Comment by JumpCrisscross

6 days ago

> See how much pearl clutching you will get by southern “anti-woke” folks when someone imitates their voice

Graham’s point, generously, is you’ll always have pearl-clutching prigs. What matters is if they’re empowered.

> are very sensitive if you talk about their way of life or say anything that can be interpreted as anti-Christian

But they haven’t—until recently—had the power to e.g. end someone’s career or ability to perform in New York or San Francisco over it.

> Graham’s point, generously, is you’ll always have pearl-clutching prigs. What matters is if they’re empowered.

That idea gets very close to

https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/question/2009/march.htm

> “I am a middle-aged white person and even I know that blacks and other racial minorities cannot be racist, just like women can not be sexists. Racism equals power. Whites are not hurt by the everyday flow of society.”

I’m Black and I can go into a long rant about how I disagree with every word of that sentence.

But the Christian Right has had most of the power in the US for most of its existence until the rise of tech during the last 20 years. The entire crusade against “woke” is that demographic shifts are going to make the US a “minority majority” country within our lifetimes and that people who were usually in the shadows are now able to speak out.

  • > the Christian Right has had most of the power in the US for most of its existence until the rise of tech during the last 20 years

    I’d argue their power fell earlier, with the Civil Rights movement: we’ve seen almost monotonic decreases in Christian religiosity since [1]. (It’s currently in a generational peak. I don’t know if that’s a last gasp of their boomers or something deeper.)

    > The entire crusade against ‘woke’ is that demographic shifts are going to make the US a ‘minority majority’ country within our lifetimes and that people who were usually in the shadows are now able to speak out

    I think it’s about as unfair to paint the rejection of “wokeness” like this as it is to paint every progressive policy as woke.

    [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/how-u-s-reli...

    • > I’d argue their power fell earlier, with the Civil Rights movement: we’ve seen almost monotonic decreases in Christian religiosity since

      Unfortunately between the way that Electoral College, gerrymandering and 2 Senators per state works, the religious right has far more influence than their population would call for.

      I’m not saying that last years election was caused by that. It was mostly because of the ineptitude of the Democrat party