No, that’s not a good example at all. This is closer to Orwell’s Newspeak, in which the government makes a word mean its opposite in order to force a change to the way people think.

A more relevant example is the use of the term “fake news.” The term was originally coined to talk about Trump making up “facts” on the fly that were completely disconnected from reality. Then Trump started using the term to refer to news articles he didn’t like.

He was even asked at one point if by “fake news” he meant the story wasn’t true. He said no - he meant he thinks it’s not something the media should be talking about, true or not.

For his fans and for the media in general, it’s come to mean “false,” but that’s an inversion of the original meaning, which is that Trump was inventing “facts,” mutated to Trump thinking the media shouldn’t be reporting on his extensive dealings with Russians, and finally being interpreted as challenging whether those fully documented and verified meetings even really happened.

You're also not wrong, it is widely used on the right to discredit it.

I appreciate your thoughtful reply, and I hope you didn't feel like I was trying to act like you're a bad person or something. I've definitely done similar things, and glossed over origins. I guess I was just thinking about it, and trying to not minimize the history of it.

Also, considering black Americans are only something like 12% of the total population, of course more right wingers are using it because there's sadly apparently more shitty right-wing dinguses in the US than there are black people. Which means traditional use of "woke" is simply just drowned out by the right.

Anyway, cheers.

If it’s a feminist issue it’s a feminist issue.

If it’s a representation issue it’s a representation issue.

If it’s a systemic racism issue it’s a systemic racism issue.

I see how that makes sense on the surface. In effect, though, intersectionality is a vital thing to keep in mind.

Otherwise we end up fighting the same enemies separately, basically wasting time, energy and public attention by competing against each other when we should be cooperating.

'Woke' wasn't defended by the left b/c the AAVE community didn't want white people using it.

So the only white people that used it were the ones that didn't care about the opinions of black people.

I’d rather just call an issue what it is rather than create umbrella terms that encapsulate a variety of really complex topics.

while i like this approach of calling things by what they are, i dont know if it helps with the problem at hand or is even achievable.

critical race theory, while not necessairily being immediatly obvious in its meaning, is relatively specific and that still did not stop rightist from making it up to be some big evil. i doubt that even something direct like "fighting systemic racism" could not be coopted.

about the achievability, social justice causes have a very obvious relationship, highlighted even more by discussions of intersectionality. i think people will keep using umbrella terms cor these causes because they make it easier to communicated valued quickly and find people sharing these values.

...and that means we should just let them?

Because it seems about 800 or so people agreed with the statement in the OP, which is that "woke" is a garbage word only used by fascists.... which in itself is a statement that debases and undermines a right wing target (black history/AAVE). The original post is ostensibly written by a "leftist" based on the things they clearly support, but they're taking a black phrase with a long history, and saying only fascists use that word.

I'm saying the left is being complicit by letting them, and I don't think that's a good thing.