Rambot's, which go directly against what you're saying. Who is to be believed?

Did I say anything incorrect?

And let's be real; you're not saying "believed" you're saying "agreed with". You can "believe" both of us because, if you read my post, you'd see we were not disagreeing.

 

[Arc F1]

All we have to do is undercut Laotian labor costs and we will see the return of low skill labor jobs. At least until suck work is totally automated.

Nothing wrong with low skill factory work.

 

[Oompa Loompa]

Interesting. I once had an African American who worked for me. His grammar was, for the sake of argument, perfect. He was educated, a Conservative, and a devout Christian; and he was somewhat of a comedian, always cracking jokes. Everyone at work liked him. His mother was white, and his African American wife worked in a sensitive area of the US Government.

He lived in an area that was almost all white. He told me that for laughs he would go to an upscale shopping mall with is wife, and that he would loudly speak Ebonics, to watch the white people side step him, and to see the reactions on their faces. I asked him how his wife felt about this.

I felt sorry for his wife.

I had a white coworker who immigrated to the United States from South Africa. It was hilarious to see the reaction people would have when he told them he was African American.

 

[rambot]

Interesting. I once had an African American who worked for me. His grammar was, for the sake of argument, perfect. He was educated, a Conservative, and a devout Christian; and he was somewhat of a comedian, always cracking jokes. Everyone at work liked him. His mother was white, and his African American wife worked in a sensitive area of the US Government.

He lived in an area that was almost all white. He told me that for laughs he would go to an upscale shopping mall with is wife, and that he would loudly speak Ebonics, to watch the white people side step him, and to see the reactions on their faces. I asked him how his wife felt about this.

I felt sorry for his wife.

See now that's weird to me.
Watching the prejudice white people "side step" the black guy fitting into a caricature of a black guy is hilarious?

I don't see the hilarity of that. Maybe on the surface because a person is behaviour differently than he normally would. I mean that's great he got a chance to have some fun at the racist white people.

In the meantime, those are the people calling black bird watchers in dog parks.

 

[gaara4158]

Let's bring those manufacturers back and let people work for a living. Nobody worth anything wants a hand out.

Who said anything about handouts? It’s their own taxes. Putting those funds towards the betterment of their communities empowers these people to provide for themselves more effectively. Unless you want to completely dismantle global capitalism, those overseas manufacturing jobs aren’t coming back. But if Americans are better-educated and have access to decent business loan terms, we can start creating new jobs right here at home. No more scary neighborhoods.

 

[rambot]

Depends on the definition of racism. Used correctly there is very little racism.

While I would agree thta the definition of racism seems to have morphed a bit (I like hte old standard of "superiority" being in the definition), I also think that the injustices, mild and not so mild, that don't fit under the OLD definition of racism, are still wildly inappropriate for a country whose constitution says that everyone is equal under the law (never mind that that document was written by people who owned slaves...)

 

[HARK!]

I had a white coworker who immigrated to the United States from South Africa. It was hilarious to see the reaction people would have when he told them he was African American.

I had a Kenyan, here on a green card, who worked for me in the same group. He would make the argument that there aren't black people in America; that they all look white to him; that he can see it in their noses.

We would sometimes tag team the African American.

One day, I made the argument with the African American who worked for me that he wasn't African American, that he was white; as his father wasn't of full blooded African descent and his mother was 100% European. He looked African American to me. He authoritatively held up his pointer finger and proclaimed, "just one drop!"

I said, "Ok then stop calling me white. I'm a Native American, just one drop!"

Good times.

 

[Desk trauma]

Nothing wrong with low skill factory work.

It’s not coming back. China is losing the low end of the labor market as they are being undercut and advances in automation may soon undercut human labor totally in more areas than it already is. How than do you think we will see the return of mass low skill manufacturing in the US?

 

[HARK!]

See now that's weird to me.
Watching the prejudice white people "side step" the black guy fitting into a caricature of a black guy is hilarious?

I don't see the hilarity of that. Maybe on the surface because a person is behaviour differently than he normally would. I mean that's great he got a chance to have some fun at the racist white people.

I didn't like it. I conveyed to him that it was inappropriate. He laughed it off. I had met his wife; and on one occasion, a company Christmas party, spent the evening talking to her and her husband at our table. I know that she wouldn't approve.

I really did feel sorry for her having to deal with his shenanigans.

In the meantime, those are the people calling black bird watchers in dog parks.

I don't understand what this means.

 

[Oompa Loompa]

I said, "Ok then stop calling me white. I'm a Native American, just one drop!"

Good times.

I think that is what Elizabeth Warren was going for.

 

[Oompa Loompa]

I didn't like it. I conveyed to him that it was inappropriate. He laughed it off. I had met his wife; and on one occasion, a company Christmas party, spent the evening talking to her and her husband at our table. I know that she wouldn't approve.

