Buddy I’m not falling for your pivot from “innocently quoting wikipedia” to your sudden interest in “the left hates whites” discourse. Nobody is required to rehash /pol/ debates.
You gave yourself away with the clown world stuff. Oops!
You gave yourself away with the clown world stuff. Oops!
I don't believe the left hates whites. Where did you get that from?
When I was referring to the clown world stuff, I was talking about the extreme side of the left (which I'm assuming is where you stand?).
It was not a sudden interest either, it was in response to your (apparently misguided) theory that "woke" was an artificially constructed pejorative, rather than a term that was positive but simply became negatively associated due to these extreme cases becoming more common (or at least, more visible) in the past decade.
Look, I have just as much criticism about the right (especially the far right, of course) as the left, OK? Including overt racist behavior and narratives. We can definitely talk about that if you want!
I was just following the conversation, nothing more.
For example, this poster brought up “anti-white racism” from the left unprompted, but is claiming to be just “following” a conversation that they both started and steered. The tactic of claiming to be misunderstood is the first move. Claiming persecution is the next one.
This is how you end up with pointless, awful arguments with people with terrible opinions! Don’t touch the poop!
1. I believe that there are many more racist right-wing people than left-wing people, both in the US and outside, even when excluding the far-right.
2. I believe there is a significant problem with racism in the way black people are treated in the US, especially regarding law enforcement, courts, prisons, etc. As far as I understand, this is not as much of a significant issue with other races (but I am willing to concede I am wrong on that).
3. I believe that there is a lot of unjustified right-wing narratives portraying black people as being more violent.
4. I believe that a lot of the anti-immigration sentiment is also in part due to racism.
5. I believe that another significant issue with racism in the US is the way black people (and also people from other non-white races) are effectively segregated, either due to a significant fraction of them not being able to live in the same places as white people, or simply due to historical reasons.
6. I also believe that the latter is in fact, the single greatest contributor to all racist problems in the US, rather than some other insignificant (manufactured) issues. However, I also believe that this issue is vastly harder to solve in the US than in other countries.
Does that sound Nazi to you?
It seems like you felt personally attacked by my opinions.
As you can see, I can just as easily attack right-wing ideology... and mean it!
(See folks, my comments are an example of how not to make friends of any kind... lol).
This poster started off with pointing out the importance of the orthodoxy of using the term “woke” in line with the right wing culture warriors. It’s prescriptive that you use the same words they do.
When called out, they made the mistake of using dogwhistle phrasing (“clown world“ is very specific to one group) that you don’t really see much outside of /pol/ and its ilk and in threads where those folks bravely venture out to try to leak /pol/ chat to other forums.
So now the dogwhistle has been sounded.
Poster gets called out. Knowing that they’re losing credibility, there is a panicked attempt to gain support from people that already support this garbage.
Poster deploys other, louder and more transparent signal, (apropos of literally nothing) “the left is racist against whites”!
Somehow we have teleported from “I’m just sharing a wikipedia link” to “anti-racism is racism” and we are meant to believe with a straight face that that’s the logical next step in this conversation.
(As an aside, I almost never hear “whites” outside of a context wherein someone is airing a grievance on behalf of the group that’s otherwise known as “white people”. Another red flag!)
This appeal fails.
Poster gets called out again. This time they change tack, now it’s a “misunderstood” play. Damage control.
Poster gets called out for the obvious “misunderstood” play. Poster doubles down. And again and again.
Finally, poster abandons their position and falls back to “saying stuff they think will ingratiate you to them.” This is an extension of the “I’m misunderstood! I just use far right terms while describing far right talking points after hopping into a discussion to enforce adherence to a far-right definition of a common term!”
If you want to understand how this stuff degrades communication, just believe your gut.
WTF. I don't even know what you're talking about. What the hell is /pol/?
I learned about the "clown world" term on Twitter. And apparently, its meaning is not even what I thought it was, according to another poster.
Sorry for striking down one of your absurd theories once more.
> As an aside, I almost never hear “whites” outside of a context wherein someone is airing a grievance on behalf of the group that’s otherwise known as “white people”
I am not a native English speaker, so sorry for not knowing about all the connotations of how words are used in your country. Whites/white people. It's all the same to me (in my native language, at least).
I didn't even know "woke" had such negative connotations, until I went and quoted that from Wikipedia (which is why I clarified that I didn't mean it pejoratively).
> poster abandons their position and falls back to “saying stuff they think will ingratiate you to them.”
What are you even talking about? How did I abandon my position?!
And how the hell am I ingratiating myself to whoever is reading when I clearly criticized and almost certainly pissed off both right-wingers and left-wingers?!
Let me say it again so that it's crystal clear to you:
1. Anti-white racism is racism.
2. There are more racist right-wing people than left-wing people, even when excluding the far-right.
3. Anti-black racism is a much more prevalent (and therefore significant) issue than anti-white racism.
Believe it or not, I hold all of these opinions at the same time. Mind-blowing, right?
I'm sorry that you don't believe that it's possible for someone to have all these opinions or that you think they are "poop" (using your term) or whatever the hell you think.
I think you have severe issues, to be honest.
