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Anti Woke movement grows

You're definitely not alone. It is unfortunate that the media would rather rail against the change, stoking fear and resentment, than supporting the nation through the change. This won't change though, they're interested in click-bait only as that's what drives their ad revenue.
Ultimately it’s doomed and they probably know it- a fighting retreat from reality. They want to stop the world and get off and I’d be only too happy to open the door for them and put my foot to their back.
 
My disagreement is not about the Labour Party, but the significance of the anti woke movement.

Individual expressions of antiwokery, such as the Mail Headlines, might seem unimportant on their own, but that add up to a culture of aggressive intolerance and the propagation of lies.

I agree that Labour has positioned itself onto a place where it’s incapable of action, it seems incapable of taking a stand on anything at a macro level and even when it opposes government on specific things, it can only criticise on a micro level and those criticisms are quickly forgotten, but that is their problem.

On a larger level the Tories are winning hands down and the vehicle they are now using to drive their advantage forward, to create a society divided on social and racial justice, is antiwokery. Soon they will have their own TV station headed by Andrew Neil with an explicit antiwoke agenda. This is an agenda to attack those who are pro social and racial justice. This is an agenda to preserve a myth of our national greatness. This is an agenda to prevent any discussion about our history that does not fit the myth.

This agenda is an attempt to drive any discussion of social or racial justice into a cul de sac surrounded by Tory ideologues.

We have seen evidence that groups of Tory MPs are attempting to create a movement that rewrites history, not least from @oldius about a worker for the National Trust being harangued by complains for providing historical context.

Rewriting history is not insignificant, it’s the tool of tyrants

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I can't disagree but it's a question of what you do. The imaginary basis of all this outrage really is key, IMO. Do you remember that story, years ago, about conkers being banned in school playgrounds on health and safety grounds? It was made up (with satirical intent, I think). Campaigning for racial justice etc. on non-issues determined by the likes of Laurence Fox is like campaigning for better health and safety laws on the basis of that conkers story. It immediately puts you on the back foot because you've accepted their fantasy world. I just think it's better to pick your own battles and draw your own lines.

That's not to say you shouldn't engage with these people, but remember that they are swine, who enjoy being swine: laugh at them, but there's no point trying to engage them in a serious discussion, especially about the s___ they're rolling around in.
 
Personally speaking, change makes me very anxious and I'm sure I'm not alone in that.
Yes, I’m sure that is very true. Change makes us all anxious. Perhaps it’s that anxiety that needs to be challenged?

Unfortunately that is what antiwokery stands on. It stands on a very conservative part of our psychology that dislikes change. It stands on a myth about our past and an image of our past greatness that is highly resistant to change.

Anti wokes accuse wokes of attempting to re write history, but the truth is that wokes are trying to challenge the foundation myths of our identity to *include* the truth of black history.

Wokes are seeking to change history but including certain truths.

Perhaps the challenge to the social and racial injustice promoted by anti wokery, does not need to come for the Labour Party, but from examining our own residence to change
 
This won't change though, they're interested in click-bait only as that's what drives their ad revenue.
Cuts both ways though - this thread exists only as a result of the Mail and Express headlines, so their faux-‘outrage’ has generated more traffic on pfm, more ad-reading and more revenue for Tony. Silver lining.
 
I can't disagree but it's a question of what you do. The imaginary basis of all this outrage really is key, IMO. Do you remember that story, years ago, about conkers being banned in school playgrounds on health and safety grounds? It was made up (with satirical intent, I think). Campaigning for racial justice etc. on non-issues determined by the likes of Laurence Fox is like campaigning for better health and safety laws on the basis of that conkers story. It immediately puts you on the back foot because you've accepted their fantasy world. I just think it's better to pick your own battles and draw your own lines.

That's not to say you shouldn't engage with these people, but remember that they are swine, who enjoy being swine: laugh at them, but there's no point trying to engage them in a serious discussion, especially about the s___ they're rolling around in.
One way to challenge these people could be to point out that being anti woke is being racist?
 
I recently re-read a P D James* whodunnit (Devices and Desires). One of the characters is an ex-teacher, who felt forced to quit her job in Inner London because of pressure from anti-racist types who wanted to ban the singing of 'Baa Baa Black Sheep', and to force the use of the word 'chalkboard' instead of 'blackboard'. AFAIK, both of these are urban legends, made up, or at least promulgated by the likes of the Mail and Express, so it was amusing/interesting to read of them as a plot device in a detective story.

