Barack Obama takes on 'woke' call-out culture: 'That's not activism'

What Hacker News said

Cites renaudg · 2020-06 · on “Facebook fires employee for publicly scolding a colleague”

“I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media, there is this sense sometimes of: ‘The way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people, and that’s enough.” “Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself, cause, ‘Man, you see how woke I was, I called you out.’” “That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far. That’s easy to do.” - Barack Obama [LINK] [this video]

Cites Reedx · 2020-06 · on “For black CEOs in Silicon Valley, humiliation is a part of doing business”

Casting those who question dogma as the other (conservative or "alt-right", commonly) is an effective silencing and compliance technique. "You're not one of us if you don't stay in lockstep" has a real chilling effect and is doing serious damage to the left. Obama warned about this too, but unfortunately wasn't well heeded: [this video] It's also intellectually dishonest. Most (all?) of the cited authors are liberals. James Lindsay, liberal professor. John McWhorter, liberal professor. I'm pretty sure Jon Haidt and Paul G are liberal-minded. For random commenters on HN, you don't know what their leaning is nor does it automatically mean disqualification. And it's worth noting that John McWhorter

Cites Reedx · 2020-07 · on “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate”

Do you have examples? The only one I'm aware of is this talk in 2019: [this video] That was good, but too late. It seemed like he mostly got "Ok, boomer" responses from his target.

Cites anonu · 2021-03 · on “Addiction to Outrage (2020)”

Obama called out the "super woke" generation a few years back: [this video] "If all you're doing is casting stones, you're probably not going to get very far"...

Cites systemvoltage · 2021-10 · on “Against ‘Diversity Statements’”

President Obama on woke ideology pointing out to what his daughters are learning in our education systems: [this video]

Cites systemvoltage · 2021-10 · on “The War over Academic Freedom”

"This is not activism". Here is President Obama speaking about this so called wokeness in Academia: [this video]

Cites systemvoltage · 2021-10 · on “Show HN: Pimp My Readme”

The term for this is wokeness. It is typified by overly sensitive, agenda-pushing, irrational behavior that uses offense as a tool to further their political agenda, oppress those who oppose and exemplify eggregious levels of false moral-superiority (and virtue signal to their mob). As President Obama says [1], it is not activism. [1] [this video]

Cites systemvoltage · 2021-12 · on “A Man from the Future – John von Neumann’s nuclear vision”

This culture, whatever it is, has had a personal impact on me. Many great people that I truly and deeply admired growing up, the reason why I am the person that I am today is because of historical figures. People need to learn how to forgive, look for the best in people and let go of decades old misgivings of a person. They changed the world. They inspired a whole generation. Anything that they did in their personal lives pales in comparison. If you want to go with this route, literally every person's great great grandfather was sexist in 1920s by today's standards. People need to understand the era, the context under which they operated. I am pretty sure my thoughts today are going to be ou