And it's clear to me that I've been wasting my time trying to engage and have a constructive conversation with you, so don't expect any more responses from me.
This poster that has just only learned of the word “woke” according to them but also wants to educate folks about it has a lot to say in other threads!
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34415794
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34418890
The only reason why I’m revisiting this is to point out that they have (as I’ve pointed out) gone through with the natural pivot from misunderstood to persecuted. It’s a very simple playbook that can be followed by anyone. It gets kind of like the fedex arrow once you notice it!
The biggest part of this color-by-numbers silliness is the demand at every step that the opponent debates their positions (which involves re-stating them). If a far right person refuses to expand on their position and demands that you explain why they’re wrong, you’re looking at bait! Namaste!
I only just learned about how the term is used as an insult in your language. Again, I'm not from your country, so we don't necessarily use it the same way here (as an imported word), capiche?
But apart from the word itself, we do have definitely imported the same ideology here, as well as the crazies who take it to an extreme. I'm not saying they're like you, but I'm not saying they're not, either.
(We have many right-wing crazies too, mind you! I'm not saying only the lefties have crazies)
So again, I used "woke" as a shorthand for the ideology. It's a word I have seen used many many times before, just like any other English word you can pick from any of my comments. The term "woke" is used in contexts such as this one to describe this type of ideology, in many countries including the US.
Hell, look at how this word is used in the Vice article this HN post is about. Does that mean the Vice article is insulting all woke people, since it's using that word and that word is now an insult?
Or perhaps is it that "woke" is not always used as an insult, but it has been (and still continues to be) simply used to describe this ideology, despite of the negative connotations it has apparently acquired recently?
This is something you would likely understand if you were actually trying to make any effort whatsoever.
Does all of this mean I can't educate someone on what the word means (i.e. its usual meaning), especially when I have access to sources of truth about the definition of the word in your language? A word, again, that has been exported to many other countries and languages... like wifi, sandwich or shampoo.
Note that I'm not insisting on using the term "woke". I can see that it triggers some people, so I'm not likely to use it as much in the future. I only care about discussing the ideology itself, I don't really care what the hell it's actually called, be it in your language or any other.
That said, obviously it's good to have clear names (especially without negative connotations) to describe concepts, otherwise it's hard to have constructive dialogues.
As you can see from other posts, even when the definition of a term is clear, some people still misunderstand you.
> If a far right person refuses to expand on their position and demands that you explain why they’re wrong, you’re looking at bait!
Look out, there's another person behind you who doesn't believe in racism (including against white people)!
Which means, he is far, far-right, obviously!
Oh God, the horror! Careful, he might bite you!
If you’re not a far right troll, you gain nothing by trying to prove it [1].
[1] IF you’re not a far right troll
Edit: FWIW I don’t believe you when you say “your language,” hence the [1]. “Capisce” is too specific a colloquialism to American English.
Well, I like to give someone the benefit of the doubt when discussing these kind of contentious issues (up to a limit, of course). It has served me well in the past (here on HN, for example), and I've learned things that I wouldn't have learned otherwise (from people who hold different opinions than mine).
I also get bothered when I'm accused of something that I'm not, obviously. It's not always easy to move on when someone is saying blatantly false statements about you, as you can imagine.
> FWIW I don’t believe you when you say “your language,”
My native language is Portuguese. I was born and raised in Portugal and lived there well until after I was an adult. All of my family and all my childhood friends are Portuguese.
I learned English very early in my childhood, as part of my formal education, due to US cultural exports (i.e. Hollywood movies and TV shows that are broadcast in Portugal without dubbing, i.e. they have always been subtitled and therefore it's much easier to learn the language and become fluent in it) and due to my early childhood interest in programming.
I've always read lots of English prose, especially related to computers and programming (magazines, articles, documentation, websites, Youtube videos, source code, etc, etc). Almost all of this content is from the US, as you can imagine.
I've worked for a few US companies (mostly multinational ones, think FAANG-level) for many years, had many coworkers from all over the world (including many from the US) and always worked remotely, so both oral and written communication has always been in English.
Both due to my professional work and as a tourist, I've spent many months in the U.S., in total (close to a year).
Well into my adulthood, I've also lived for more than a decade in Spain, so I'm also a fluent Spanish speaker.
Also, for many years (perhaps since I started working) I've been reading and listening to way, way more English content than in the other languages I'm a fluent speaker of. This includes Hacker News and other news websites. It includes all media entertainment (Netflix, etc). For decades, I have stopped bothering to find Portuguese or Spanish subtitles anymore for video content due to their mediocre quality or lost meanings, although I do try to put English ones when it's easy to do so.
As another example, I almost exclusively follow English-speaking Twitter accounts (although some Spanish ones as well).
All of this English content is way, way more interesting to me than what I can find in Portuguese or even Spanish. It's not even remotely comparable.
I also don't bother at all with translations from English content which, when they exist at all (well, nowadays there is automated translation, but still), are inevitably mediocre or incomplete due to the much smaller vocabulary in these languages or simply due to the incompetent or error-prone translations.
So to summarize, it would be fair to say that you have culturally captured me :)
It's OK if you don't believe me, but there you have it anyway.