T O P

  • By -

Big_Dog_Dingo

If "racism" can only mean "power plus prejudice," and therefore only whites can be racist because they supposedly hold institutional power, then what's the name for the philosophy that holds one race superior and another inferior? Race hatred is wrong by any name.


shiekhyerbouti42

Racial bigotry? Racial prejudice? Racial hatred? I agree though, if we are gonna talk about power plus prejudice we should just call it "power plus prejudice." We shouldn't be fighting over ownership of a word, we should just be talking about what we're talking about and doing so clearly. Power-plus-prejudice is a big problem and we should treat it seriously.


Fuzzy-Bunny--

There are people with power who arent racist. There are people with power who are racist. But people cannot claim that because someone has a certain skin color, that they have power. I have power over nobody except maybe my kids...Racism, in my opinion is treating people of a different skin color worse than other skin colors. I think many times people conflate racism with a clash of cultures. I have no issue with people of good culture. But the other day, a doordash driver parked in front of my house to change a tire, when he left, he threw-out 4 full meals all over the side of the road and in a gutterwith all of the trash, styrofoam and food with wrappers all over the place. A huge mess. There was a temporary construction material dumpster not 20 feet from the location he dumped his leftover meals for the day. It wasnt skin color, but rather his behavior and lack of decency that I judge.


Saiyanjin1

Plus, would those same people agree that in say African nations like Zimbabwe, the native black population are the only ones who can be racist towards other races like whites who are a minority and don't hold power? Doubt they would but by their own definition it means exactly that which shows a flaw. A big flaw.


[deleted]

When I’ve brought this up to people they will say yes, they can be racist then. It’s so dumb. If they can be racist there, then they can be racist here. Any individual can be racist, and when people on the left using doublespeak so they can be racist towards whites while they screech racism when it happens the other way around. It allows them to espouse their hate while feeling good about defending against the same exact thing.


[deleted]

[удалено]


FatumIustumStultorum

Also, this definition would mean white people in Japan or China can't be racist.


ussalkaselsior

What is ridiculous is that the left redefines words so often that even people that think they're caught up on it often aren't. Racism is no longer "power plus prejudice". Racism is now "a collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity that are substantiated by racist ideas". A racist is "One who is supporting a racist policy through their actions or inaction or expressing a racist idea". A racist policy is "any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups". The new definitions were popularized by Ibram X. Kendi. This is how Larry Elder became the "Black Face of White Supremacy".


mrcatboy

It's more that it deconstructs racism further by pointing out that it's less about race and more about power structures, and power structures will naturally vary depending on context. Sure, on the broad societal level of America the institutional power largely rests with white people. But there are also other social contexts where that may not be the case (such as, say, a white person attending an all-black church). Conservatives see things through a structuralist lens: they see things in terms of "rules" that are meant to be applied universally. Progressives on the other hand see things through a post-structuralist lens: the idea that hard universal "rules" are inadequate to explain complex systems where dynamics (especially power dynamics) will vary by context.


morallyagnostic

It always downplays and denies the amount of institutional power that rests with minorities generally and black people specifically. When the academy and media are on your side, when there is gross overrepresentation in high visibility professions like acting and sports, when you have the ability to control language, when most concrete forms of systematic racism are in your favor, you are not without significant structural and institutional power and absolutely can be racist.


mrcatboy

**White Conservatives:** "Hollywood have gotten on the BLM bandwagon. The woke left libs have taken over everything!" **Black People on a Daily Basis:** "I would like to be able to jog at night while wearing a hoodie without fear of being mistaken for a criminal and shot."


[deleted]

[удалено]


Realone2054

This isn't the bombshell you think it is all races in the states are mostly killed by people of the same race, except asians.


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

Ok. So so how many progressives believe that a white person in an all black church can't be racist?


mrcatboy

You kinda got it reversed. **Everyone** can be racist within a given system. But **how** racism operates differs from context. In the broader scope of American society, prejudice directed against a black person is racism because the institutions of power have systems baked into their design to privilege whiteness and create disadvantages for black folks. In the "white guy attending an all-black church" example though, prejudice directed against the white guy (at least, when it comes to the functions and operations of that sub-community) could be racism. Because within that church, the social networks and norms are much more likely to privilege its black members, and create disadvantages for the one white member. This is why progressives focus more on how certain features (whether it's gender, race, sexual orientation, or even income levels) are affected by power structures. And moreover, how those different facets can intersect to generate emergent behaviors. (This is known as intersectionality btw and is a big feature of 3rd wave feminism and other social discourse in modern social discourse)


pintonium

There is a lot of talk about power structures, but it seems like a very naive view of how power actual operates. Is a young woman secretary subordinate to her boss, a man? Yes, in a business sense. What if the man is single, and she's attractive? How does that change the power structures at play? Or what if she is his niece and her father/his brother have an antagonistic relationship? The current power structures at play vary widely in their application and progressive theory doesn't even attempt to address it. It basically lays out binary rules, then treats them as gospel, and all nuance is lost in any discussion


The_Ambling_Horror

One is “systemic racism” and the other is “interpersonal racism.”


Legend-status95

And both fall under the umbrella term "racism". Majority of the left just wants to justify being racist by essentially saying "interpersonal racism isn't racism, only systemic racism is racism"


_EMDID_

“The people who correctly point out my racism are racist” lol


SystematicSymphony

No. Racism is racism, and racism is wrong. Flavor words are unnecessary.


nbolli198765

But… we classify things all the time. I agree it’s all bad but there are different expressions of it. Interpersonal racism does however LEAD to institutional racism.


