Why does 'wokeness' annoy people so much?

[twwindow]

Isn't it just trying to make the world a better place but making people feel accepted no matter their race, gender etc?

It seems to wind some people up so bad - and it's usually those that are part of a majority group that gets wound up most by it (usually white/men) - is it because they feel threatened?

Whenever anyone stands up for a cause they are automatically called woke - and it's now as if it's a bad thing.

It's sad, I see people fed up with 'wokeness' as code for 'we can't get away with our racist, sexist BS anymore as people are calling us out'.

@JohnHuffam1812

"Trying to rename a game she created so it doesn't involve her is an effort to cancel"

Except for the fact that the main problem with the name is the copyright.

It isn't cancelling her, she still publishes, still is on twitter, her books are still on sale etc.

So your example doesn't count.

Try again?

Fucking hell 🤣🤣

Anyway if someone was successfully cancelled we would have forgotten them anyway ?

Cancel culture still exists even if it doesn't achieve its full goal and often shoots itself in the foot

"That's so naive"

Except history is kept in books, it isn't erased by the removal of a statue.

Most people might not read the books but that is where the history is kept.

Should we have kept the statue of Jimmy Savile? Kept the places that were named after him?

Should Germany have been made to keep statues of Hitler? Russia of Stalin? I mean we have forgotten those people completely haven't we .

Very poor argument.

Because it's so authoritarian.

@SportsMother don't bother. There's no point. Although I did just laugh out loud for the first time ever on MN.

"Do you think getting history off the streets and into books is a good thing?"

Yes because people looked at the statue of Colston and immediately googled him, and then researched why his statue was controversial.

Its utter stupidity to claim that we need to keep statues to stop history being eroded.

I used to proudly call myself woke because I thought it stood for being good and inclusive and aware of intersectional issues. And I think it was that, at first.

But gradually it got twisted, by social media I think. It became about performativity, virtue signalling but not actually being a good person. In fact, the woke became terrifyingly intolerant, ready to turn on anyone, even one of their own, if that person remotely said the wrong thing (or was percieved to have said the wrong thing). Threats, mob bullying, it was awful and if you suggested that it was wrong, you became the next victim of the mob. No room for discussion, nuance, it was 'repeat the mantra or be shamed'.

So that is why I no longer call myself woke. I still stand for all the things that I originally stood for, though.

@VladmirsPoutine

I love it when white Brits say the UK is 'MoRe tOlErAnT' than many other places. As though I should be absolutely grateful and doff my cap at them for not throwing bananas at me and calling me a monkey for merely asking where the closest station is.

But "woke" doesn't mean "anti-racist". People on the left use it to mean a very specific ideological set of beliefs about race, which are not necessarily considered progressive by all people of colour or scholars in that field either. It doesn't mean "being anti-racist", it means something more like: "white people who have decided their way of thinking about race is correct and progressive, and they'll shout everyone else down and call them bigots if they disagree, even if it's a black person disagreeing."

In a friend's university department many students, including students of colour, asked to study more works by black writers. Faculty members were delighted and started offering more courses on writers of colour. Then a large group of largely white students got up a huge petition claiming that it was racist for white academics to teach works by black writers, and no-one who wasn't black should be allowed to teach black writing because it was "cultural appropriation."
Result: all the courses on black writers were stopped and students of colour were massively disappointed. What kind of progressive thinking is that? Teaching a course on the history of black writing is not OK and appropriation, but white students dictating what black students should find racist is okay and not appropriation?

That's the kind of shouty, counterproductive, largely white and middle-class, faux-progressive politics that we're talking about - young people who have watched a TED talk on Di Angelo's "White Fragility"; and then think their opinion on what's anti-racist is the only possible one, and everyone else is a racist bigot.

Not sure there’s much more to say besides what’s been said already. But basically, women is a byword for hypocritical virtue signalling. By design, most work people do nothing except for trying to sound all caring and sharing. It’s a badge of honour to say the right things.
And your assertion OP, that only people offended by woke are white men is not true. Most BAME people mostly roll their eyes at those professionally offended on their behalf at things they themselves do mot find remotely offensive.

@HunterHearstHelmsley

Why laugh?

I'm right. JK Rowling has not been "cancelled" so its a really poor example.

@JohnHuffam1812

"Trying to rename a game she created so it doesn't involve her is an effort to cancel"

Except for the fact that the main problem with the name is the copyright.

