Discourse Over AOC & Mamdani Repudiating Woke 1.0 is Crazyyyy

So, it's been a couple of days and the dust has settled a little bit and I've seen a number of possible explanations for Franchesca Hong's loss in Wisconsin. Negative attacks from mainstream media, concerns about her electability, a lack of television ads that her campaign ran, Bernie and AOCC's refusal to endorse her, and so on. But the most common thing that I've seen people attribute her defeat to is old tweets. namely this one from November of 2020 where she tweeted, "Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621. If it takes a worldwide pandemic for us to realize we should stop celebrating colonialism and the original super spreader event that killed indigenous folks and women, so be it." Now, I for one am old enough to remember how people used to actually get cancelled for old racist tweets. But these days, we apparently get in trouble if we have old anti-racist tweets because I guess the cancel culture is actually good if it's done to leftists. But I mean, on the substance, she is undeniably correct. That doesn't mean that she would have cancelled Thanksgiving if she was elected governor of Wisconsin. Nor does it mean that you're a bad person if you personally choose to celebrate it yourself. To most people, it's about spending time with family and being thankful. But having said that, it is inarguably a hot take that may have contributed to the demise of her campaign. And before her election, AOC was asked about Hong's Thanksgiving tweet, and she gave an answer that sparked some heated discourse online. >> I have a local city councilman that has this uh uh saying, "Woke one was crazy." [laughter] >> Woke one was crazy. Okay, that's interesting. And uh and I think that what's important is that we have to assess what >> was I mean did the movement go too far with some of those positions? I mean you you briefly supported the idea of defunding the police. >> Well um >> you know I think I think that during this time and during especially during COVID there was a huge opening of the overtone window. We were shut down. There was some of the highest unemployment rates that we have seen because of those shutdowns. And I think that the the doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place. And I actually think that the discussions that had that were had in that time were quite fruitful. >> Now she was of course referring to this viral tweet from Chi Oay which refers to different eras of quote unquote wokeness on the left. Now, I think that the difference between woke one and woke 2 is largely subjective, but most people would probably characterize defund the police as one example of leftist rhetoric from the woke one era. Whereas, in my interpretation at least, woke 2 deemphasizes social justice language in order to reenter the conversation around more class-based issues for purposes of electability. It doesn't mean you abandon racial justice. you just deemphasize it because you know issues like defund the police aren't necessarily going to pull very well. There's also dark woke which is the use of borderline anti-woke and even bigoted language towards fascists in pursuit of a broader woke agenda. For example, if I were to call an anti-gay Republican the fsler and accuse them of being closeted in order to shame them into leaving gay people alone by getting them to think that their homophobia makes them suspicious. I think that that would probably qualify as dark woke. Not that I've done that, but I think that's one example. At least I don't think I've done that. Either way, like these are just my working definitions for how these terms are colloquially used today as I see it, but it may vary from person to person. And just keep in mind, woke is an AAV term that was appropriated from the black community. And staying woke literally just meant that you were vigilant about racism in order to protect yourself. But AOCC's disavowel of woke one seemed to have split the left. Clarence Thomas the Tank Engine, for example, on Twitter argues maybe people were a little too woke scoldy online or whatever. But to boil down genuine energy in the racial justice, feminist, LGBTQ rights, and abolition movements and more to woke one was crazy is just handing the right of free win and diminishing real political energy. Others like Malcolm said, "Hate how non-black people treat the BLM era like it was some kind of funny joke. It's oh haha, woke one was crazy for you." Meanwhile, Ferguson activists were systemically silenced by the US government for simply trying to protest against police brutality. Now, on the other hand, some leftists agreed with AOC. Aaron from Queens argues, "I really like how AOC describes Woke One here. The failures of Woke One were almost entirely about rhetoric that didn't resonate with the people they were intended to reach. not bad policy ideas. Woke too is a rhetorical shift, not an ideological one. So you have different perspectives and to some extent I think that some leftists are talking past each other here. But Zoran mom Donnie was also asked to weigh in on whether or not he thought that woke one was crazy and he gave a similar response to AOC. >> Do you think woke one was crazy? Look, I think that each person has a responsibility to tell New Yorkers, to tell Americans when they're running for office what they believe. And sometimes what you believe can change, can develop, it can grow. And I know that there are some for whom they still believe in that. I've made very clear that I do not believe in defunding the police, that I will not be defunding the