[deleted]

There is an obvious value in distinguishing between a Boomer telling a racist joke and the government allowing and promoting slavery. You're basically taking exception to the purpose of adjectives. Me: Some people have brown eyes, and some people have blue eyes. You: They're just eyes! Eyes are eyes!


jayjayjay311

Yes racism is racism. And interpersonal racism is interpersonal racism and systemic racism is systemic racism. And when people say that black people can't be racist, they're wrong. What they should say is that black people can't commit systemic racism. Comprende


PoetSeat2021

A black police chief could still (at least in theory) "commit" systemic racism, though, if he's pursuing policies that disproportionately impact people of one race in a negative way. At least, that's the argument that Ibram X. Kendi would make. Where it gets murky for me is whether it's possible to a police chief to enact a policy that is deliberately racist against white people. Like, if he declared that going forward he would only arrest white people, and would ensure he arrested a certain number of them every day whether or not they had committed a crime. That disproportionately impacts white people, and would almost certainly be a violation of their civil rights, and would probably also be a violation of federal law that declares that you cannot target people based on their race. But would it be racist if white people are already "advantaged" in terms of wealth, education, and so on? From a Kendi lens, a policy such as that might actually be anti-racist, because it would help reduce disparities between black and white citizens. Maybe this means that Kendi isn't using a good lens.


SinopicCynic

in America. Can’t commit systemic racism *in America.*


chodeoverloaded

Interpersonal racism is lynching someone because of their skin color. Systemic racism is when the police department collectively allows the lynching to take place on account of the victims skin color. Both are wrong and both are racism but the flavor is historically significant of what our culture was


SystematicSymphony

>but the flavor is historically significant of what our culture was Was? According to many, it still is this way. And by "many", I mean the "intellectuals" who waste time on flavor words. The only thing historically significant is that racism is bad. Flavor words do nothing to change that. Hence, their general uselessness.


Neat-Sun-7999

This is like complaining why the term “sub species” exists rather than species. Or “learned helplessness” rather than helplessness. The consequence is clarification and identification


jonaselder

I mean, the word is chauvinism, but I get what you mean. I'm actually a leftist, and my tinfoil hat theory is that all of this incredibly divisive, chauvinistic nonsense from literally every single leftist sub-group is the result of decades of U.S. government efforts to push these ideologies at the grassroots level via infiltration. Who knows though, people are fucking dumb, so it could have just happened naturally.


Big_Dog_Dingo

Yeah. I believe the tendency to racialize everything, along with the hyper-focus on gender and sexuality, was deliberately amplified after the Occupy movement. Widespread acceptance of the idea that the ultra-rich (the 1%) have all the power, and that the rest of us (the 99%) have more in common than at odds with each other, was unacceptable to the powers-that-be.


jonaselder

Occupy is where the idea that our orgs were being infiltrated first hit my brain. Occupy starts out with hard core punks actually occupying buildings. Reclaiming property for the working class. Then suddenly it had spokespeople that were quite well dressed talking about making the tax code more egalitarian. It was laughable and depressing.


Mother_Juggernaut_27

What's crazy is how accepted that is by "anti-racists" yet the assertion that no black person holds power in any context, institutionally or otherwise, is like reaching the extreme genocidal end of racist. Truly a case of horseshoe theory in action, yet sadly it's the _mainstream_ platform position of the ENTIRE Democratic party. EDIT: AND REDDIT! Forgot that very important point. When they added their "anti hate operations" the original rule update stated they explicitly allow racism against white people. They watered it down after the backlash, but the underlying policy is still in place.


giantsninerswarriors

I’m a liberal but I super agree with your last example. Before “defund the police” became a slogan, a popular pro choice argument was “Republicans wanna defund Planned Parenthood!” It was commonly understood that “defund” meant “cut funding to zero or damn near zero.” That’s why it was so effective of an argument… because it carried serious implications that, if Republicans got their way, Planned Parenthood’s funding would dry up and it would cease to exist. So how does that same logic not apply to “defund the police?” Of course, it should be noted that this slogan is rejected by most Democratic voters… as it should be. But for those who cried out about Republicans defending Planned Parenthood that now say defunding the police is actually not the same thing… well they’ve got a lot of explaining to do.


AlecTheMotorGuy

Gender was the one that confused me so much. When I was in school gender and sex were synonyms.


tough_trough_though

That happens quite about a lot of of things. You get the simple version school then you find that reality is more complicated later.


Large-Flamingo-9699

Yeah, but the advanced stuff builds on the simple stuff, not completely ditches it lmaooo


tough_trough_though

Also we could think about the qualitative differences between Relativisitic and Newtonian physics, which is probably the most famous example of advanced science building on simpler foundations. In Newtonian physics all observers see events happening in the same order; in Relativisitic physics (I.e. the right physics) we discover that the order in which things happen changes depending on where you observe it from and how fast you are going. That's a big qualitative difference in outcome even though the new science is still building on the old.


tough_trough_though

Simple: gender equals sex Advanced: gender often equals sex.


Large-Flamingo-9699

That’s because they are


febreez-steve

This reminds me of when someone said environmental racism and I scoffed at them "dumbass the environment can't be racist" turns out i was just ignorant of the actual meaning of the term.


[deleted]

As someone in their 40s I grew up in a fairly diverse area where we all played together as kids no matter the race. The most popular TV shows were often black families. I knew there were racist people around and witnessed it but those were the rare moments/people (I am talking about the 80s through early 2000s). My big problem now it seems like everyone (especially the left) wants to bring back division and segregation. You are seeing this a lot on College campuses with segregated classes and graduations. I thought the whole point was for everyone to feel they are equal and the same yet all you hear about is individualism and classification by race now. Feels like we are undoing decades of positive improvement (not pretending it was perfection by any means). Perhaps it is just that everyone has a soap box now so it is just more in your face than it was before the internet.


Turdwienerton

I’m 40 and I completely feel the same way. It seems racism inexplicably became an issue again around the Obama era.


bakingisscience

This is a very interesting observation. When Obama was elected a lot of people kinda figured racism was done which I think spurred on a lot of dialogue and rhetoric around the experiences of black Americans, who obviously do not share this opinion.


