How the Right Replaced Their Favorite Slur With "Woke"
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
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Here, Resident Creator Garrison Hayes sits down with freelancer and contributor Anthony Conwright to discuss his latest piece for Mother Jones: How the Right Retired “Negrophile”-and Substituted “Woke."
In his essay, Conwright traces our country's language and how the right's obsession with the word "woke" today comes from a deep history of anti-Blackness and white supremacy.
Check out an excerpt from his essay here, or click on the link above to read the full piece:
On June 14, 1862, the New York Times published an editorial titled “The Mystery of Negrophilism.”
The essay questioned the origins of white Americans’ “extraordinary interest in the negro” and called the “passion for the American negro” an “entirely abnormal…phenomenon.” During the Antebellum period, Southerners pathologized Northern whites’ intolerable friendliness-their “liking negroes”-as “negrophilism.” They chided abolitionists as “negro-maniacs” obsessed with “negro interest.” It was untenable for citizens of a slaveholding nation to harbor human affection toward enslaved descendants of Africa-a continent, the author wrote (purportedly quoting then-Secretary of State William Seward), that “nature had fortified against civilization.” White enslavers positioned enslaved Black people as chattel partly by excluding them from the emotional bonds that facilitate civil society.
“Negrophile” sentiment had the power to make Black suffering legible and, as a result, Black American humanity legible too. In the white South, where Black flesh demarcated a non-human species, negrophilia was a deleterious liberal ideology that reimagined the natural (white) order of the world. For White Americans to espouse sympathy towards un-sympathizable Blacks, and acknowledge their suffering, was to blaspheme against a long-held doctrine that justified chattel slavery by excluding Black people from fellow feeling: Black suffering is permissible because it is deserved. The South’s paranoia around negrophilism spurred violent inquisitions that snuffed out traces of “negrophile” doctrines like abolition from the crevices of Southern life. Negrophiles were prosecuted, flogged, and ostracized. Negrophile educators were exiled from schools, and “negrophile books” were banned throughout the South or sent to the pyre.
Contemporary supporters of so-called “woke” doctrines have endured the same treatment-but referring to white Americans as negrophiles is unacceptable by today’s social standards, which forbid any suggestion of the “N-word.” The right has supplanted the epithet with what it now derides as “wokeness,” reviving the Southern notion of negrophilia as a righteous fixation on race.
As a pejorative, “woke” isn’t too distant from its predecessors: race agitator, n*gger-lover, negrophile. A “woke” white person-a negrophile-threatens to indoctrinate fellow whites into liberal obsession with racism. The irony was captured in 1962 by a self-proclaimed “negrophile”: “One wonders whether this term in either its genteel or vulgar form would ever be applied to another human being except by somebody who was, perhaps, subconsciously, a negrophobe.”
Conservatives’ fanaticism around “wokeness” also has no anchor in logic, no real definition, and must also be fabricated ad nauseam. Like the southern phobia around negrophilism, the phobia of wokeness is malicious, yet sensible-for the anti-woke, who are paranoid that a society saturated with racial sympathy would turn on a “negro axis.” The possibility of a Black sociopolitical orientation, as Fanon said, causes “fear and revulsion.”
Mother Jones
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Brilliant. This guy is what understanding Black History means.What Black History is.
If any conservative uses woke unironically then I automatically discount their argument. You know they aren't going to debate in good faith.
Agreed, wholeheartedly
ABSOLUTELY NAILED IT!!! 👍
One of my favourite quotes: "The sleeper must awaken." Woke is a compliment outside of right-wing/fascist circles. It means your head isn't stuck in the sand, you're capable of learning and bettering yourself to become a better person, and that you don't automatically fear/hate anyone who's even remotely different from you. You can learn about and accept (as a bare minimum) others. Wokeness is open-mindedness and morality (or failing that, striving for actual morality, and not the appearance of morality).
It also implies being awake to systemic forces that create the conditions we experience.
@@maargenbx1454 Exactly
@@alastordomioI know it's extremely hard for you to understand, but nazis and fascists are on the right. Try picking up a history book, you might learn something.
Also, none of what you said changes what I said, which I'm guessing you haven't read, let alone understood. Keep shaking your fist at the sky and imaginary foes.
@@alastordomio When you say the word ‘woke’ was *originally* used on black Twitter it shows you know absolutely nothing about the term, since it was commonly used among black activists since at least the 70s if not before, and it’s always referred to a lot more than police brutality. Conservatives are whining about it now because they need whatever they can find to distract from discussing lack of healthcare, increased concentration of wealth, income inequality, climate issues, gun violence, wage theft, etc.
@@thebowandbulletno, that is absolutely not true
I’m sorry, but here 12:54 is expressed one of my gripes with the Left. No matter what anyone says about “Christians” or “conservatives” or “white nationalists” does anyone on the right flinch from those terms? Not at all. They’re proud to be what they are - and why not? If they themselves thought anything was wrong with being either they’d abandon those positions.