*Mrs James was very much of a Thatcherite persuasion.
 
Cuts both ways though - this thread exists only as a result of the Mail and Express headlines, so their faux-‘outrage’ has generated more traffic on pfm, more ad-reading and more revenue for Tony. Silver lining.
No. The headlines in the Mail and Express are not the story, they’re just examples of a wider antiwoke movement. The wider antiwoke movement is the story, and it’s important because it’s a movement with social injustice and racism at its heart
 
One way to challenge these people could be to point out that being anti woke is being racist?
They're well aware! But they have multiple alibis and very much enjoy wheeling them one by one out for you to interrogate. They also enjoy feeling persecuted. It's win-win! Part of the appeal of this stuff.
 
One way to challenge these people could be to point out that being anti woke is being racist?

To which the obvious riposte is 'why is supporting the monarchy racist'? Is taking down a picture of the Queen being 'woke'? If so, how so?
 
I can't disagree but it's a question of what you do. The imaginary basis of all this outrage really is key, IMO. Do you remember that story, years ago, about conkers being banned in school playgrounds on health and safety grounds? It was made up (with satirical intent, I think). Campaigning for racial justice etc. on non-issues determined by the likes of Laurence Fox is like campaigning for better health and safety laws on the basis of that conkers story. It immediately puts you on the back foot because you've accepted their fantasy world. I just think it's better to pick your own battles and draw your own lines.

Like most here I am not young (58 is sadly imminent). Rock Against Racism, Two Tone, the anti-apartheid movement etc were formative aspects of my life, they all helped shape my thought process. I still see the world through this lens and as such fully side with #BLM, Extinction Rebellion etc. It is just who/what I have always been. As such I see far right foghorns like Farage, Fox, Hartley Brewer, Ferrari, Neil and the vast majority of Britain Trump’s new hard-right Brexit Tory Party as very deliberately and systematically attempting to de-platform, belittle and erode everything I have always believed in. They are attempting to dismiss real arguments about equality with a barrage of petty name calling and trigger words. I view it as an attack just as real as a bunch of racist skinheads barging their way into a gig or shop. Their behaviour is pure Goebbels and needs to be recognised as exactly what it is. We are at the stage now where the government of the day and the press it owns are pretty much branding even footballers expressing global racial solidarity as radical intellectuals that need silencing. This whole thing is about removing political scrutiny and shutting down debate IMO.

It astounds me that anyone can a) be on the wrong side of this argument, and b) not grasp that it is a battle that needs fighting.

PS This obviously includes the Labour Party which is far beyond useless as a tool for civil rights protest (or anything else) these days.
 
Having worked on a few building sites when young there are a lot of working class right wing sun readers; I’ve had my sister quote the Sun at me (ten things you didn’t know about the loony left) granted she’s a thick selfish cow but the proven effects of education on political views are sketchy.
I think it’s the environment of the school more than the education, ie if you are right Eton should therefore be a hotbed of leftist insurgents.

From some new work by Thomas Piketty. Interesting reading.
 
I didn’t say that supporting the monarchy is racist.

Well, no. But the current hoo-hah is about some bods taking down a picture of the Queen, which is portrayed as an example of 'wokeness'. So, if you oppose taking down the picture you are 'anti-woke' and thus racist.
 
Well, no. But the current hoo-hah is about some bods taking down a picture of the Queen, which is portrayed as an example of 'wokeness'. So, if you oppose taking down the picture you are 'anti-woke' and thus racist.
I haven’t said that anyone who opposes the taking down of the picture is antiwoke, it would obviously depend on your individual reasons for your opposition. However, the reasons promoted by the Mail and Express clearly are anti woke, and therefore racist?

So I fail to see how anything I’ve said can be interpreted saying that the monarchy is racist? It may well be, but not sure how you’ve got from me saying that antiwokery is racist to saying the Monarch is racist? Has the Queen been antiwoke?
 
Like most here I am not young (58 is sadly imminent). Rock Against Racism, Two Tone, the anti-apartheid movement etc were formative aspects of my life, they all helped shape my thought process. I still see the world through this lens and as such fully side with #BLM, Extinction Rebellion etc. It is just who/what I have always been. As such I see far right foghorns like Farage, Fox, Hartley Brewer, Ferrari, Neil and the vast majority of Britain Trump’s new hard-right Brexit Tory Party as very deliberately and systematically attempting to de-platform, belittle and erode everything I have always believed in. They are attempting to dismiss real arguments about equality with a barrage of petty name calling and trigger words. I view it as an attack just as real as a bunch of racist skinheads barging their way into a gig or shop. Their behaviour is pure Goebbels and needs to be recognised as exactly what it is. We are at the stage now where the government of the day and the press it owns are pretty much branding even footballers expressing global racial solidarity as radical intellectuals that need silencing. This whole thing is about removing political scrutiny and shutting down debate IMO.