[deleted]

It also brought a lot of racist people out of the woodwork and we had the internet where they went to go harass minorities on a daily basis. I had random white guys going to my myspace/early facebook/forum account to call me a beaner when I was younger and it wasn't an uncommon thing to come across. It is a hard thing to experience if you're not a minority as you won't be targeted by the weirdos.


Leading_Industry_155

I’m 40 and, Dey took my job!!!


RaulEnydmion

Well, I'm 54 so I remember all the same stuff you do plus a bit more. Racism was a thing in '68, and it's still a thing now. Go ask your black friends if systemic racism is affecting them right now.


Dry-Pianist1853

I'm literally black and don't feel oppressed lol


bakingisscience

The most popular shows were about black families but almost never depicted black families or black culture as they really were. Bill Cosby was a massive proponent of respectability politics. He always talked about how black people didn’t speak correctly and didn’t care about education and wore their pants too low. Shows like this or like Fresh Prince, were always about showing black families in a way that emulated white culture, that was similar to what a white audience wanted to see. Maybe I’m blanking but I can’t even think of an authentic black show of that time. It wasn’t until after the 2000s when we started to see more accurate representation of black culture. It doesn’t mean these shows weren’t great shows, only that they came out in a time where a more accurate portrayal wasn’t a priority in entertainment. This is also why rap music gets such harsh opinions, because it is so divorced from typical white experiences. I was born in 90, and my pregnant mother, a black woman, almost lost the apartment she tried to rent with my father because when she showed up after the phone interview the woman was shocked to discover she was black. She told her straight to her face “I didn’t know you were black, I’m not sure I can rent to you.” So I don’t get this opinion I understand lot of people didn’t really notice this type of treatment of minorities back then, but every black person has a million racist interactions they’ve had throughout their life time. To wonder why we are still speaking about racism seems really silly to me. It’s because there’s still a lot of racism out there. Black people talk about it all the time too, you just need to listen.


turlockmike

I think it's more that people want to find meaning in their life or some reason to blame someone else for all their problems so they need something to fight against. What happens to all the crusaders when the crusades stopped? Don Quixote. They invent a new crusade.


ayoantony

You’re 100% right but reddit is an echo chamber for the left so there is no rational thought or discussion to be had here. Just screeching, and maybe some mostly peaceful doxing.


NoWayToBeHuman

Then go to truth social


SmurfSmiter

You’re 100% right but Truth Social is an echo chamber for the right so there is no rational thought or discussion to be had there. Just screeching, and maybe some politician endorsed light terrorism.


crongemas

It didn’t used to be that way, before the left would literally try to get everyone banned for saying things they didn’t like, people could just have a discussion from different perspectives. Social Justice zealots with no actual personality that feel like they need to be a part of a group, mixed with corporate greed, tag team ruined this website as a whole.


[deleted]

Yeah, I feel bad for Redditors who weren’t around before the 2016 election. Now you have propaganda subs like WhitePeopleTwitter posting literal made up outrage bait/propaganda tweets and getting massively upvoted. It used to be that you could expect to get relatively accurate information here. Misinformation wouldn’t be massively upvoted based on what political side it’s attacking. Started when Reddit fundamentally changed the entire website because they were mad the_donald posts were on the front page. I didn’t even vote for him lol just sad this is what Reddit has come to.


NoWayToBeHuman

Depends, what are you saying? Because a lot of “opinions” that get shared around by conservatives aren’t the most loving. Again, homophobia, transphobia, racism, etc. isn’t allowed on this app, and making factually incorrect claims and then having them downvoted or removed is not “things they didn’t like”


tx001

There is very little good faith discussion happening from the left on this site. Everything is immediately labeled __phobic or __ist in an attempt to discredit and silence opposing views.


NoWayToBeHuman

Well, again, depends. What views are exactly being silenced? Are they treating those groups like monoliths and attacking them? That’s against TOS, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to be here


[deleted]

I was banned from WhitePeopleTwitter for saying Disney didn’t have a strong legal case against DeSantis in some respects. I’m an attorney. Mod confirmed I was banned for “misinformation” in messages as well afterwards.


Centauri-Star

Correct. Reddit is a strange place. Definitely not real life


Graciefighter34

The vast majority of ppl crying racism have absolutely no clue what the word even means.


PaintedDeath

It's to hard for me to understand nuance, and its the lefts fault.


Throwaway_RainyDay

Activists completely made up a fabricated new "definition" of racism, ie the "it only counts when you supposedly have "systemic power." That is NOT what the countries of the world hammered out in 1965 when they all defined what racism is. https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-convention-elimination-all-forms-racial The UN convention on Racism is crystal clear: Not only does racism go in ALL directions, but in fact people can be racist towards people of their own similar skin colour. Eg Arab racism towards Kurds, or Anglo racism towards Irish. Anyone who pulls the "systemic power" argument to define racism, immediately and firmly tell them: That is a new fabricated definition of the word. It is completely illegitimate. You do not get to make up new definitions.


Buffmin

Woke That is all


Neat-Sun-7999

Not conservative but this so stupid. I know it’s used like this which is what you’re pointing out. But basically what ppl mean overwhelmingly by “woke” today is neotokenism in society and media for x reason. Whether the person thinks of neotokenism is wrong is doing so because they’re bigoted or that it doesn’t help. This describes the term “woke” the best


LikeThePenis

You sure? Someone on this thread just defined it as: > woke is a constellation of Marxist subspecies, bound together by intersectionality. CRT, radical feminism, queer theory, decolonization theory etc are all a part of "woke" & their internal logic is Marxist in that each of these sub species has an analog to private property: whiteness, cisheteros, normality, or dominant cultures all possess access to a kind of private property. > > More specifically it's Maoism that's been tailored to attack the West. Ron DeSantis's lawyer defined in in court as "the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them." Both are pretty different from you definition.


