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How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?

economist.com

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Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?

#661

Post by GordonS »

twic wrote: post #356
ukoki wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today, young English speakers are trying to popularize "they" as an English neuter pronoun, and it's not too absurd: we already use "they" this way when the gender of the person is unknown. I can understand why 'they' is chosen as a way to introduce neutrality of gender but it pains me that this also introduces of ambiguity of plurality. We _really_ need a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun. We're lucky t…

singular: they plural: theys

Somewhat similar, here in Scotland we often say "youse" to mean "you and those with you", or "youse two" to mean "you two".

A similar concept exists in Mandarin Chinese, where "ni3" means "you" and "ni3men" to mean "you and those with you", but there is also "ta1" as a gender-neutral, singular "they" (that is, he/she), and "ta1men" as a gender-neutral, plural "they".

Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?

#662

Post by busymom0 »

BEEdwards wrote: post #633
rayiner wrote: post #549

Our political and cultural institutions are dominated by people who attended those elite schools. This is the next batch of folks who will be doing your IPO paperwork: https://freebeacon.com/campus/northwestern-law-administrator... Now it’s making the jump to K-12. My second grader is apparently learning how to develop an “identity” around her “skin tone” (according to an email from her teacher). This has had the pre…

>I went to a very white, quite red Virginia public school 30 years ago and nobody ever told me about brown skin being bad. Then you got very very lucky. It has been an issue for a very long time. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/apr/09/coloris... it was a problem long before the modern era. https://www.naacpldf.org/ldf-celebrates-60th-anniversary-bro... Preparing kids for the real world seems like a good…

I am brown and I can’t believe what the western countries are doing with going back to racial segregation days. Instead of teaching everyone to work hard snd accomplish hard things, they are being taught that they can’t achieve hard things because the boogeyman is stopping them. Victimhood doesn’t help kids. Even the most successful black and brown people like Lebron James who achieved what they did via working hard know this but they don’t want to teach that to the kids. It’s mind boggling. Now a days there’s literally no difference between a woke and a racist. Both believe in judging people by their skin color instead of the content of their character.

Relevant comedy skit:

https://youtu.be/Ev373c7wSRg

Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?

#663

Post by jensensbutton »

esja wrote: post #574
karmelapple wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a few concrete examples of large groups strongly advocating for equality of outcomes? I’ve had discussions about “equality” with folks aligned across the political spectrum, and most everyone agrees they want equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. I’m confused about who or what group is speaking about people desiring equality of outcome. And discriminating against other people because of their…

The word being used nowadays is "equity", and it's everywhere. Almost every large institution is pushing this. It explicitly means equal outcomes, not equal opportunities.

Equity absolutely does not means equal outcomes. According to Merriam Webster it means "fairness or justice in the way people are treated".

Seems more like you have conflated its meaning in reaction to a movement you don't like.

Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?

#664

Post by gmadsen »

yawaworht1978 wrote: post #327

It's just a shift from older, less flexible values like family, church etc to the more open minded approach, "do as you like". Nothing wrong with people having tattoos everywhere, green or violet hair, non conformist clothing and views. Let them be, let them express and find themselves. I am the shave every day suit kinda guy and will remain so, but if someone chooses to be different or wants to complain about new wo…

there is evidence that runs contrary to your last sentence

Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?

#665

Post by sokoloff »

karmelapple wrote: post #488
FiberBundle wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some, even most, of the goals of that movement are commendable, with the exception of the more idealistic goals such as equality of outcome. What I find worrying, however, are the tactics that are used to accomplish those goals. I find it hard to understand how people do not see how discriminating against other people because of their views is not the right approach to solve discrimination.

Do you have a few concrete examples of large groups strongly advocating for equality of outcomes? I’ve had discussions about “equality” with folks aligned across the political spectrum, and most everyone agrees they want equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. I’m confused about who or what group is speaking about people desiring equality of outcome. And discriminating against other people because of their…

I think people generally know enough to argue/speak in favor of equality of opportunity, but many of the actions appear to be “of outcome”.