I really did feel sorry for her having to deal with his shenanigans.



I don't understand what this means.

Well I think it is appropriate that you are not using gender neutral pronouns.

 

[cow451]

Well I think it is appropriate that you are not using gender neutral pronouns.

Well that’s mighty White of you.

 

[Oompa Loompa]

Well that’s mighty White of you.

 

[ArmenianJohn]

1. On March 10 CBS This Morning interviewed two black authors. Near the end of the segment they put up a graphic of a list of words that start with black with the word black in bold
and the word racism in large letters in the background.
Teaching kids about the complicated history of racism

I did a search for the meanings and origins of these words and this is what I found.

Black Monday
"Black Monday is the name given to stock market crashes that occurred on four different Mondays.
They are Oct. 28, 1929, Oct. 19, 1987, the market correction of Aug. 24, 2015, and March 9, 2020."
Black Monday in 1929, 1987, 2015, and 2020

Black Sheep
"In the English language, black sheep is an idiom used to describe an odd or disreputable member of a group, especially within a family.
The term stems from sheep whose fleece is colored black rather than the more common white; these sheep stand out in the flock and their wool was traditionally considered less valuable."
Black sheep - Wikipedia

Black Ball
"Late 18th century from the practice of registering an adverse vote by placing a black ball in a ballot box."
Blackball | Definition of Blackball by Oxford Dictionary on Lexico.com also meaning of Blackball

Nothing to do with race.

Here are the origins of the other words. Spoiler: Nothing to do with race.
https://www.history.com/news/where-did-the-word-blackmail-come-from
Blacklisting - Wikipedia

So is the word black racist now? It's hard to keep up.

2. "Instead of 'supremacy' use 'quantum advantage'" says the journal Nature.
"In our view, ‘supremacy’ has overtones of violence, neocolonialism and racism through its association with ‘white supremacy’.
Inherently violent language has crept into other branches of science as well — in human and robotic spaceflight, for example, terms such as ‘conquest’, ‘colonization’ and ‘settlement’ evoke the terra nullius arguments of settler colonialism and must be contextualized against ongoing issues of neocolonialism."
Instead of ‘supremacy’ use ‘quantum advantage’
Academics derided for claiming 'quantum supremacy' is a racist and colonialist term

So where do we draw the line? Do we change the titles of the Jason Bourne books and movies to The Bourne Advantage?

3. Alien and Predator Reinforce Anti-Black Racism.
How Hollywood's 'Alien' and 'Predator' movies reinforce anti-Black racism
"Black women have been portrayed in contemporary white social and political culture as super-fertile and indestructible breeders whose sexual reproduction must be controlled."

"Ridley Scott’s Alien franchise, with its vicious and endlessly breeding carbon black alien mother, came at the height of neoliberal experiment and in the U.S. especially, an all-out assault on Black people.
In the context of anti-Black culture, the film signifies the Black woman as an unkillable and ceaselessly breeding alien who threatened the body politic.
In terms set by historian Lothrop Stoddard’s white supremacist 1920 book The Rising Tide of Color, a Black woman’s sexual reproduction is imagined to signal the genetic extinction of the white republic."

Serious question. Who here has ever thought of black women as indestructable breeders or unkillable?

"In the context of racially charged white anxieties about immigration and social order, the historical demonization of Black men is a trope, a stereotype, that easily maps onto cinematic typecasting. The 1987 Hollywood film that launched the Predator franchise fits this pattern.
Predator depicted a Black, dreadlocked, large and super-virile male in a way that converged white art with white political history.
A white man once said he thought it was cool that I had dreadlocks like the Predator. This is not a compliment."

Who here watched the Predator killing soldiers (inculding black soldiers) with it's high-tech space weapons, and thought "That's just like black men"? The Predator isn't even black, it's just covered with black spots.

This is actually very disrespectful to the filmakers, because this article implies they delibrately put these tropes into the movie instead of just creating something to scare and entertain the audience.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many more examples I have seen over the years and probably many more I don't know about that others have heard about or experienced for themselves. At this point it would be easier to list all the things that aren't racist.

This may come as a shock to a lot of these people, but in general, people who aren't racists or nazis don't like being accused of being racists or nazis. Here is CNN reporter Kirsten Powers
using the most obvious guilt by assossiation fallacy I've heard. "If you support somebody who does racist things, that makes you racist. So, I just wanna establish that"
If you support somebody who does racist things, that makes you racist
From what I remember, about 36 million people voted for Trump. That's a lot of racists walking around.

People also don't like the feeling of constantly walking on eggshells to avoid offending the easily offended.
Cotton plant on display is racist.
Woman says Hobby Lobby’s cotton decor is racist | Daily Mail Online

A professor suspended because he used a chinese word that sounded like the n word.
Investigation into US professor sparks debate over Chinese word

Photo of miners covered in soot is racist.
Everything is racist, coal miner edition

These reactions would make sense if they were seen out of context, but the context is right there and they were still offended. This is not normal.