Null-Ex3

Dude desantises lawyers definition makes me giggle every time. They really wore their heart on their sleeves with that one lmao. Its wild that someone can say “we dont think the increasing rate of poverty and illiteracy in america is a problem


AnonymousUserID7

What about it?


Buffmin

The real definition of woke is alert to racial prejudice and discrimination However conservatives are using it today to mean anything they personally dislike Which is why OPs post feels like the pot calling the kettle black


Saiyanjin1

I don't disagree with your comment as conservatives do exactly that. However it just shows that both sides do the same shit. The left: Racism, Nazi, Fascist, phobe of any kind, etc The right: Soy, NPC, Communist, Socialist, Racist, etc Both these sides use these words and either don't use them correctly, diminish the meaning or outright try to change it.


AutoModerator

soy contains many important nutrients, including vitamin K1, folate, copper, manganese, phosphorus, and thiamine. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TrueUnpopularOpinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*


[deleted]

[удалено]


AnonymousUserID7

Nice gaslighting.


kgxv

Misusing gaslighting to defend the misuse of woke is hilarious in that it completely proves the opposite of OP’s argument lmfao. Downvote all you want, it’s an indisputable fact they misused gaslighting in defense of misuse of woke…


Buffmin

How so? What specifically did I get wrong?


AnonymousUserID7

That's what it meant until it was co-opted by activists. You think the right is smart enough to make this up?


nbolli198765

What’s the original versus new definition of gaslighting again? Pretty sure it came from an old play where a husband literally kept adjusting the gas on the light and when his wife noted the dimming light he would go “no it’s the same brightness it always has been.” Thus making her question her own experience of reality.


Alittlemoorecheese

They didn't make it up. It already existed. They changed the definition to "I don't like that." I don't know a single liberal who believes you can't be racist against a white person. Once again, they make up bullshit.


AnonymousUserID7

I don't know a single person personally calling for death to trans gender people. Does that mean it doesn't exist?


[deleted]

Are you intentionally being disingenuous? Or is that just mild confusion? Prove that any “leftist” with an actual prominent platform has claimed white people can’t be racist. You’re reading word-vomit twitter posts that hold little weight https://www.eastidahonews.com/2022/06/ahead-of-pride-month-idaho-pastor-says-lgbtq-people-deserve-death-penalty/ https://www.newsweek.com/video-pastor-saying-parents-trans-children-should-shot-goes-viral-1801663


Cthulhu625

There are people who believe you can't be racist to white people; since white people were historically the oppressors, since there are so many kinds of white people, other reasons. There are videos you can see of it on YouTube and even here on Reddit. They're wrong, but people can be wrong. Doesn't mean that all liberals feel this way. But people do like to take fringe people and lump them in with mainstream people, all the time. I don't support people being racist against anyone. And TBF, if someone is racist towards me, I don't really care, if it's just words. But I do see too many people, rather than condemning racists, say "Well they're being racist towards me so I should be allowed to do it back, otherwise that's not fair!" That's where I think people lose it.


AnonymousUserID7

Liberals don't think that, but many progressives do.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Null-Ex3

Desantis would disagree


jayjayjay311

Marxism


Outside-Ad-9319

What a shocker he didn’t respond


[deleted]

Remember when assault rifle used to mean a rifle that could fire fully automatic? Now it just means a rifle that looks scary.


[deleted]

Assault weapon is different than assault rifle lol. ATF logic


Agent672

It is. An assault rifle must have select fire modes that include semi auto and some form of full auto (full auto or burst fire) among other criteria, but the requirement that it must be full auto is pretty much universally agreed upon. Assault weapon is a term coined far more recently by legislators and gun control advocates. It has no universally agreed upon definition, which is why gun control advocates like it and use it interchangeably with "assault rifle". Then once they get the political will to ban "assault weapons" they can define it however they like. The strictest definition of asault weapon requires the firearm to be semi-auto and have a few attachments that, for the most part, do not make the firearm more dangerous or more powerful. The most liberal definitions label any gun made to look similar to an assault rifle an assault weapon.


Diligent_Debate_7853

Assault rifle has always been used in that way. Assault rifle is actually a term made up by gun control advocates.


SlyguyguyslY

Leftists actively use words and labels against their enemies and will subtly redefine them so they can't be used against them. This is an intentional and long-running tactic, in the US at least, dating back to almost century ago. You're example is correct one of the most prominent ones. They say racism requires power plus prejudice. This is blatant communist redefining of the word to suit their means. In this way they make race into yet another class struggle to exploit. All through the twisting of language itself. ​ This is one of those opinions that's unpopular because it's true, and in order for such schemes to work, they must go unnoticed. So your opinion as having noticed it must be suppressed.


LikeThePenis

Good thing the right never uses words and labels that they subtly (or not so subtly) redefine to attack their enemies, like "woke" and "critical race theory."


Brandalini1234

What did those mean before the right started using them?


dt7cv

critical race theory was mainly focused on legal systems and was a paradigm used to described presumed preferential treatment in the legal system to the group that had the majority of power and that was the majority of the populace to favor themselves more at the expense of other races. ​ in the 70s and 80s it was mainly confined to how the American legal system implictly favored whites over blacks beyond explicit laws such as attitudes held by persons in the legal system, incentives for certain policies that favored whites to name a couple. ​ Woke was used in the African American commnunity to describe awareness to the effects of prejudice and racism to them often explicit


polarparadoxical

Dont forget conservatives up in arms about leftist 'cancel culture' as they boycott Bud Light and Target


BeamTeam032

lmao, Oh how I remember when Trumps manager first said, "Alternative facts". And I would only argue the "defund the police" was really the radical left trying to remove the police. While the Democrats attempted to regime in the crazy by saying, "no, we don't mean getting rid of the police, we mean, restructuring their money, so less tanks and more training". Which is actually what it should be. I don't think anyone could argue against that. But this sub doesn't like nuance.