police. And that to me, delivering critical public safety also looks like working with our police department alongside many other partners. And we've seen over the first 7 months of this administration what that can look like when we're talking about the fewest murders on record in New York City, the fewest shooting incidents on record in New York City. And that to me is how we measure a lot of our public safety. >> Yeah. Now, putting aside his comments about police, which I absolutely hate, by the way, the question is where do I fall on this uh woke one versus woke 2 spectrum? And honestly, I feel really ambivalent about this because on one hand, I understand the need for politicians like Zoron and AOC to try to broaden their appeal by disavowing positions that don't have popular support. But on the other hand, it feels gross to see the left play politics in this way. I acknowledge that all politicians have to make compromises that I'm uncomfortable with, but that doesn't mean that I have to like it. Especially as somebody who's not bound to the same political constraints that they're bound to. And if I'm allowed to use dark woke rhetoric to defend woke one, it kind of makes them look like [ __ ] low-key because regardless if it's the politically savvy move or not, it's still a win for Republicans either way. On top of that, repudiating defund the police as so many leftists have done, it feels cynical and even hypocritical because we don't give Democratic party politicians a pass when they throw trans people under a bus to appease Republicans. So, it feels wrong to not hold our own to that same standard. It also gives me the ick because it makes it seem like as leftists, we don't have any core beliefs and we're just riding waves. And I I think that Tik Tok or not demi articulated my feelings on this really well. >> Call me anal or quote unquote woke all you want, but I don't really like when people talk down on quote unquote woke 1.0. And I think the main reason for that is because it kind of diminishes all of the hard work that people did. Like a lot of people, especially a lot of young people, spent a lot of their formative years protesting and advocating against police oppression, against issues that were impacting their communities. And to watch leftists, MAGA, and liberals, all poo poo on the idea of wokeness. And especially for like liberals and leftists, it's so confusing to me because class consciousness involves people becoming woke. Like in my personal opinion, there are better ways to talk about the excesses of cancel culture and the excesses of quote unquote woke culture without demeaning all of the hard work that a lot of people did. I want to make sure I don't generalize because I don't think most leftists feel like this. But seeing more individuals, seeing more liberals and leftists, whether Alyssa Slackin or ALC, talk about wokeness in a in a pjorative manner is disgusting. I've heard leftists argue multiple times that liberals never stand on their own politics, that they never stand on their [ __ ] right? Like, they're willing to capitulate to right-wing framing at every turn just for y'all [ __ ] to turn around and do the same [ __ ] Like, did y'all [ __ ] not believe in the [ __ ] you were saying then? And if you didn't believe in the [ __ ] you were saying then, then why should people believe you now? I would hate for people in 2030 to look down on all of the work that we're currently doing right now and just laughing at woke 2.0. >> I think she makes a compelling point. Yes, we do need to be politically savvy and learn to adapt, but I think that we're maybe learning some wrong lessons from woke 1 and the supposed demise of woke one. I've seen some people try to be introspective, which is good, but they're being introspective in a way that I don't think is going to be fruitful. For example, I've seen some people, multiple people talk about, you know, the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and say that, you know, their support for defund the police back then was a mere lapse in their judgment and they've since come to their senses now and they're ready to consider more serious solutions. And, you know, seeing George Floyd get murdered by a cop, it just like triggered this emotional response. But when you say things like that, even if it's genuine, there's this implication that that means that we just have to kind of abandon this issue alto together. and sidestep police brutality. I'm not saying that that's what they're arguing, but it feels like that's kind of the implication or where this is ultimately going to go because if defund the police is just unwinable and reforming the police really is impossible, then we just have to throw our hands up and say, "Well, there's nothing we can do. We just have to do uh the best we can to improve people's lives in other ways. But as Demi said, the cultivation of class consciousness requires people to be woke, for lack of a better word. Class reductionism is not a solution to racism because even if we get Medicare for all, that's not going to stop the police from killing black and brown people. So, ignoring the issue of police brutality altogether feels like we're implicitly telling black people that they have to stand down on one of the biggest issues that affects their community for the greater good. But I hate to tell you this, that's not going to foster class solidarity. It's antithetical to class solidarity because class solidarity has to be mutually beneficial. It's an understanding that I'm going to fight for issues that affect your community if you fight for issues that