It astounds me that anyone can a) be on the wrong side of this argument, and b) not grasp that it is a battle that needs fighting.

PS This obviously includes the Labour Party which is far beyond useless as a tool for civil rights protest (or anything else) these days.
To be clear, I'm not saying that the attack isn't real, I'm saying there's no point trying to tackle it on this front, which is that of professional outrage-merchants hosing down willing customers with dog___ 7 days a week and twice as hard on Sunday. Those movements you mention set their own terms and picked their own battles, they largely stepped around such undignified scenes.

It's probably more productive to focus on what makes the culture war possible, which, without going too deep, is a) our horrible press, and specifically the way it's regulated and b) the BBC's utterly craven relationship with the Conservative Party and reactionaries more generally. For instance every single BBC journalist knew that national anthem Proms story last year was 100% fictional but they pushed it and pushed it anyway. Those people are maybe worth arguing with, and the structures that push them into such subservient roles worth shining a light on.

There is for sure a sense of futility about campaigning for media reform just now but it's of a different order to arguing with the Self-Righteous Brothers over imaginary woke students.
 
Yes, but how is that saying that the monarchy is racist? It may well be, but not sure how you’ve got from me saying that antiwokery is racist to saying the Monarch is racist? Has the Queen been antiwoke?

I said 'supporting the monarchy' is portrayed as being racist/anti-woke, not that the Monarch herself is racist/anti-woke.
 
I’m not very clear on the reasons why the picture was taken down, nor the extent that they are based on woke thinking. But I infer that the picture was thought inappropriate. I can surmise that as the common room will be used by many overseas students, a picture of Brenda helps to keep alive ideas and remnants of the establishment, and through that, echoes of colonialism. Oxford is steeped in the establishment and it may be off putting to some from former colonies, for example, so don’t keep reinforcing the links where there’s no need to.
 
I said 'supporting the monarchy' is portrayed as being racist/anti-woke, not that the Monarch herself is racist/anti-woke.
I’ve edited my reply, to hopefully cover your point above, but again, I didn’t say or suggest that supporting the monarchy is antiwoke or racist
 
I’m not very clear on the reasons why the picture was taken down, nor the extent that they are based on woke thinking. But I infer that the picture was thought inappropriate. I can surmise that as the common room will be used by many overseas students, a picture of Brenda helps to keep alive ideas and remnants of the establishment, and through that, echoes of colonialism. Oxford is steeped in the establishment and it may be off putting to some from former colonies, for example, so don’t keep reinforcing the links where there’s no need to.

Well, there's no need to guess, as the reasons for taking down the picture were explained fully, eg in this BBC report:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-57409743

Students at one of Oxford University's colleges have voted to remove a portrait of the Queen from their common room.
Members of Magdalen College Middle Common Room (MCR) deemed the image a symbol of "recent colonial history".

The president of Magdalen said the decision was one for the students, not the college. The BBC has contacted the students' group for comment.

According to the minutes of Monday's MCR committee meeting, the motion was tabled in an effort to make the common room more welcoming and to recognise that "for some students, depictions of the monarch and the British monarchy represent recent colonial history".

The vote ended with 10 in favour of removing the portrait, two against and five abstentions.
 
Well, there's no need to guess, as the reasons for taking down the picture were explained fully, eg in this BBC report:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-57409743

Students at one of Oxford University's colleges have voted to remove a portrait of the Queen from their common room.
Members of Magdalen College Middle Common Room (MCR) deemed the image a symbol of "recent colonial history".

The president of Magdalen said the decision was one for the students, not the college. The BBC has contacted the students' group for comment.

According to the minutes of Monday's MCR committee meeting, the motion was tabled in an effort to make the common room more welcoming and to recognise that "for some students, depictions of the monarch and the British monarchy represent recent colonial history".

The vote ended with 10 in favour of removing the portrait, two against and five abstentions.
Yes, what I wrote was what I surmised having read a report very similar to that one. It doesn’t really say that much.
 


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