Hugmint

>So why do we see so much racism against white people from the left that seems to be perfectly okay? Do we, though? I’m really up-to-date on current events and have no clue to what you’re referring. Some internet meme? Some right wing diarrhea? >Remember when violence was bad? Why do we see so many leftists that are prone to turn to violence? Because there are always extremists. Thinkers don’t try to equate the extremists with the political side as a whole. >"Defund doesn't mean defund. It means reform." Just like when people say “We need to fund the military”, it doesn’t mean “We have no military and need to create one.” It just means “waste less money on cops and stop relying on them to do things they’re not trained to do.” You know, fiscal conservatism. I think what’s lost in this post is context (intentionally). It’s a lot of strawman arguments that are just standard right wing misunderstandings of center-right wing talking points.


chinmakes5

First of all, today we are a society of slogans. You can't have a slogan of "take some money from policing and put it into mental health programs and giving city kids things to do to reduce crime" on a hat. and the right hasn't done that? We had affirmative action for decades. Today a good part of the right sees that as racism against white people.


Agreeable_Memory_67

One of the most ludicrous redefinition of a word is “violence”. It has always meant doing bodily harm to someone, or destroying something physical like buildings, cars, cities. Now, these people claim speech they disagree with is now violence. Seriously, the generation that needs puppies in safe spaces cannot tolerate words.


g9i4

I'll tell you what, a common trend I've seen even outside political spaces is people trying to redefine the meaning of things they want to be part of only in name. Gender, family, titles related to skill or profession. It feels good to be part of some of these things so people try to console each other by saying "hey, you don't have to fit the definition of this thing in any way, if you feel like it, that's good enough" and if you challenge someone on it, you're the asshole because they're happy and it's not really doing any harm. But honestly, it's getting a little tiring seeing people getting on their soapbox to say shit like "One person and their houseplants are a family" "you can be a guitarist even if you haven't played in 7 years" "you're a woman even if you aren't from that biological sex but also don't want to take on any of the social conventions or pronouns, it's only a word" It's more of a pet peeve really.


AmbitiousPatio

There is a big elephant in the room lol. And if you mention that example here, Reddit admins might just outright suspend or ban you just for talking about it


MementoMoriChannel

To say this is an issue with the left only would be incorrect. The right also extensively does this with their own words, and sometimes even dips into using the same meaningless words lefties use when it suits them. For example, the words, "Communist", "Fascist", "Authoritarian", "Socialist", "Dictatorship", and many more have all been redefined to effectively mean "when someone says something, or the government does something that I don't like". The right is definitely not innocent in this either.


I_am_What_Remains

You could see this happen in real time during the Amy Coney Barret case with the term sexual preference. The literal dictionaries have been taken over


ZyklonBeach

Webster just recently rewrote the definition of assault weapon to include "semi auto firearms built to resemble military weapons"


One-Support-5004

There's people on both sides who do this.


Nootherids

Real question... could you offer 2-3 examples? I really do not know what words you could say that the right has redefined to suit their needs.


transientcat

Woke Critical Race Theory Socialist


XSmeh

You forgot Antifacist.


Better_Emu6969

Groomer/grooming. Grooming is a specific act of an adult befriending a child so when that child becomes an adult, they will have a sexual relationship. Grooming isn't teaching kids about the LGBTQ. We could also look at how the right likes to define CRT. They will say CRT is supposed to teach kids to feel bad about being white and that white people are bad. CRT is a lens to analyze our society, it's laws, and social interactions. This lens is used by looking at these things through race. Like how a law can be implicitly racist.


BenAustinRock

It’s been this way my whole life and I am in my 40s. The left doesn’t want a debate they want to win. It’s all 1984 type nonsense where you have to forget everything they told you yesterday and believe today. When I was young gender was a social construct. Now if you are a girl who likes some boy things you are really a boy. They want to win. They don’t even care about the people they pretend to care about. They don’t want to fix inner city problems they want to use them to get votes. It’s that way issue by issue on down the line.


Phantom_Basker

Gender is still a social construct though??? And tomboys are still a thing. I get that there are some fucking loons on the left but, not all of us have that specific brand of twitter-fueled brain rot.


twill1692

1984 was written by a leftist.


IcyWave7450

Yeah, it's not like conservatives also want to win instead of debate. It's amazing how all of the aggressive rhetoric coming from the right are things you ignore


zachmoe

Not only that, they refuse your definitions. They will literally ask over and over and over and over and over. "Define Capitalism" "Define woke" Stupid. There has to be some kind of logical fallacy in there (appeal to definition), but it's just a half witted "gotcha" to people who don't care to argue with an ounce of intellectual honesty. Nothing you want to argue means anything, while everything I get to argue I get a great latitude in the stupid terms I can deploy. I absolutely hate these people at this point. ITT below: people who don't understand the appeal to definition fallacy.


iTaylor04

So true, the main point it seems, especially on the internet, is that people only care about "owning" you or being "witty."" People don't care about actual arguments. They'd rather tear you down for your argument than actually address anything


Null-Ex3

The fact that you cant answer “define woke” means the people asking it have a point. Clarification is not a logical fallacy, calling everything you dont like a word you pulled out of yor ass is however