affect mine. Yes, black and brown people would also benefit from Medicare for all obviously, but they need white allies to join them and their fight to stop police brutality to form a majority coalition. But why would they want to form a coalition with us if we constantly tell them that their issues have to take a backseat to things that we care about more? It just it kills solidarity. So in order to achieve class consciousness, we have to incorporate racial justice into our agenda and actually make it a priority. Otherwise, we're not going to be able to have class solidarity. And regardless of how well defund the police polls, I'm sorry, it doesn't change the fact that we actually do need to defund the police. police forces shouldn't eat up the entire budgets of most cities and we shouldn't respond to every societal issue with criminalization and more police. Maybe we approach it in a different angle and we bust up police unions first to disempower them. I don't know. Either way, we need to workshop a better pitch for what is effectively defund the police now more than ever because that is an issue that is important. Police forces have usurped the power of mayors in some cities. I think New York City is one example. And the reason why dropping this issue altogether is a bad idea is because our collective retreat under defund the police has only made them exponentially more tyrannical. And this creator explained how this is the case. >> You know what's actually really not funny that AOC is out here being like, "Oh, haha, he he like we were so woke back then, but now we're doing real politics." Like that actually isn't [ __ ] funny. Like the reality is is if abolishing the police, if even defunding the police had been taking been taken seriously, we would not be seeing the violence that we're seeing from ICE right now. We would not be seeing police departments all over this nation continue to be funded at higher and higher and higher levels every single year while your state of living gets worse and worse. We're talking about mass surveillance. We're talking about flock cameras all over the country. All over the [ __ ] country. We're talking about actively. We know that people within police departments are using flot cameras to track people and monitor people and surveil people that they know in real life. We know that people, children are still being shot and killed by police today. Literally, not even that long ago, a black kid was shot and killed in Austin for what people assumed was a weapon turned out to be a [ __ ] water bottle by police. And this is why so many socialist communist anarchists are deeply deeply weary of DSA. And it's a valid concern because she is supported by DSA. And we are seeing that like New York City, even with all of the great things that Mom Donnie is doing within the city, there are still many things that are very clearly more socialist aligned that he is choosing not to [ __ ] touch. And the reality of that is that these systems kind of force you to go to the right. Like we're watching it with AOC. She was like a like a beacon of like progressivism. Like people really thought that she was going to be like this massive like blow to the system. And what are we seeing is a woman who's gearing up to run for the president capitulate to the right. >> So by abandoning defund the police, we may have given up what little leverage we had. And honestly, it's a damn shame that George Floyd's murder catalyzed civil rights protests across the globe. Yet, just 6 years later, politicians have zero fear of blowback for increasing police budgets year after year because they know that there's going to be a greater political cost if they don't do it because we're no longer keeping the pressure on them. But to her point, it'd be really good to have at least some push back on policing and find a way to address this issue because we live in a full-blown surveillance state in large part because there really hasn't been push back against police due to popular support for police officers in this country, especially among white people. But as Futurism reports, anti-Trump protesters are being surveiled by drones in staggering numbers. For example, quote, "According to new reporting by The Intercept, the Los Angeles Police Department launched drones at at least 31 separate times during a single ICE out protest on January 31st, which culminated in the arrest of at least 50 demonstrators after the LAPD issued an order to disperse at around 9:30 p.m. They add, according to some estimates, there are now more than 1,500 police agencies in the US deploying drones in some way. As these programs grow bolder, mass aerial surveillance threatens to become routine as privacy protections remain way behind. But that's just local police. As Huffost reports, ICE is taking $20 million of your tax money and using it to give Brown shirts shock gloves like [ __ ] comic book villains. And this is why that creator is correct to point out that it was never wise for the left to give up the fight against police brutality because conceding ground only made things worse. And it also demonstrates how an issue like police brutality, it does affect all of us. Sure, black and brown people are disproportionately targeted, but if we wanted to rally in favor of say Medicare for all, they would utilize the same tactics against us. Hell, we don't have even have to bring up a hypothetical. They're already surveilling no kings protesters, which consists mostly of white people. So, one lesson that we should learn from woke one is that racial justice does affect all of us. If you've heard