Wokeness Political Poison?

I am wondering when the term "woke" was first brought up. It seems like a pre-Trumpian political term, because I don't really recall the term being used prior to 2016. Wouldn't the right wing equivalent be a born again christian or something? The Right like to use the word "awakening" a lot.

Overall, I think wokeness will hinder rather than help the centre left. If you pander to inner city votes over regional votes and your political system gives proportionate representation to rural areas, you will certainly lose an election.

Doesn't work in proportional representation either.
 
I don't think anyone wants to see Mitch McConnell in a wet T-shirt?

I'd have paid Hugh for Clinton pics in the day, I'd look up Mitch in a wet t shirt.

Ah, yet another US term imported across the world. Only now in the past 5 years or so has it taken hold, at least here in Australia.

Well, annoying middle aged white people started saying it here around then too.

Interestingly enough, with representation, all the census people seem convinced they undercounted everything rural for the next ten years.
 
I am wondering when the term "woke" was first brought up. It seems like a pre-Trumpian political term, because I don't really recall the term being used prior to 2016. Wouldn't the right wing equivalent be a born again christian or something? The Right like to use the word "awakening" a lot.

Overall, I think wokeness will hinder rather than help the centre left. If you pander to inner city votes over regional votes and your political system gives proportionate representation to rural areas, you will certainly lose an election.
Been in use since early 2010s
 
Wiki says:

The phrase "stay woke" had emerged in the United States by the 1930s. Developing within African-American Vernacular English, "woke" referred to an awareness of the social and political issues affecting African Americans, especially with regards to racial prejudice and discrimination. In this form it appeared in various contexts, for instance in songs by Lead Belly and Erykah Badu.​
So, it seems to be a term culturally appropriated by american radicals to sway stupid people....deserves to be thoroughly mocked
 
So, it seems to be a term culturally appropriated by american radicals to sway stupid people....deserves to be thoroughly mocked

Don't you mean culturally appropriated by the US right to mock anyone who raises an issue they disagree with?
 
Don't you mean culturally appropriated by the US right to mock anyone who raises an issue they disagree with?
No. I should have added "when applied to white people" (was going to EDIT but you replied first). The term seemed to apply to the African American experience (and given when it arose, pre civil rights to boot), not to any, post 2000 whitey "ally". Seems demeaning when applied more broadly

EDIT seems to me the opposite would be calling white people who work for "slave wages" the N word
 
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For a while, a few years ago, "virtue-signaling" was the issue. Before that, it was "do-gooders". Now it's "wokeness". This is within about a decade. I don't remember how people denigrated endeavors to solve or merely talk about solving social problems in the early 2000s, but I assume they've been at it since the Stone Age. You could try to make concessions so that conservatives stop using mean language, but when do you think they'd be satisfied?

I don't think there's an equivalent contemporary term to that serves to stunt scientific development. That's a nice thought.
 
No. I should have added "when applied to white people" (was going to EDIT but you replied first). The term seemed to apply to the African American experience (and given when it arose, pre civil rights to boot), not to any, post 2000 whitey "ally". Seems demeaning when applied more broadly

EDIT seems to me the opposite would be calling white people who work for "slave wages" the N word

I've yet to meet anybody who would describe themself as woke. Seems to me its yet another invention of the right.
 
I've yet to meet anybody who would describe themself as woke. Seems to me its yet another invention of the right.
It's not an invention of the right. Unfortunately. It's a self-inflicted wound. I have no doubt that it has ancient origins, but it was initially introduced into the recent mainstream consciousness by the left as a self-congratulatory, self-appointed label.

As in a "you need to get woke!" type thing when someone was referring to a new standard the other person they were talking down to hadn't quite got on board with yet. It was cringeworthy, even then. I totally understand how it got appropriated by the Right in a derogatory way, because it was just begging to be made fun of.

Unfortunately, IMO, it hasn't died, & is an albatross on The Left's neck. I'm old enough to remember when Tipper Gore (Al's wife, both paragons of The Left) was pushing "Parental Advisory" labels on CDs, which, naturally, only made those CDs more popular.

We tend to think of The Moral Majority as being right-wing puritans, but far too often the left is just as bad. IMO, of course. Which is unfortunate, & just hurts the overall cause.
 
It's not an invention of the right. Unfortunately. It's a self-inflicted wound. I have no doubt that it has ancient origins, but it was initially introduced into the recent mainstream consciousness by the left as a self-congratulatory, self-appointed label.

As in a "you need to get woke!" type thing when someone was referring to a new standard the other person they were talking down to hadn't quite got on board with yet. It was cringeworthy, even then. I totally understand how it got appropriated by the Right in a derogatory way, because it was just begging to be made fun of.

Unfortunately, IMO, it hasn't died, & is an albatross on The Left's neck. I'm old enough to remember when Tipper Gore (Al's wife, both paragons of The Left) was pushing "Parental Advisory" labels on CDs, which, naturally, only made those CDs more popular.

We tend to think of The Moral Majority as being right-wing puritans, but far too often the left is just as bad. IMO, of course. Which is unfortunate, & just hurts the overall cause.

Again though it was introduced to the mainstream by the right, hardly anyone heard or used it until Fox and the like started doing so.
 
Again though it was introduced to the mainstream by the right, hardly anyone heard or used it until Fox and the like started doing so.
I am not sure that is an accurate description, and it is one that wikipedia disagrees with:

The phrase "stay woke" had emerged in the United States by the 1930s.
Black American folk singer-songwriter Huddie Ledbetter, a.k.a. Lead Belly, uses the phrase near the end of the recording of his 1938 song "Scottsboro Boys"
J. Saunders Redding recorded a comment from an African American United Mine Workers official in 1940, stating: "Let me tell you buddy. Waking up is a damn sight harder than going to sleep, but we'll stay woke up longer."
Woke had gained more political connotations by 1971 when the play Garvey Lives! by Barry Beckham included the line: "I been sleeping all my life. And now that Mr. Garvey done woke me up, I'm gon' stay woke. And I'm gon help him wake up other black folk."