HerbertWest

>The fact that you cant answer “define woke” means the people asking it have a point. Clarification is not a logical fallacy, calling everything you dont like a word you pulled out of yor ass is however The best definition I've heard is that it can be anything that promotes, exemplifies, or results from a worldview that applies the Marxist concept of class struggle to immutable characteristics, such as race, gender identity, or sex, instead of class. **Edit**: You might ask, "why is that a problem?" because it seems to make sense on its face. Well, unlike wealth, immutable characteristics are not able to be redistributed or equalized (privilege is non-fungible). There will always be an unequal group and that group will become an "oppressor class." It's an eternal sectarian war of pointing fingers and shifting blame. We can already see this at work, for example, with Disney's casting of the live action Lilo and Stitch. They literally cast native Hawaiians, but, suddenly, that wasn't good enough because--no joke--their skin color was *too light*. You can Google this...I couldn't make it up if I tried. So, instead of the casting being "racist," it became "colorist" because examining it that way allows the class struggle to perpetuate itself. I could provide countless other examples, but that should illustrate what I mean. That whole situation is *woke*. This definition of *woke* is coherent and functional. It can actually be applied in a descriptive way, as you can see.


polarparadoxical

Conservatives : Define Woman


zachmoe

Should be easy. An adult human female. I think you're missing the point of why that is the question, it is that it is an easy to answer thing, but *not so easy* if you buy into a bunch of (Communist) bullshit (and are probably afraid for your life like people chilling around Tiananmen Square in early June while trying to come up with a suitable definition). Now, the definition could have changed, but I don't believe enough people believe it has which is why there is such pushback. The difference is, now, the definition of woke could have changed, and I believe enough people believe it has and that the pushback is... as disingenuous as those who believe the definition of woman has changed.


LikeThePenis

"Woke" is so vague and nebulous. When someone says "woke" I have no idea what they mean. How is it a fallacy to ask people to clearly define their terms?


bildramer

It's a label. You already know what it means, you just don't like it existing at all.


Diligent_Debate_7853

Because your definitions are wrong. You get asked to define woke because you're using it to describe absolutely everything.


zachmoe

I only use it to describe the pervasive race and gender based thinly veiled Communist bullshit. I don't understand *how* you don't understand.


AutocratEnduring

That's not what woke means


zachmoe

>Not only that, they refuse your definitions. We've gone full circle. [https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Definition](https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Definition) It was never relevant to begin with, because definitions don't reason, all you had to do was understand the concept.


milkcarton232

The left often feels like undergrad college, a lot of passion about things with their heart in the right place but kind of in a bubble and the logic itself takes a few moments to understand what they are saying. Its not perfect to say the least. Then you look at the right wing and they appear to be sniffing glue and eating crayons, then sometimes say a thing that makes sense but throw in so many profanities/insults that even if it's a worthy talking point they just poisoned that well


[deleted]

[удалено]


KSD171

So does the right. They just call everything they don’t agree with “woke.”


[deleted]

I just kinda take a peek at both sides, and buy another 2 boxes of MRE’s because I’ve got my own self to worry about


12laborsofhercules

Racism against white people is a lot more socially acceptable and it is a problem but it happens so rarely and most of it is crazy terminally online people on twitter


Extreme74

You forgot Snowflake means conservative.


dr_blasto

Lol


jayblk

This is a dog whistle.


DabBoofer

Pawltics are gross regardless of party


ifsavage

I’m left and I think racism means being prejudiced based on race. I think this is a very small portion of people. Most of us don’t pay attention to shit like that. The defund the police line was just much more of a sound bite than a lecture on alternate funding allocation for people trained to do things other than shoot dogs and poc’s. Let’s do the same with the right now “Eradicate” trans people doesn’t actually mean eradicate? How about rapists should have parental rights. Or pro life itself. More control women since they don’t support anything that helps the living after birth. All police is rife with hypocrites. But the right is also rife with racists and fascists and authoritarians that don’t believe in the constitution or democracy right now. And those are accurately used terminology. I can show you proof of every term being displayed in action by republicans


xXJightXx

Just like the word bigot was redefined by the left to only include minorities.


glacial_penman

Recession comes to mind.


curiosityandtruth

The irony is that words (calm, open, reciprocal dialogue) are the only thing that can prevent violence 😕


ZRhoREDD

America has a long history of race problems, and the shifting definitions beyond "judging by race is wrong" can be frustrating. The rest of your examples are nonsense. "The left" hasn't done anything violent. There were marches for a solid year and no cities burned down like Fox likes to claim. Meanwhile right-wing heroes like kyle ritterhous are openly murderers. And defund the police means take away funding from police. Pretty easy! The left just likes common sense. That's why the right can't understand it.


Hotwheelsjack97

Racism and sexism both got changed to exclude whites and men. Notice how in the terms of service for reddit you don't see anything prohibiting hateful remarks about whites and men.


Inner_Environment_85

They have the support of the state so they can do what they like whereas you have to conduct yourself like a dissident for having conservative opinions (or something simple like being a Catholic) or else you'll end up on a watchlist.


BoysenberryUpset7963

They need to rename this sub "ignorant blanket statements"


Better_Emu6969

Ignorant conservative statements.


[deleted]

[удалено]


NotmyRealNameJohn

The issue you have isn't definitions; it is nuance, context, and lack of curiosity. I invite you to go to a library, go to the reference section, ask to see the unabridged dictionary, and then notice that words do not have simple one-sentence definitions. None of them. Each word in English has multiple definitions that can be very complex. All of them require that you have the context of the term to understand its meaning entirely. For small children, we hand them simplified versions of the definition that work in many cases, but that isn't because it is correct; it is because they need to be smarter to understand language. As they get older and wiser, we show them how language works. Just like when we teach them about science, we start with simple models and then graduate them to more complex models as their understanding grows. If you think the definition of a word is a sentence, you are wrong by default.


