Coca Cola : "Be less white"

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Ill leave this article with you guys.

https://areomagazine.com/2020/01/21/is-anti-woke-becoming-the-new-woke/
A few years ago, I joined a new tribe. I didn’t mean to. In fact, I intended to do the opposite. We were a tribe against tribes. Ironically, part of my reason for unwittingly joining this tribe was my dislike of tribalism. This new tribe was centered on a dislike of PC culture and identity politics. As someone who went to college in the late 90s, studied the humanities (my BA is in comparative literature) and became an adjunct professor, I’d been immersed in PC culture for a long time. But, as much as I disliked some elements of the culture, I was still a card-carrying liberal. Not just liberal, but even left of center at times. I still am. But my liberal academic tribe had begun to change their views on things like free speech, especially in the arts, and on tolerating diversity of opinion. So I found myself ideologically homeless. I was seeking a new tribe. I just wasn’t conscious of it. I was looking for like-minded individuals, who would agree that it was outrageous that offended Twitter mobs could get people cancelled or de-platformed. I wanted allies, so that I didn’t feel quite so crazy.

The tribe I joined was supposed to be an independent one. Perhaps that was my first mistake: since that is an inherent contradiction. Still, our tribe wasn’t like those other tribes. Our tribe was a loose conglomerate of free thinkers. We had no ideological purity tests—or did we? The tribe began as a relatively small group of scientists, intellectuals, artists, journalists and disgruntled academics, who had begun to push back against call-out culture. They gave it a name—the Intellectual Dark Web—and at least one author referred to it as Free Speech YouTube (Meghan Daum, in her book The Problem with Everything). This tribe consisted of ideologically diverse people with one thing in common—they were free speech advocates, who championed independent thought and civilized disagreements and disliked the way mob rule was beginning to shut down conversation.

I began following members of this tribe on Twitter. I wrote articles for the magazines at its tribal center. Soon, my Twitter feed began to fill up with tweets from my tribe, thanks to algorithms. The more such tweets I liked, the more I saw. And, like all tribes, we even had a common enemy to rally around—they were called the woke, a loose conglomerate of online social justice activists who comported themselves like new Victorians, or McCarthyites, monitoring everyone’s behavior, words and art for transgressions against their worldview. The woke were the new fundamentalists. Their tactics were illiberal, damaging to a society that believed in the free exchange of ideas and free speech. They weaponized social media and were turning us into a surveillance society. In the name of democracy, freedom, reason and the Enlightenment, it was important to push back against this illiberal tribe. After all, unlike them, my tribe was intellectually honest. We had checks and balances. We were ideologically diverse. We avoided groupthink. We even avoided saying we. Except when we didn’t. Because we were also prone to tribal behavior, just like any other tribe.

<snip>

Public shaming is not an effective way of defending free speech. These are the same kinds of intimidation tactics employed by the woke. I will probably get banished by my tribe for saying this: but perhaps anti-woke is becoming the mirror image of woke. Maybe it’s time for some self-reflection.
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Not going to take seriously anyone who dedicates a sizable amount of time to reading or posting on Twitter :p

It's platform for white noise.
 
Tony Edwards said:
Ill leave this article with you guys.
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Group A wants to destroy western values, push forward identity politics and racist values.

Group B argues against it and mocks the ideology.

But somehow Group A = Group B.

I guess we should all just sit here in silence and let Group A do what they want?
 
Tony. Woke does not equal "diversity of opinion", woke equals "agree with this opinion or be labelled <insert negative 'ist word here>". The comments on that article are gold, swinging from one extreme to another. You can tell it's America centric due to the polarisation, how is this going to help anyone?

Liberals generally aren't anti-anything unless it is generally illiberal, which I'd argue the theory that has resulted in white people being told to "be less white" as incredibly illiberal. The training course is not racist, but certainly an illiberal POV.

We can all agree (well, I'm starting to doubt it now) that ideas should be explored, but you don't impose it on the world without it being tested properly, which in the way it's designed isn't possible in a fair manner.
 
dowie said:
You don't buy an argument you've just introduced yourself and that wasn't made in the post you're quoting? That's fine, don't buy that argument.
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Sorry dowie, I was putting words in your mouth here. Arguing against myself for the sake of arguing.


Where is the evidence that it actually achieves anything? Where is the falsifiability in the ideas - they're inherently not even open to criticism as the arguments constricted by her are such that any criticism of the ideas themselves is evidence of guilt. It's a total farce.
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There isn't any evidence - but it's out in the wild regardless. It's a live experiment, whether the results will be accepted as evidence one way or another is anyone's guess. Probably not. It'll be the same old "that wasn't true theory put in place, let's try it again".

Why does popularity add anything here? Should Scientology have been championed by HR depts in the 90s or early 00s?
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Scientology was universally ridiculed along with it's supporters. It certainly wasn't attempting to impose itself in the same way SJ Theory is, and it's doing so through media, education, workplaces, etc. It's everywhere, it's got support, or at the very least it's not being opposed in the same way Scientology was. I cannot imagine Coca Cola employees sitting down for a training course written by L Ron Hubbard on the extra-terrestrial origins of humanity. (I've probably offended any Scientologists on OcUK, sorry.)
 
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Longbow said:
Group A wants to destroy western values, push forward identity politics and racist values.

Group B argues against it and mocks the ideology.

But somehow Group A = Group B.

I guess we should all just sit here in silence and let Group A do what they want?
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You could easily swap B group for A group there. I suppose it just depends what side of the coin you sit closer too.
 
Hades said:
White noise? White? White? White?
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Ah you see, you're allowed to use "white" in any sentence with an overall negative tone.

See: "white guilt", "white fragility", "white lies", etc.

So "white noise" is fine, because nobody likes white noise. The messaging is clear that "white" must be associated with something undesirable.
 
Fubsy said:
Scientology was universally ridiculed along with it's supporters. It certainly wasn't attempting to impose itself in the same way SJ Theory is, and it's doing so through media, education, workplaces, etc. It's everywhere, it's got support, or at the very least it's not being opposed in the same way Scientology was. I cannot imagine Coca Cola employees sitting down for a training course written by L Ron Hubbard on the extra-terrestrial origins of humanity. (I've probably offended any Scientologists on OcUK, sorry.)
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Well yeah, that's the point and yet this stuff with no basis whatsoever *is* taught to Coca Cola employees, it's no more valid a set of beliefs as say Scientology but it's spread within various university departments that lack any rigour and among teachers, HR professionals etc...
 
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