It isn't cancelling her, she still publishes, still is on twitter, her books are still on sale etc.

So your example doesn't count.

Try again?

"Cancelling" doesn't mean that you lose everything.

It means that you are effectively excluded from 'polite society'.

J. K. Rowling is simply too successful to be entirely ignored. It's not like publishers can sell the enormously popular Harry Potter books by that other author, can they?

But her name has been all but removed from her own film. Mediocrities who owe their careers to her have tried to distance themselves from her. She is not expected to appear at upcoming Harry Potter 'reunion' events.

Because of her huge success, this probably isn't such a big deal to her. But if someone so wildly successful can be subjected to such public scorn, including from people who owe their careers to her, that surely is testament to the power of 'cancel culture'.

[quote JohnHuffam1812]@HunterHearstHelmsley

Why laugh?

I'm right. JK Rowling has not been "cancelled" so its a really poor example.[/quote]
You're not right. It's a perfect example of the attempt to cancel. Don't be so obtuse

I love all of the sweeping generalisations about "woke" here.

"You're not right. It's a perfect example of the attempt to cancel. Don't be so obtuse"

I am right.

Has JK Rowling's publishing contract been stopped? Can you still buy her books? Do the films still have her name on them?

Yes?

Then she hasn't been cancelled.

@VladmirsPoutine

I love it when white Brits say the UK is 'MoRe tOlErAnT' than many other places. As though I should be absolutely grateful and doff my cap at them for not throwing bananas at me and calling me a monkey for merely asking where the closest station is.

Talk about take a comment and twist it to fit the narrative. Of course no one should be grateful for being treated with equality and respect as a fellow human being ?? Where did any post say that? But of course, the point still stands that on the whole, we are not intolerant and racist (although again I will stress that there will always be ignorant people in all nations and walks of life)

As I said, deliberately obtuse.

Why is it being silly?
I thought it was a fair point - statues of those are rightly not on view on the streets, so why are statues of people who abused /mass murdered black people fine in some peoples eyes to be allowed up?

I'm right. JK Rowling has not been "cancelled" so its a really poor example.

I'd suggest not being invited to the HBO Special 20th Anniversary of the Potter Films was a pretty significant cancellation....

Stalin , hitter are still in peoples heads, those family histories that I mentioned , In movies, not just in books

The history in books is only ever a narrow viewpoint and any half decent historian would use as many resources as possible to understand the past

And if you read the history fully you would see that almost without exception there is no fully evil person

And tearing down statues of people because we now think they are bad is no different to hitler burning books of the people he thought were bad

We are just a moment in time . Those people were often doing the right thing by the knowledge that they had. You are blaming theM for the audacity of being born too long ago to know any better

But I hate that it's just become another stick to bash millennials and younger generations with. Old people hate young people trying to challenge order of things, even if it's trying to make positive change. Their non-woke system has worked well in favour of them. What if marginalised groups actually became equals? God forbid.

What a crock of absolute shit. Firstly, the people I know who are “woke” in terms of being intolerant to anyone who has a different view are the same age as me (40s). Secondly, nice bashing of anyone older than a millennial. We’re all dinosaurs, you know

And lastly, you assume we always accepted the status quo? We never fought or campaigned for anything? That the continued fight for acceptance of women as equals, or gay marriage, or anything else you see today and accept as the norm happened entirely by itself? No, of course not. We’re all bigoted dinosaurs liked things as they were, you see.

Agree with everyone else.

Virtue signaling number 1. They encompass all that is wrong with the internet and it’s impact.

They are doing it mainly from a place of trying to shame and condemn others. Whilst making out that they are so caring and considerate. If you challenge anything they don’t actually answer but just throw silly phrases out like ‘educate yourself’. Everything is so self-consciously done and it’s massively creeping into mainstream media.

The world to me has gone backwards 20 years because of this. It’s so divisive it’s unreal.

"I'd suggest not being invited to the HBO Special 20th Anniversary of the Potter Films was a pretty significant cancellation.."

And you know for sure that she wasn't invited?

That was all speculation.

However, even if she wasn't, its still not cancel culture, you can still buy her books and she publishes new ones.

@GoatInCaptivity

I'm right. JK Rowling has not been "cancelled" so its a really poor example.

I'd suggest not being invited to the HBO Special 20th Anniversary of the Potter Films was a pretty significant cancellation....

All you're going to get in response is... but, but,but....!!!