In many cases, you can take a view (and craft an argument) that a particular action is one or the other, depending on whether or not you agree with it.

Take admission standards for colleges. Some colleges (at least as I understand it) are requiring higher SAT scores for Asians than other groups to consider students to be equally likely to be admitted. If you agree that’s good policy, you’re likely to argue that this represents increasing access to higher education for underrepresented non-Asian groups and therefore is an equality of opportunity measure. If you oppose it, you argue that those SAT scores represent a measure of the students’ demonstrated scholastic ability (an outcome at that point in time) and that perturbing those results is being done in an attempt to equalize these outcomes. (The truth is that it’s almost surely a mix of both.)

Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?

#666

Post by ip26 »

andrew_ wrote: post #564
rayiner wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids need to be socialized in the ideas and values that make their civilization successful. Critical thinking is one piece of that, but we focus too much on it in elite environs. We also need to teach kids to tend to the edifice of civilization we’ve built, not just how to tear pieces of it down.

This really struck a chord with me as a parent of two toddlers.

“Tear things down” is practically the toddler core competency!

Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?

#668

Post by busymom0 »

lemmsjid wrote: post #358
p0d wrote: post #340

As a christian I believe in mercy and grace. And yes, many of us 'believers' have not practised what we preached. Many of us do try however not to be hypocrites. Here's my question. Where is mercy and grace in the midst of wokeness? I want you to believe my christian message but I will not force you to do so. I don't want to introduce laws to force you to believe what I believe. I don't want you to lose your job beca…

I think the answer to your question is actually answered in your first paragraph. In the same way that you believe all Christians shouldn’t be judged by those who haven’t “practiced what they’ve preached”, consider that your understanding of “woke” people might be tainted by the fact that whatever media you are consuming might be focusing on the ones who also don’t practice what they preach. In other words, any movem…

It isn’t just the media. Here in Canada, the government literally passed the mathematics curriculum which claimed nonsense like “mathematics is subjective” and “mathematics is colonial”. I emailed them a long rant that I would rather ship my future kids to India for a better education instead of the nonsense they are teaching. So no, it isn’t just some media. Nor do I follow corporate news.

Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?

#669

Post by zpeti »

yawaworht1978 wrote: post #327

It's just a shift from older, less flexible values like family, church etc to the more open minded approach, "do as you like". Nothing wrong with people having tattoos everywhere, green or violet hair, non conformist clothing and views. Let them be, let them express and find themselves. I am the shave every day suit kinda guy and will remain so, but if someone chooses to be different or wants to complain about new wo…

Unfortunately this laissez fair approach is the exact opposite of modern wokeness. It’s their way or it’s attacks and cancellation. If you’re an oppressor class you have almost no way to be forgiven.

The easiest way to show this is just ask some woke stars on their views of libertarianism, which is literally to let everyone be themselves.

Re: How did American “wokeness” jump from elite schools to everyday life?

#670

Post by busymom0 »

notacoward wrote: post #600
lemmsjid wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the answer to your question is actually answered in your first paragraph. In the same way that you believe all Christians shouldn’t be judged by those who haven’t “practiced what they’ve preached”, consider that your understanding of “woke” people might be tainted by the fact that whatever media you are consuming might be focusing on the ones who also don’t practice what they preach. In other words, any movem…

Exactly. It's selection bias, ruthlessly exploited by people who have their own agenda and therefore an interest in focusing attention on the worst excesses of those who resist (continued) imposition of that agenda. What might that agenda be? Here's a hint. A certain "shadow docket" decision by the US Supreme Court has been in the news a bit lately. As it turns out, all five of the concurring justices are Catholic, a…

Selection bias? My province in Ontario literally changed the curriculum for mathematics claiming mathematics is subjective and colonial and all other woke nonsense. You mean to tell me I am not seeing what I am really seeing?
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