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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]MAGA stole the term and uses it negatively. Do they even know what it really means? It is simply someone who is informed, educated and conscious of social injustice, prejudice, oppression and inequality. So they dont want to be informed and educated? We are evil and wrong to be informed and educated about society? We let MAGA steal this word and use it negatively just like we let them steal the American flag as if it only represents them. [/quote]

Within the discipline of linguistics, there’s a longstanding and fundamental disagreement between so-called descriptivists and so-called prescriptivists. Descriptivists (tend to dominate academia) believe that language is how you use it; if the Latin fabulare evolves into Spanish hablar, so be it and that’s the order of things. Prescriptivists (who tend to dominate academia, say, professional editing and publishing) believe that there are “proper” standards that are rooted in some exogenous source of authority that determine what is right.

The take in this thread is a dumb melange of the two. It presupposes that the ungrammatical use of a transitive verb’s simple past form (wake —&gt; woke) may be permissibly substituted in place of a similar intransitive verb’s past passive participle (awake —&gt; awakened) when employed in the context of social commentary but that that same word may not permissibly carry a connotation ascribed to it by its skeptics. This is a “heads-I-win, tails-you-lose” argument manufactured to impose a progressive orthodoxy on a narrow slice of linguistics.

Surely those who welcome thoughtful critiques of power structures will recognize I am right![/quote]

It is easier to complain about MAGA use of woke than to admit that wokism was and is a tool of the elites used to strip power, including the most basic power of language, from the lower classes. It is and always was a movement designed to keep power centralized and to keep the working classes from unifying. [/quote]

Personally, I think elites’ arrogation of the right to revise rules of language is one of the more effective strategies they’ve pursued when you layer on the ease of gaslighting people who notice (“lol, triggered by pronouns much?”, “lol, yeah, it’s a real *war* on Christmas, okay bub”, “the word ‘partner’ is simply more inclusive, not a big deal”)[/quote]

PP here and I agree. The use of woke to police language was and is an extremely effective strategy the elite used and still use to continue their repression of the working classes. Part of the anger and bewilderment from people like OP is that there has been a small reclamation of language from the wealthy elites. OP is angry that her linguistic tool of oppression is slightly less effective than it used to be. [/quote]

Spot on[/quote]

Genuinely asking - how does being aware of offensive, racist, misogynistic, homophobic language repress the working class? [/quote]

I’ll answer you seriously since you seem to be genuinely asking. The issue is that what you call “being aware” turns into significantly class-coded language used to exclude when wielded by people in power. And the language is mystifying at times: terms like “lived experience,” “micro aggressions,” “neopronouns,” “allyship,” “unhoused,” etc are not commonly spoken outside of comparatively wealthy circles. Fluency in these terms is required for access to higher education, many jobs, etc. but they are class-coded terms. So, woke language is essentially and roughly the US’s version of the professor in “My Fair Lady.” It keeps people in their place and makes class structures rigid. And lack of that language is rigorously policed. What happens when a working class dad goes to the local school board to protest various policies on behalf of his daughter? He can’t even finish his speech because he doesn’t even know the right language to get in the door.

I’ll note that no defender of woke has addressed why labor-defeating giants like Amazon embraced woke so thoroughly. Did you ever stop to ask why the biggest and most powerful corporations in the world spend millions creating internal DEI groups and programs? But for all the many different affinity groups they have, they never seem to have a “Working Class Amazonians” group? Why is that? Because a “Working Class Amazonians” group would actually be called something else: Amazon Local Union 257. And Amazon and companies like Amazon don’t want that kind of DEI. They want the kind of DEI that pits people against each other, that makes Black employees not trust Asian employees who don’t trust LGBTQ employees etc.

Woke is a system that is designed to keep working class workers from trusting each other (thus defeating potential solidarity) and to keep a narrow knowledge class of workers on the top of the hierarchy. And in that role, it had absolutely excelled. 
[/quote]

You didn’t quite answer the question. Are you saying the working class is simply incapable of respecting others and so should be excused for any offensive behavior or language? Otherwise that would be repressing them?  [/quote]

Ah. You were not in fact genuinely asking. I’m sorry I wasted my time. What a waste of a potentially interesting discussion.

Oh well. I suppose I should have expected your level of discourse. I’m not sure you can comprehend what genuine discussion actually is. [/quote]

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