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I don't think that's what woke means.

Woke to me in the simplest sense if a form of extreme egalitarianism, collectivism with some blank-slatism.

Let's take your example: poor and Black people don't live on LI with equal representations based on other groups. Let's unpack that:

1. You have some definition of "Black" that's very broad. What does someone from Sub-Saharan Africa whose ancestors came here on a slave boat have to do with a 0 generation Nigerian immigrant who is significantly better off than the median American? Then you have the whole "Brown" category which is equally ham-fisted.

2. Ignoring any differences in group preference and autonomy. There could be no reason that the proportion of said group would be unequal in that area if not for some force outside of their control. You ask why aren't there enough of [group] in some extremely competitive professional field, but you don't work backwards. For instance, federal judges -> prestigious law school graduates -> prestigious undergrad graduates -> high school graduates -> parents in home. Woke ignores the chain and usually just jumps to the end result. Of course this is ignored in some domains. No one argues that prisons are overly harsh (lenient) on men (women) when it comes to criminal punishments relative to each other. Or why are there so many central / South Americans in MLB. It's uncritical.

3. Groups are the organizing force (collective guilt). [Oppressor] group did this to [oppressed group] so we need to change the balance of power of [oppressed group] in relation to [oppressed group], when in reality there are only individuals.

Overall, things are simplified to oppressed vs oppressor. It's an oversimplification and leads to bad things like shutting down accelerated math programs because we don't like the makeup of the student body

OK, so you reject the claim that systemic racism had any effect that can be meaningfully attributed (I guess sort of like how you cant blame climate change for the exact nature of a specific hurricaine). I see you carefully sidestep the instantly-disqualifying claims of "genetic inferiority" as the cause of racial disparity and instead claim..... "group preference"? or "what does Black really mean, anyway?" (what was the Civil Rights movement about, exactly? What does "Colored" mean in this sign? https://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/22/opinion/greene-racial-sig... who really knows, right? ) Black people "preferred" to live in poorer neighborhoods and to not buy houses in Levittown back when everyone was doing so?

> so you reject the claim that systemic racism had any effect that can be meaningfully attributed

I claimed that it's not the sole contributor. I don't think we have laws anymore that target one group over another. There are some that disproportionally impact certain groups, but that's my entire point. You can't look at the end result.

> genetic inferiority

I'm not very interested in genetic differences among groups, because I reject the whole "groups" thing all together. So why would I talk about it? But I guess if you do look at groups, cultural similarities are more obvious than genetic differences. And those are driving most of the differences IMO

> what was the Civil Rights movement about, exactly? What does "Colored" mean in this sign?

Correct, it was equally wrong to group people based on "Colored" back then as it is now. I'll also add that back then there was a lot less immigration so the group made slightly more sense (uniform), but it was still wrong.

so now that jim crow is over, redlining is over, and legalized discrmination is...."over", so to speak, generation upon generation of Black people (the people who were referred to as "colored" in that photo) have been denied generational wealth and prosperity, we now deem that whatever problems the Black community has, are disconnected from any of that. Impossible to pin down factors like "group preference" are why Black communities continue to be so segregated, why the community has a dramatically higher rate of incarceration, poorer academic outcomes, poorer health outcomes...we can never know how much 400 years of institutional oppression had to do with that vs. simple "group preference". Attempts to observe any of these factors as potential causes are deemed as "Wokeness" and giant multinational corporations are run by zealots who seek to eradicate any such "wokeness" who are also cheered on by Hacker News readers similarly tired of this bothersome "wokeness". 400 years of institutional oppression simply can't be separated from random group preference, and that's why it should be illegal to even question this conundrum.

>in reality there are only individuals.

Man, HN is really bought in on treating subjective value judgements as universal laws.

I’m always impressed how you get a wall of text trying to break down an argument …. They always feel like the same kind of reductivism, and they always have a very, very similar political direction.

You missed some causes here: federal judges -> prestigious law school graduates -> prestigious undergrad graduates -> high school graduates -> parents in home -> blacks and black neighborhoods far more often to be policed and jailed -> private jails allow legal slavery etc etc

Also, missed - federal judges -> prestigious law school graduates -> prestigious undergrad graduates -> parents rich -> etc etc.

You work backwards until you get an answer you like, it seems.

totally. woke means awareness, being aware of unfairness based on race, gender, sexual preference, being different, etc. So if you're "anti-woke" - you what, want to maintain all the prejudice and inequality in our country?

This guy is smart on so many levels but maybe needs to check himself out on this one.

Yes, that's before the term got corrupted. If you've spent any time in the depths of brainrot mass social media (or know anyone in bigcorp HR), you'll find that there are some large cohorts out there who have taken this to an extreme that looks exactly like that type of racism but "flipped." The masses are struggling to imagine a more fair society rather than seeking revenge.

> I dont even know what "anti-wokeness" means.

It's the Current Thing you're intended to be mad at so that your attention won't be on other things.

> is it the claim that none of that documented, well known systemic racism for decade after decade, after 300 years of slavery, actually matters and the real reason for racial disparities is genetics or something?

Yes, exactly.

“Anti-woke” is racism, homophobia, misogyny and a whole lot more vile attitudes repackaged with newspeak.

Woke is more the opposite of what you point out.

This is a better example: https://www.reddit.com/r/UBC/comments/197gid8/segregated_bla...

It’s weaponizing people emotions and instinct to want to “be a good person” to push policies that are actually harmful to the people they claim to care about.

All this to say I still think Karp is corny.

It's not the opposite, it's kind of both. It stands for good things (awareness of inequality) - but it has landed in a place where it is perceived by people as having a prescriptive or condescending tone. This is largely because of the way the right has twisted and co-opted it.

That's the new, corrupted, propagandistic form of the term. It's not what it really means at all.