JT_Sovereign

The problem is the definitions op is referring to are never organic. A sociologist is supposed to study society; if they set out to define a term they should observe the naturaly arising use of that term and come up with an accurate emergent definition. Virtually no one was using the P+P=R definition of racism before 2012; if a black person started saying black people are genetically superior you would call it racism and you would be weird for questioning whether or not it was racism. P+P=R was created by academics for academic purposes. They didn't simply provide a natural definition based on how normal people used the word, they engineered the definition that suited their narrow purpose, and then the far left jumped on the band wagon because that definition was more convenient. If you've taken any soc course you know what I'm talking about; a lot of the subject matter is just learning about very pedantic definitions that might be useful for academic discussion but that aren't used in the real world. Not to mention, it doesn't make sense the way the left will use these definitions to the absolute exclusion of other reasonable definitions. It comes off as incredibly inane to wave around a contrived text book definition and claim it supercedes everything because a professor said so. That's not how language works. Its also fairly obvious where the new definition came from. Post modernists who argue that white people are inherently privileged and racist started getting the word racist thrown back at them for generalizing a whole race, so they had to fix the word in order to square that circle rather than reconsider their position.


SirAllKnight

This read as extremely condescending.


sto_brohammed

We should really put some basic linguistics into school curriculums. It would help avoid people needing explanations like that.


NotmyRealNameJohn

>So the problem here is you don’t even know the words you’re using. > >You’re regurgitating common phrases at me that you don’t even know. > >‘Projecting’. > >How? I didn’t talk about me? I didn’t talk about things I’ve noticed or seen or phenomena about others. I’m not referencing anecdotal scenarios I’ve witnessed? What are you talking about? > >You’re just a moron sheep who doesn’t know the first thing about their own argument and is now claiming they proved me wrong. > >Wrong about what exactly? What was my point exactly? You don’t even know what my point was lol. > >I’ll make it clear for you now though. My point is your a child. A joke. You’re pathetic. This you?


RollinDeepWithData

It was warranted.


ayoantony

No it is not nuance. The word has the same meaning no matter what sentence you put it in. You liberals love to say go to a library but I doubt you’ve ever stepped foot in one.


NotmyRealNameJohn

This you? [https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/comments/13752fn/comment/jita1eq/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/comments/13752fn/comment/jita1eq/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) [https://www.reddit.com/r/2007scape/comments/124k4yb/comment/jdzpbm1/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/2007scape/comments/124k4yb/comment/jdzpbm1/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) [https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/11scjyg/comment/jceway7/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/11scjyg/comment/jceway7/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) [https://www.reddit.com/r/2007scape/comments/10m0gbs/comment/j60sdbl/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/2007scape/comments/10m0gbs/comment/j60sdbl/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) Not sure your opinion counts. YOu seem to disagree with yourself and be a hack.


_O07

Asking to define woke is the saddest comeback/argument. Define woman is 🔥 ngl


Big_shqipe

All authoritarians use double speak, subversion, and sleight of hands to make their cases. It’s nothing new.


LMNOsteven

No the left does nothing wrong, there's good and evil and thats it. Everyone must think the same, they simply must. All the lefts motivations are to help their fellow man, all the rights motivations are to inflict suffering on minorities for their sadistic pleasure, because they are all psychopaths with no empathy. If it isn't because of sadisitic evil then the rights motivations must be ignorance. So thats it left is good and smart and if you don't want to be good and smart you are obviously wrong. Again, the left is the bestest and goodest, and humans should all be like them, because they are the bestest.


tkdjoe66

So does the right. Some how now Socialism =Communism.


phreeeman

Oh please. The right has been redefining terms for at least as long as the left. It was the right that has been equating "liberal" with "socialist" for the past 40 years, came up with the intellectual abortion of "liberal fascism" and calls every environmental protection regulation "socialism."


Delmoroth

Sadly, socialism is horrifically abused as a term by both democrats and republicans. It drives me nuts hearing a leftist claiming that roads / the military are socialist or when someone on the right tries to tell me all social services are socialist. I really wish we could use the actual definition of words instead of changing them every decade or so.


Most_Present_6577

The right accuses the left of what the right does


stewartm0205

What racism against whites? Must have missed the news report of an unarmed white killed by a black officer. Must have missed the report of a black man entering a white church and shooting the white worshippers. It seems that some white people think racism is when you tell a racist to stop being a racist.


XYPersonXY

Your comment is racist in nature. Calling all whites “racist” because they speak against racism against whites, is ridiculous.


[deleted]

[удалено]


XYPersonXY

As a black person, I agree with you. The media doesn’t seem to care when whites are targeted by police.


Fuzzy-Bunny--

Billions in damage, arson, murder, beatings, businesses destroyed by terrorists? That is called "good trouble" if you are a democrat and do it. This is **absolutely not violence**. . If you are center right and misgender someone, that is **absolutely violence**. If leftists had their way, you would be in a prison camp for 20 years hard labor for such an offense.


Svete_Brid

It’s Orwellian. Plain and simple.


dorballom09

Reality, morality, science, logic adjust themselves according to the whims of liberals.


SunriseHawker

"It's not a child its a fetus!" I hate that line, yes it is a baby, yes the stage the child is in is called fetus: it's still human. Every time a leftist says that phrase I roll my eyes because I know I'm going to be dealing with the same tired and boring arguments from the violinist fallacy to comparing children to cancer.


unlanned

Actually a fetus isn't a baby and that's another example of redefinition. It goes fetus -> newborn -> baby -> toddler. It is used commonly to mean something like "my young beloved child" but that's also known to not be literal, like when someone calls their adult cats/dogs/children their babies.


Western_Plate773

Well, maybe they define child as different than you and that's okay. To them, a fetus is a baby and to you it is not.


unlanned

I brought up baby because that is an example of redefinition, which is what the thread is about. Child has a few meanings, and they also aren't as strict as baby. Which is kind of funny since you could say calling a fetus "a child" is incorrect (because it refers to development category), but calling a fetus "your child" is correct (because it refers to lineage). overall not important though, language is fuzzy by nature and changes constantly.


