sure seems to me that all of you including swamy himself are missing the whole history and concept of the idea.
it's being aware of discrimination, injustice, or worse being perpetrated by one group on another group. and then doing what you can to make people aware of that discrimination so that it can be changed or ended.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke
in the past decade or so, some people have used it to shine the light on the discrimination against other groups (i.e., not african descendants). and some on the conservative end of the political spectrum are using it a) to label anything that they dont want light shone upon or b) to discredit the anti-discrimination efforts as extreme or made up (so, rather than argue that the discrimination does not exist or rarely exists, one way to "win" a debate is to just say that the other side is all liars or just too sensitive and crying [e.g., "snowflake"]). (*)
yes, there are differences - sex, ethnicity, genetics, age, education, color of hair/eyes, body shape, income, net wealth, etc. Some are inherent and some are due to decisions and/or opportunities that the person made/received.
should one group of people negatively discriminate against another group of people????
or are some on the
conservative (**) end really saying "we dont want to give up our power and influence. so, anything you say that might allow others to share or have some of that power and influence is b.s. and should be discarded or ignored or castigated." ?
bottom line for me: i'd rather be woke - aware of some discrimination/injustice - than be asleep!
btw, many in this sub-culture of ours are discriminated against by "moral" people.
since what some of us do is technically illegal, we dont have much use of shining light on our activities so that others will end their discrimination against us.
( bolding and emphasis is mine)
(* from the Wikipedia article - "By 2019,[41]
opponents of progressive social movements were often using the term mockingly or sarcastically,[4][42] implying that "wokeness" was an insincere form of performative activism.[4][43] British journalist Steven Poole comments that the term is used to mock "overrighteous liberalism".[41] In this pejorative sense, woke means "following an intolerant and moralising ideology".[19]
Among American conservatives and some centrists, woke has come to be used primarily as an
insult.[4][29][43]
Perry Bacon Jr. suggests that this "anti-woke posture" is connected to a long-standing promotion of backlash politics by the Republican Party, wherein it promotes white and conservative fear in response to activism by African Americans as well as changing cultural norms.[29][45] Such critics often believe that movements such as Black Lives Matter exaggerate the extent of social problems.[42]"
(** from Oxford Languages via Google - conservative: 1. averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values.
2. (in a political context) favoring free enterprise, private ownership, and socially
traditional ideas. [
whose tradition??} )
If this is how Ramaswamy defines 'WOKE'...