the phrase, "Nobody's free until we're all free," it's because that is objectively true. Racial animosity is used by the oligarchs to divide the working class. They're able to get us to think that each other are the real villains, that black people and immigrants and Muslims and trans people are our enemies instead of the oligarchs because as a country, we've never really tried to root out racism. Right? When things get a little bit better, we just move on and pretend like it never happened. And the left unfortunately has that instinct too because we are products of our environment. But that approach has come back to bite us in the ass again and again and again. So I don't think that it's wise for us to just dismiss woke one as crazy because regardless of how annoying or cringeworthy it was at times. It stemmed from a good place. People who were part of woke one, they wanted to make the world a better place. But that's not to say that the era is above criticism because I don't think that leftists are denouncing woke one because they're bad people or because they're racist and don't care about police brutality. I think that part of the reason why there's this instinct to move away from woke one is because it was co-opted in part and turned into something that kind of felt like a joke at times. As this Tik Tocker explains, >> there is a version of saying woke one was crazy. I completely believe though and that's the version that had people like REI executives doing land acknowledgements before they uh held union busting seminars, right? Because that's it's not that the tenant of like land acknowledgements is is bad or laughable or anything. It's the fact that woke one in this way was like also being like co-opted at the exact same time that earnest people were trying to like live a better form of politics. like very cynical people were just handwaving at them and then still like running you know ramshot all over human rights like I mean like that to me is like also like peak woke one but that's what was crazy about woke one was the ability of people who hated the politics to co-opt them and then still be horrible individuals you know I mean like that that was crazy but people saying hey I have I have political visions that I want to see realized that see the liberation of people there's nothing crazy about that ideally that's what we should be wanting. >> And I think he's exactly right. The cynical commercialization of pride by corporations along with genocide supporting Democrats taking a knee in Kente cloth just feels so phony. And let's call it what it is. It was virtue signaling. Democratic party politicians, they loved the veneer of wokeness because they used it to try to mask their corporatism. Sure, Nancy Pelosi didn't support Medicare for all, but at least she's progay and disavows racism, right? And it didn't help that the Democratic Party establishment weaponized identity politics to crush the left. We just saw the same thing happen in the Michigan Senate race where Abdul Elsed was accused of being a misogynist for tepidly criticizing Gretchen Whitmer and Michelle Obama. And do you want to know who ran those ads? It was uh Apex Proxy Group, the organization that supports genocide and apartheid. That's why the adoption of woke language by corporations and politicians kind of killed it in some ways. It left a bad taste in people's mouth. You know, it gave them the impression that we were insincere when we used the same rhetoric, even if we actually meant it when we said it. You know, it kind of just it tainted the whole thing and killed the vibe. And I think that that's part of why so many leftists have the desire to put woke one behind us. But that doesn't mean that you have to throw the baby out with the bath water for reasons explained by this creator. >> The way that we're talking about woke one is going to sideline the genuine complaints that we have about police brutality because we are currently not in woke 2 or dark woke. We are in hell. All right. To me, it is a bad sign of the times when the most progressive elected officials are wrapping up genuine political [music] theory and decades long political practice as sort of hyped up in 2020. like, oh, we were all sort of hyped up on woke juice madness, right? I'm watching the goalpost be actively moved because I don't know if you guys remember, but I'm seeing people be like, well, the issue is defund the police. Maybe you need to talk about police reform or demilitarizing the police cuz that's what you really mean. Cuz defund the police is scary and it makes people seem like you're trying to get rid of the police entirely. when defund the police as a message was something to push back or to pull back from the scariness of prison abolition in the first place where prison abolition was scary and defund the police was more clear that we were trying to take money like that was being poured into police departments the New York City police department has a $6 billion budget right and put that money into other resources to help we we just don't need constantly ballooning police budget so I'm watching in real time as people take what was already a diluted like watered down version of a message and claimed that the diluted watered down version was already too extreme. Which leads me to this greater theory that I have about scapegoats. It feels like woke 2.0, dark woke, or whatever the hell you want to call it, is this backlash. We're currently in Trump's America and everything has gone to [ __ ] and people are actively looking for somewhere to place blame. All right? People feel like we went too