On the Left, though, the right wing demonizes the term “liberal” and leftists run from it. The right wing demonizes the term “socialism” and we run from it. The right wing demonizes the term “woke” and now we run from it? People on the right proudly refer to themselves as neo-Nazis, but now it’s said that woke “was” a good term??
We need more people to be woke. Awareness of the systemic forces - beginning with racism - that create the detrimental conditions we need to correct is a basic requirement of anyone who cares about being a positive member of society. I also aspire to be a/an SJW - fighting for social justice is akin to being a super hero, it’s nothing to run away from.
That is absolutely ridiculous..... you sound like somebody who does nothing but watch MSNBC
@@Sir_Catnipah and here is the MAGA perspective, so insightful
if you’ve spent your life helping to oppress black people, either by deed or inaction, then you might have a highly developed paranoia about what they might do to you if they ever had the opportunity. 😱
Stay WOKE! I'LL NEVER CAPITULATE.
Excellent discussion. Demonstrated intelligentsia.
That’s ok, I replaced Racist with Colonizer.
As I always asked, "who yall want us to hate next"?
The David cross bit is from the pride is back
Thank you. That was enlightening.
I've been on the right all my life and never heard the term "negrophile".
I'm so behind the times.
According to the right there is no racism so why bother
I’ve been on the left my whole life and have also never heard that term. If what they mean is “n**er lover” then they should say that.
Edit: I wrote my response before before he actually said the slur we’ve all heard, rather than the elite version of it.
That's because it's not a thing....
The term should be rejuvenated. It describes basically all of modern day politics and culture.
The term went out of use over a century ago . This interview is about how the word "woke" is used today
Funny, "Call a Spade a Spade"!!! Gino Jennings
Well done!
Tragic the number of views this post has. Seemingly few remember what Woke was and who it was for. Much like the n word, it is Sorely taken advantage of. From technology and food recipes to Hip Hop, this isn't cultural appropriation. It is outright thievery. New subscriber
I listened and I'm confused as to what these cats are talking about.
It's a whole lot of nothing. Typical woke drivel with no solutions.
Really?
It's no big deal they are just whining
Me too.
What they’re saying is really worth understanding.
😂😂😂😂 woke has nothing to do with race
I wonder how mother jones would feel about you guys always trying to be victims
I'm tired of people who say "woke" like it's a bad thing. Or replacement theory. It's sickening. I've lost friends because of this. I can say these so-called friends took the trash out for me. And I'm a better person because of it. Keep up your good work. You ARE making changes for the good.💙
It's most definitely a bad thing....
@@Sir_CatnipExplain yourself.
You took the trash out for them.
i have a baby boomer cousin who i repeatedly tell wokeness was never used as an insult until the conservatives mis-appropriated meaning to something outside of their cultural sphere and look like fools using it.
Whenever a white person ask “Why does EVERYTHING have to be about race?”… then I ask “Why are you so afraid of ANYTHING that is?”
Whenever I hear that asinine question, this white Boomer gives an answer that resembles yours. If the bigot objects, I add a side order of sarcasm. This never changes the bigot, but observers are entertained and often provoked to think about the subject from a different angle. As a teen in the 1970s I was totally convinced that racism would be nearly extinct in a generation or two. Obviously my timeline was way off, but I'll never stop trying to open minds.
I look forward and hope for the time when we no longer fear the "other".
Wouldn't that be lovely. But not as long as the right-wing jerks think they are are special and above everyone else.
Hwite acceptance is a helluva drug.
Oh please - it’s not fear of the “other”. 🙄 Do you think that woman who called the cops on the bird watcher, or the other people who call cops on black people walking, jogging, swimming, etc seem at all afraid? Maybe if cops were genuinely afraid they would stop harassing black people so much and leave them alone.
If there’s any fear at all it’s fear of being equal, no longer dominating, and losing privilege.
@@maargenbx1454oh good grief, stop whining
DEI is being used the same way
I remember a few years back reading the ny post and i started to see them use the word woke constantly in their online headlines for many of their stories. It was usually categorized in a bad way. At that point I realized their agenda was to bastardize the word in an attempt and an effective one, to practically demean the word to the point where if you used it, it would sort of nullify any argument or point you had following its use. Basically its their created excuse to ignore your voice which is essentially what the “ruling class” prefers.
The way they have destroyed the word woke for the black community is very upsetting. It makes me feel bad that we can't have anything for ourselves
Very Indepth & insightful ..as to your ending about this Gordian Knot we all find ourselves in Historical events. For we are living in historical times; will show, or force us to untie this knot...one way or another...Thank You Both...
Well this is the most absurd thing I've ever seen.
"Ginger", for the Irish,..was an anagram...(they were cheaper than Slaves.)