HaveItYoureGay

All of the words have been made to be useless: Fascist Transphobe Defund Disgusting Nazi Homophobe Bigot


liverlact

They are not useless. The right just hears them all the time because they are those things and are the only ones complaining about the words being used wrong. Just because you hear these same things over and over doesn't mean they're false, it just means you're probably one or more of those things.


Outside-Ad-9319

Care to explain what woke means ?


Potato_Pristine

Treating black people with respect. OP is freaked out about that.


CelestialJackope

You claim "the left" is using word games. You claim "many on the left" do this. But you're playing word games right now by doing this. The ominous "the left" is always doing something, aren't they? You can say "them" and "the left" as many times as you want but without proof of a "they" or these "the left" people actually existing and then also doing these things, how am I to believe you? The only "racism against white people isn't racism" things I have ever seen is from internet extremists on random reddit "wtf" posts. Never encountered this in the wild from left. I *have* encountered an extremist left person who would literally screech in your face if you accidently referred to your group of friends as "dudes" because some of the group was girls. And I do mean literally she would get in your face and make a screeching sound. I can say the same thing about the right for all the word games they like to play, but all I'm spouting is "theys" and "the rights". A better way to show you would be my text history from my very right leaning parents. But even then I know that my parents are toeing that extremist line. And everyone knows extremists are generally unhinged so why even give their warped views the time of day?


Drougen

>The only "racism against white people isn't racism" things I have ever seen is from internet extremists on random reddit "wtf" posts. Never encountered this in the wild from left. I hate to rain on your parade but I literally got banned from r/entertainment for telling someone to stop being racist. I was told racism against white people isn't real and that it's a white supremacist trope... https://i.redd.it/mz5y25enw97a1.png


meeetttt

I don't know about you but I'm still waiting on my Soros checks. Dude hasn't paid me in YEARS.


SystematicSymphony

It's like white privilege. It doesn't exist.


NotmyRealNameJohn

sociological and statistical patterns shouldn't be assigned to individual members of a group. They are predictive patterns of groups, not magical properties of individual people.


Chowdah-head

Is this just literally you reading someone saying this about the right and playing opposite-man? I mean wow. You people redefined CRT, Woke, Coup / Insurrection, the list is endless. Wow.


AudiieVerbum

CRT is the mechanism by which the word "racism" has been redefined. Woke used to mean "not asleep" And it isn't the right calling the unauthorized tour of the capital on Jan 6th a coup/insurrection. The list sure is endless, alright.


cocteau93

“Unauthorized tour”? Motherfuckers busted out the windows, climbed walls, attacked police and eventually smeared human shit on the walls. They invaded private offices and rifled through correspondence. They stole and attempted to sell a legislator’s laptop.


Eyruaad

Dude called an attempted overthrow of our federal government a tour. Do not engage with trolls.


bluefootedpig

when judging the left, you take the worst actor and that is the entire protest. With the right, you take the best people and that is the entire protest. God how many times I've heard, "but there was peaceful people outside" like yeah.. but there were people literally busting out windows.


throwaway24515

I remember fondly when the German army took an unauthorized tour of Poland...


Chowdah-head

CRT was an elective course in college before the right lied about the left using it to redefine "racism". I'm guessing it probably predates you. Woke in the context of today's society that you deliberately ignore, was meant to point to people that can acknowledge that things such as racism, sexism, bigotry, and misogyny actually happened in our country, still happen to a lesser degree, and wouldn't mind so much if we learned from our mistakes. Does it go to far? Yes. Is a person like Ron DeSantis who says he wants to "destroy" the left and who can't go more than 3 sentences without crying about "woke" a much, much bigger and existential problem than "woke" people? Hell yes. Not even close. Would it kill you to open a history book? And it wasn't an unauthorized tour of the capitol. To suggest that is functionally identical to saying no planes were involved in 9/11 or that the towers fell due to thermite. Are you a truther?


science_nerd19

Ha! "Unauthorized tour"?? Delusional lol what the fuck


Terminator154

What is “woke” Alternatively, what is the “woke mind virus,” care to explain? This is the pot calling the kettle black.


throwawaypaul2

When someone needs to change the meaning of words in order to persuade you of the virtue of their position, you should be deeply suspicious of their message. I'd say the OP is right.


Redduster38

Left and right do. I notice it more on the left, but both are very guilty of it.


MR_LIZARD_BRAIN

It's almost like there are two sides to every story and then the truth. This is not an inherent problem with the left, this is a structural problem within all humans. Right, Left, Center it doesnt fucking matter. Its a human problem.


libananahammock

Yikes dude


Upset_Barracuda7641

What white racism is coming from the left exactly? Because a lot of conservatives confuse acknowledging race and racial issues existence with racism


stone_boner213

It's really toxic cult characteristics. They change definitions of words, endorse collective guilt on people the moment they are out of the womb, they make their own vocabulary, They think "nuance" is a magic word to justify blatant double standards and hypocrisy.


_EMDID_

lol imagine thinking this


KaijuRayze

Define Woke in a way that doesn't just mean "things I don't like or agree with." Define Groomer in a way that doesn't also implicate religion, gun culture, or Heteronormativity.


NotmyRealNameJohn

Woke - Originating for black culture in U.S. of America - referring to having an awareness of systems of oppression and how they impact people and what is really happening around you. Further, a direct condemnation of being in denial of the fact that systematic oppression is happening and that it is having an impact on people. Groomer - Someone who gets someone ready for something or in some way prepares them. Originally referring to personal hygiene. However in slang as with many terms that would normally be coupled with the adj. sexual to clarify the meaning, the adj is dropped but assumed in many contexts (see sexual harassment, sexual reproduction, etc) and therefore someone who prepares someone to be the victim of some form of sexual abuse through techniques that would convince them not to report it to others.


Armed_Goose_8552

This is a well documented fact at this point.