Comment by Larrikin
5 days ago
Anyone using the term woke in 2025 is using the term in bad faith and to create the bogeyman you describe.
It's actually hard to find the time when anyone on the left actually used it. Seems like it was a little under a year and the term was dropped to be more specific actions.
I like this take: https://web.archive.org/web/20230404013504/https://freddiede...
I think it's a farce to suggest that no one out there could be accurately described by it (identity politics being more important than class, language policing, etc)
Reading and understanding the article beyond the title, it's just a term that used to be called something else before, and will be called something else in the future. I think you're focusing too much on the actual word, rather than the "movement", which is what pg's article is really about.
The point is that anyone using the term woke is using it in bad faith or if they think they are not using it offensively then it's poorly researched.
Most ironically, this point can be aptly applied to the post expressing it.
So anyone discussing/posting thoughts about "woke" and "wokeness" are using it in bad faith? Would it matter if the person puts a positive or negative spin on it, or are some topics just straight up "no no" to discuss?
Seems like we should aim to critique the content of articles, not just critique the usage of a single word. But you do you.
6 replies →
Part of the problem here is that while there's a set of social and political attitudes that really do exist, a lot of the people who practice them are very reticent to label themselves, preferring to claim either that they occupy the whole space of compassionate legitimate political practice, or that they have nothing in common with other groups who are (from an outside eye) very similar.
I like Freddie deBoer's 2023 definition, which at least is framed from a left-wing point-of-view rather than the aggressive and weaponised right-wing framing:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230404013504/https://freddiede...
You obviously didn't read the article. He calls out how virtue signallers quickly change what the rules are around which word are OK.
Here is someone who you may or may not consider to be a far right bad actor explaining what woke is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHLd8de6nM
The VP famously used it half a dozen times in this short clip. [1] It was apparently well-known enough of a term that she didn't define it.
IIRC usage didn't really drop off until 2020 or after. That was when conservatives started using the term in a negative way and progressives abandoned it.
1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53A6wcgbxEM
Kamala Harris said everyone should be more woke. Racial inequities were one of the pillars of the Biden Campaign and administration. So yes the Left was still using Woke quite a bit, until Right coopted to make it clear its actually negative