Following the shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, The phrase stay woke was used by activists of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement to urge awareness of police abuses.[28][10] BET's documentary "Stay Woke," which covered the movement, aired in May 2016.
The phrase Stay Woke became an Internet meme, with searches for "woke" on Google surging in 2015.

In November 2016, the singer Childish Gambino released the song "Redbone", which used the term "stay woke" in reference to infidelity.
The more negative connotations and right wing take up is much more recent:

[In 2020] Writer and activist Chloé Valdary has stated that the concept of being woke is a "double-edged sword" that can "alert people to systemic injustice" while also being "an aggressive, performative take on progressive politics that only makes things worse."
By at least early 2020, figures on the political right were criticising what they termed "woke culture," with right-leaning media sources increasingly using the term "woke" as a pejorative.​
 
I am not sure that is an accurate description, and it is one that wikipedia disagrees with:

The phrase "stay woke" had emerged in the United States by the 1930s.
Black American folk singer-songwriter Huddie Ledbetter, a.k.a. Lead Belly, uses the phrase near the end of the recording of his 1938 song "Scottsboro Boys"
J. Saunders Redding recorded a comment from an African American United Mine Workers official in 1940, stating: "Let me tell you buddy. Waking up is a damn sight harder than going to sleep, but we'll stay woke up longer."
Woke had gained more political connotations by 1971 when the play Garvey Lives! by Barry Beckham included the line: "I been sleeping all my life. And now that Mr. Garvey done woke me up, I'm gon' stay woke. And I'm gon help him wake up other black folk."

Following the shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, The phrase stay woke was used by activists of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement to urge awareness of police abuses.[28][10] BET's documentary "Stay Woke," which covered the movement, aired in May 2016.
The phrase Stay Woke became an Internet meme, with searches for "woke" on Google surging in 2015.

In November 2016, the singer Childish Gambino released the song "Redbone", which used the term "stay woke" in reference to infidelity.
The more negative connotations and right wing take up is much more recent:

[In 2020] Writer and activist Chloé Valdary has stated that the concept of being woke is a "double-edged sword" that can "alert people to systemic injustice" while also being "an aggressive, performative take on progressive politics that only makes things worse."
By at least early 2020, figures on the political right were criticising what they termed "woke culture," with right-leaning media sources increasingly using the term "woke" as a pejorative.​

When did you first hear the term?
It may have been used before but I never heard it before 2020.
 
When did you first hear the term?
It may have been used before but I never heard it before 2020.
It was pretty commonly used here in 2019, the search function is not very good for answering when it became common. These certainly do not prove its use on the left was more prolific than its use on the right at that point, but do show that is was used and expected to be understood.

Broke: losing the delusions of their childhood between how the world is and how they would like it to be

Woke: losing the delusions of their childhood between how the world is and how they would like it to be, but realising the world doesn't have to be that way
Social media wasn't such a thing when Bush was around.

SJW posers on Twitter think their perception of reality is more important than the underlying causes. Gotta collect those likes and woke points. You can store them in a jar. Or your phone.
 
Off the top of my head, I'd estimate that I've been hearing the term "woke" used reasonably widely for 5 or so years now. And it's mainly been used negatively during that time. I can't really remember people describing themselves as woke.
 
It was pretty commonly used here in 2019, the search function is not very good for answering when it became common. These certainly do not prove its use on the left was more prolific than its use on the right at that point, but do show that is was used and expected to be understood.

Hmmm, I probably did read it in 2019 then.
Still, I'd argue that it entered the mainstream mainly as a term of abuse used by right-wingers to cover almost any left-wing or liberal opinion.
 
I'd agree. Outside of very specific social media demographics, I've (anecdotally) only seen it become more mainstream as a right-wing pejorative for basically anything they don't like.

It gets used here in mainstream press thats not right wing nutjob type.

Used in similar way to "being PC" or whatever. Usually aimed at the Greens for example over Labour.

Examples same site/author.

https://i.stuff.co.nz/life-style/li...k-of-forgiveness-only-destroys-its-own-voices

https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/poli...ashing-might-be-fun-but-it-wont-win-elections

Essentially she's arguing if you go to far one way or the other you lose. The center tends to get annoyed at extreme woke or right wing nutjob types.

See progressives lack of progress in the states outside saphire blue states, Trump alienating everyone outside his devoted.

The Greens are always going to be a minority party here because they only appeal to the hardcore left (mostly urban liberal females aged 18-40 or so). If the big parties screw up badly the minor parties can creep up around 10% with a high of 13% on election day. Even then they can only peel votes off the main left/right party. Nationals doing so bably ACT has gone from sub 1% up to 10-12%.

USA they don't win the center or purple states. And on American terms losing an election can have terrible consequences.
 
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It gets used here in mainstream press thats not right wing nutjob type.

Used in similar way to "being PC" or whatever. Usually aimed at the Greens for example over Labour.
I didn't say far-right, I said just "right-wing". The press can be both mainstream and (culturally) right-wing. We have some examples of it here - the Telegraph isn't the Daily Mail or some other rag, it's meant to be a reputable and historical paper (emphasis on "meant to be"). But it's quite often called the "Torygraph" because of how closely it aligns with the party (specifically, more than any other party) ideologically.
 
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