The point I'm making is that these people are not helping race relations or the fight against racism, and in some instances they are even contribute to it.

For example, in 2017 users on a message-board decided to troll these type of people to see if they could make them believe something as mundane and innocuous as the okay hand sign was a racist, white supremacist symbol. Not suprisingly they fell for it. The troll worked too well and actual white supremacists took notice and started using it unironically. This basically became a self-fullfilling prophecy.
When the O.K. Sign Is No Longer O.K.

The troll worked so well even innocent people were being accused of being racist. A bunch of navy cadets were accused of making the racist hand sign even though they were clearly just playing the circle game. Even after there was an investigation that concluded what was obvious, the woke mob didn't believe it and implied the navy was covering for them.
A guy who was cracking his knuckles was fired after someone claimed he was making the hand sign.

Another example: A professor claimed that having a 'white nuclear family with children you want what's best for' is a form of white supremacy
CUNY professor says white families promote white supremacy | Daily Mail Online
Her tweets were the subject of a video by a white supremacist YouTube channel called RedIceTV (now banned from YouTube). She played right into their narrative. The woke crowd seem to have become useful idiots for white supremacists.

I think the election of Trump is also in part a self-fullfilling prophecy. The next most common reason I heard from people who voted for Trump besides "He wasn't Hillary" was "He isn't politically correct". When I hear people say "politically correct" these days they are almost always referring to incidents like the ones listed above.
When you have incidents going on like these going on constantly, you have to expect some pushback.

Here is Sam Harris basically saying the same thing in 2016:

WARNING: swear word at 2:07

Good video to listen to if you're on the left.

My main point is that the woke left exacerbate the very thing they claim to be fighting against. For the most part, from what I've seen, moderate left wingers usually just turn a blind eye, severely downplay these incidents or they will sometimes even defend these people either by directly defending them or by redirecting attention away from them, usually by using a whataboutism directed toward the right wing or they will attack the messanger, usually by using the poisoning the well fallacy. Only a few on the left like Sam Harris and Bill Maher seem willing to call these people out. Basically those who are too big to be "canceled". From what I've seen it's mostly those on the right that call them out.

Thought?

What I can't figure out is why so many people can get so hurt, triggered, upset, and angry over any of those proposals. They can make all those changes as far as I'm concerned and I'll adapt, it's no big deal.

What is making you so upset about any of that??? Don't you have far more important things to worry about in life? I know I sure do.

 

[ArmenianJohn]

The woke crowd needs to be more like the rest of us. The majority of people see others as just other people. They don't see color. We base our opinions on the persons actions not the color of their skin.

That's not true at all. People think and say they're not racist while being totally racist all the while. That's what the real issue is these days. It's a complete lack of awareness based entirely on white privilege.

 

[MehGuy]

I do not think society deliberately uses the label "black" for negative things for racist reasons. If that is where other people are getting at. Your post reminds me of the scene in Malcolm X, where Malcolm is in prison and a prisoner decides to open his eyes about white people and makes him go through a dictionary and pointing out the words "black" being used for negative things and "white" positive. The part of the movie where I thought.. ok this is going off the rails.. lol.

Sorry but "white" and "black" most likely represents light and darkness. These connotations probably exist in many cultures and in European ones long before the slave trade ever existed.

Only thing I can agree with is that the design of the alien in Predator is pretty racist and used to play off a fear of black people. Had these thoughts ever since I first watched the move when I was 12 and will probably die believing this, lol.

 

[eclipsenow]

My main point is that the woke left exacerbate the very thing they claim to be fighting against. For the most part, from what I've seen, moderate left wingers usually just turn a blind eye, severely downplay these incidents or they will sometimes even defend these people either by directly defending them or by redirecting attention away from them...​

This summary paragraph of the OP attempts to justify the logical fallacy of the entire post which is an argument strategy called 'tainting the pool'. Just raise a few ridiculous examples - then smear them around until your opponent's whole side sounds silly.

Of course these excessive 'woke' memes are ridiculous - especially comparing the Xenomorph in Aliens to black women. I mean, what on earth?

But hey, the right has the KKK or Proud Boys. Imagine if I just turned it around a little and said you right-wingers just turn a blind eye or severely downplay these incidents?

Oh, and before someone calls me a Socialist I'm Ordo-Liberal which is proudly centrist. It's just America is so far to the right these days even Joe Biden's policies look like something out of Australia's Liberal (conservative) party. But I'm glad to be Aussie - where Centrist actually means Centrist - and where Medicare is free to all Australian citizens and costs the nation about half what Americans pay for their healthcare.