Seth CotlarJan 2, 2023
The central theme of this conservative journalist's reporting this year was organized around the made up ideological construct of "wokeness," that supposedly is the secret leftwing conspiracy that explains everything conservatives don't like in America...but yes, do go on about how the people you disagree with have been subjected to "ideological capture," as opposed to your rational self.
Show threadSeth Cotlar
This is a good history of how the term "woke," that began in Black cultural and political spaces, became reappropriated around 2020 by conservatives as a catch-all term for "changes and people I don't like." https://www.vox.com/culture/21437879/stay-woke-wokeness-history-origin-evolution-controversy
A history of “wokeness”

Stay woke: How a Black activist watchword got co-opted in the culture war.

Vox
Jan 2, 2023 at 3:43amPinafore
Show threadSeth CotlarJan 2, 2023
In the 70s & 80s, the conspiracy-addled conservative I'm researching, Walter Huss, looked around and saw a bunch of things he didn't like--gay rights activists, sex ed in schools, anti-racist children's television, calls for police reform, Roe v. Wade, renaming streets after MLK, pornography, etc.--and to his mind all of it could be explained as manifestations of "the communist conspiracy" and "the Jewish controlled media." So called "wokeness" plays a similar role for today's reactionaries.
Show threadbobocubedJan 2, 2023

@sethcotlar

Round and round we go...

Too bad people have such a short memory (and don't know their own history)

Show threadtoxtethogradyJan 2, 2023
@sethcotlar And I'll bet he thought there was a conspiracy afoot to deny him laetrile...
Show threadEschatonMidWestJan 2, 2023
@sethcotlar
For that matter I’ve been seeing Republicans openly calling Democrats and their policies as “Communist” more over the last few years than since the Red Scare years.
Show threadMark vWJan 2, 2023
@sethcotlar It's bigotry signaling.
Show threadCoach Pāṇini ®Jan 2, 2023
@sethcotlar #woke has been embedded in America’s culture for a long, long time https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/wokeness-as-old-time-american-religion
Wokeness as old-time American religion

An old, crusading faith returns.

Noahpinion
Show threadKathy E. Gill 🇺🇦Jan 3, 2023

@paninid @sethcotlar

The Vox explainer has more evidence than Noah’s opinion piece. And points out the long history of a word that has multiple meanings within the community that created it.

Like this:

Show threadDavid FarnellJan 2, 2023
@sethcotlar @Lazarou This is indeed why I’ve never wanted to use it myself, except in referencing others’ (mis)use of it. For myself, as a white American, I try to be “awake to systemic injustice.” Me saying woke in this sense would feel like (and be) an appropriation. And that appropriation and posturing by liberals is what led rightists to steal and twist it into a weapon, just like with so many other things.
Show threadPennyAK1Jan 2, 2023
@azzageddi I like that. And unlike "woke" you are actually describing what you believe in.
Show threadDr.Susan BushinskiJan 2, 2023
@sethcotlar it’s just like they call all@liberals/Dems groomers and pedophiles - it’s like they take catch all negative phrases or take catch all phrases period like “woke” to make it a bad thing