What makes something or someone "woke"? How to not come across as "woke"?

Question

The definition of wokeness is not clear to me. Nowadays in Hollywood movies, you see a lot of non-White, female, LGBTQ characters placed in situations that look forced or fake for some reason. But if I watch an older Hollywood movie or Japanese cartoon movie that also has LGBTQ characters or racially diverse characters, it somehow doesn't feel forced or woke.

I am not American, but I have come to study in the USA. I don't like liberals for the most part, so I don't want people to think I'm woke. Is anthropology and linguistics also woke? If people study about a Native American language or an African language in an American university, does that also come across as woke?

My professor is from a very conservative Christian family, but he studies African languages. Would he be considered as woke?

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

Woke essentially means you prioritize the "needs" of a fringe element of society above the wants and needs of the majority. It's almost always motivated by a desire to virtue signal.

An example is supporting trans "women" competing in against women in sports. The majority of women are harmed to give trans women "equal rights".

Another example is open borders. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are dying from fentanyl overdose in the interest of allowing non-Americans to enter the country. And more importantly, expanding the Democrat voting base.

Yet another example is DEI, which prioritizes diversity over competence, again harming the majority while ostensibly helping the minority.

At its core, wokism is allowing emotion to rule over reason.

Syntosi · Accepted Answer

Good luck. "Woke" is a term without a meaning at this point. Conservatives simply apply it to things they do not like and pretend it makes any degree of sense just like they did with DEI, SJW or any number of other terms they use as derogatory slurs.

In my humble opinion, the best you can hope for is that they are too busy hating on transgender people to bother hating on foreign immigrants. Its not a guarantee and you are in one of the groups that are at risk of being singled out for the next smear campaign.

GOLDFISH_smile · Accepted Answer

If you don't want to be seen as woke then all you have to do is not agree with what woke people say, and not disagree with what anti-woke people say. So even if you can't define woke, as long as you can sense it (like you say whether you feel something is forced/fake or not) you should be okay.

Just try to blend in and not draw attention to yourself. Don't ask questions, don't try to correct someone. It's less woke to stay confused and silent than to use your voice to try to learn or teach.