Army Gen. Mark Milley pushed back on claims from Republicans that the military is “woke” and as a result not prepared to take on modern threats, saying he’s “not even sure what that word truly means.”

“What I see is a military that’s exceptionally strong. It’s powerful; it’s ready. In fact, our readiness rates, the way we measure readiness, is better now than they’ve been in years,” Milley said in a CNN interview Sunday.

Republican politicians and candidates have blasted the Pentagon for so-called woke policies, pointing to efforts to recruit a diverse group of military service members and be inclusive to transgender soldiers.

Those claims have also headlined efforts to reduce military spending.

  • geosoco@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    No one knows what the word woke means. Even people who use it can’t define it. It’s just a boogeyman word for things people don’t like or want, and even they can’t agree on it.

    • TheBiscuitLout@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m becoming more and more convinced that a “woke” person is anyone who calls right-wingers out on being overtly racist/sexist/fascist. Or maybe anyone who just isn’t obviously racist/sexist/fascist.

    • gregorum@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Last December, a Federal judge asked DeSantis’s general counsel to define “woke,” and he did, thusly:

      He answered woke is "the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.”

      fascinating…

      source

      • Ragdoll X@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Really that’s the closest we’ve come to an actual proper definition of the term “woke” by a conservative (and I’m like 90% confident that DeSantis’ lawyers got that definition from the first few lines of the Wikipedia page on this term).

        Yet, perhaps unsurprisingly, other conservatives give very different definitions, or none at all. VICE asked several conservatives at CPAC for a definition of the term and got a bunch of different answers (and vague non-answers). During an interview a conservative author who wrote an entire book about “wokeness” couldn’t give the definition of the term. A few weeks ago Noah Samsen made a response to an anti-woke YouTuber by the name “Think Before You Sleep”, who simply defined woke as “communism” (whatever he thinks that means).

        For all intents and purposes, “woke” might as well just mean “anything vaguely progressive that I don’t like”.

    • Jonna@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Ok a court filing, DeSantis lawyers defined “woke” as, “the belief that there are systemic inequities in US society and the need to work against them”.

      Which is not bad as a definition, really.

    • TimeSquirrel@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      It still means what it always meant. Being aware of society’s injustices to the poor, downtrodden, or minority population and wanting to do something about it. They can’t fucking stand that.

      Being against being “woke” truly reveals who they are. That they just want to sweep it all under a rug and forget about it.

    • Laticauda@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      No the problem is that woke does have a meaning, and most people know what that meaning is. The problem is that if republicans actually defined it out loud they’d have to admit what they actually take issue with and what they’re actually fighting, and doing so would basically be admitting that they’re the baddies. It’d be saying the quiet part out loud. By avoiding acknowledging the actual meaning of the word they get to pretend that wokeness is a nebulous Bad Thing that should be fought against.

    • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      “Woke is now defined in this dictionary as “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice),” and identified as U.S. slang. It originated in African American English and gained more widespread use beginning in 2014 as part of the Black Lives Matter movement.”

    • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Everyone knows what the word means, it’s just impossible to define without sounding like a bigot. Because it means “not a bigot.”

      • nitefox@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        for me, for example, it means “people who are all over their head with cancel culture”; it also means people [who use the word] are probably a bunch of far right crazies.

        So overall I guess it’s a way to describe the two far ends of the same thing

        • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Cancel culture isn’t a thing, or at least it’s not a new thing. People are facing consequences for their actions, as they always have. The difference now is that bigots are facing consequences. Used to be, you’d get cancelled for being gay, or for refusing to sleep with a superior, or for suspicion of being a communist. Powerful people would have to fuck with someone more powerful to have their lives ruined. Now, the powerful people fear the public scrutiny, and viral social media can bring down just about anyone (with notable exceptions proving the rule). So now they’ve given it a name, hoping to make people fear and hate the backlash enough to make people forget why someone has been cancelled.

          It’s bullshit.

    • Naura@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I realized that black people exist in a world different than mine.

      It woke me up to the realities of black existence

      When i had my kid and i read a bunch of stuff on parenting, i also came across those articles where black families needed to talk to their sons about police. It never occurred to me that people would need to so that.