woke or we went too far on minutia that shouldn't matter and we've chosen people to scapegoat. Whether that be the Black Lives Matter movement going too far in 2020, whether it be issues about trans people, whether it be issues about climate, that those are the less important things when it comes to things like affordability or things that people we know universally hate. While affordability is a great thing to run on and also important and it's good that like we're focusing on it, I'm watching people scapegoat [music] and blame. It's like I'm seeing it not just in politicians rhetoric, but in the way that people are talking, even the way that people responded to my idea of of woke one being not all that crazy. I'm just hashtag noticing that everyone is shifting blame onto the most vulnerable aspects of our community to be like, "All that was we were wasting too much time on pointless [ __ ] Let's get to the real." But the pointless [ __ ] is also the real. And I agree with that. that it feels like we're falling into a trap and kind of doing the Republican party's work for them by scapegoating something like defund the police when in actuality if defund the police didn't exist Republicans would have found something else to attack us for because it really doesn't matter how left-leaning or center left or centrist you are they're always going to frame your policies as stupid and extreme but I mean our jobs as leftists is hard and this whole conversation kind of speaks to that right because there's no room for errors If we come up with a bad slogan, if we [ __ ] up, it'll be used against us for all eternity. So even though it feels gross to see Zoron Donnie and AOC as well as regular leftists disavow woke one, I understand why they feel the inclination to do it. Even if I don't agree, there's a conflict between wanting radical change to better society and the need to broaden our appeal to make society better, to get the things that we want implemented. And you know, those two things aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, but they're going to clash from time to time as the movement grows. And part of the problem is that the language that that we use in our echo chambers. It's much more insular and esoteric than the average person. And when that breaches containment and a tweet about cancelling Thanksgiving, for example, makes it to the normies, they're often taken aback by what they've seen from us. It's like they walked in on us while we were jerking off. So, we have to try to awkwardly explain ourselves even though we never intended for them to see us like that in the first place. Like, it doesn't help that it always becomes fodder for politicians and mainstream media who use it as evidence that we're unserious or too idealistic for American politics. Like, we are always going to be held to a higher standard than every other politician because we threaten power. And so if they can find a weakness, they will exploit that weakness and pick at it again and again and again until it becomes a festering wound. So that's something that we're just going to have to reckon with as the movement grows and as we expand our power, right? Some of our ideas aren't going to resonate with most Americans. I think that none of us are shocked to find that out. But it doesn't mean that we abandon those ideas because I, for one, have never gave a [ __ ] about what's popular. I care about what's moral. But any complex or ostensibly radical political idea that we have, it has to be cut up into tiny little pieces before it's fed to Americans like they're [ __ ] babies because they've been conditioned to think that anything that deviates too far away from the norm is inherently bad. So, we're going to have to be much more creative than every other political movement and find ways to make ourselves marketable while not abandoning our roots. You know, maybe that means we hide our power levels more often. Perhaps we leave little crumbs leading to defund the police. Hell, we could just co-opt their rhetoric and sell demilitarization of the police as freedom. I don't know. But it's something that we have to think about. But the fact that we're even having to think about that in the first place is a sign of the growing pains that our movement is feeling. And that's a sign that we're growing, which is good. Like, we wouldn't need to talk about these kinds of things if the movement was stagnant. But I don't know that there's any objective solution to this current problem that we're facing. If I'm being honest, like it or not, we're going to have to be more savvy and learn how to adapt to changing political conditions. And the way that politicians in particular do that, it's not always going to be super elegant or graceful. Perhaps they're a little clumsy as they transition into a more powerful position. But so long as we are collectively moving forwards and moving towards the betterment of society, I think that it's worthwhile for us to have these kinds of conversations that are annoying and sometimes make us uncomfortable. But I mean, one lesson that I think we all can take away from woke one is that you definitely should delete your old tweets if you want to run for office because it doesn't matter how innocuous you think that [ __ ] is, the establishment will find a way to use it against you. And I don't think leftists on either side of this discourse are gonna disagree with that. >> Woke mom. >> Woke ideology. >> Woke test. >> Work ideology. >> Woke Olympics. >> Woke ideology. >> Woke. >> Woke ideology. >> Woke [music] ideology. >> Woke ideology. Weaponized wolvery.