00:00So, do you ever feel like it's your responsibility as a person of color or as a gay individual?
00:06This is so whack.
00:08A gay individual as a...
00:11Your identified person?
00:13Okay, we'll do that.
00:15Unwokeness. It's whack, but it's real.
00:18I'm Courtney.
00:19I'm Ash.
00:20And I'm Ryan.
00:20And this is R29 Chatroom.
00:22And today, we're going to talk about how to deal with unwokeness in real life.
00:25Okay, so when somebody in public says something mind-blowingly unwoke, what are your strategies?
00:33I feel like I just get quiet.
00:36Yeah.
00:37And I'm like, did this bitch really just say that?
00:42It depends on if it's about me or somebody else.
00:46I feel a lot more comfortable stepping up for other people.
00:49Yeah.
00:50If it's about me, I just get really quiet and try and change the subject.
00:53But if it's about somebody else, I'm like, hold up.
00:55Right.
00:55Back up.
00:56What's going on?
00:57If we don't have a personal relationship already, it's a lot easier for me to say hold up,
01:04which I actually think is a huge issue.
01:05I think that we need to be talking to the people who we care about and who are in our
01:09lives
01:10and call them out on their shit, you know?
01:13That's really the only way that change happens, in my opinion.
01:15A lot of the reason why people are unwoke is because they don't have anyone in their circle
01:23that's different from them.
01:24Yeah.
01:24You know?
01:25I have been friends with so many white cis straight people in my life, and I'm obviously
01:30not white, and I have failed to call them out.
01:34It's not that I'm not different than them.
01:35It's that I'm not brave enough, or whatever you want to call it, to say something about
01:41it and to make them uncomfortable.
01:42My mom always told me not to cause a stir.
01:45Right.
01:45And even though I kind of want to cause a stir now, it's still hard.
01:48Yeah.
01:48Like, it's hard to make this big social faux pas, even though they're the ones making
01:53the faux pas in the first place.
01:55Right.
01:55It's like, because you talk about it, that makes you the bad guy.
01:57So if you guys were in the workplace, and you encountered some kind of major unwokeness,
02:03how do you think you would deal with it?
02:04Would you pull the person aside?
02:06Would you not say anything at all?
02:08Well, it depends on the person, and whether or not they're in a senior position to me.
02:14Totally.
02:14So it also depends on, like, the workplace and the work environment.
02:19Like, no one's perfect anywhere, but fortunately, you know, at Refinery29, we don't encounter
02:25it as often as we would, like, in a more corporate setting.
02:29I wanted to say something about, like, color blindness.
02:31Like, I don't like when people say that they don't see color.
02:36Like, they say it because they think that it's going to make me feel better, but it's
02:39like, set it to, like, kind of take away from the fact that racism exists.
02:44Yeah.
02:45I've had it in a different way.
02:47Somebody told me when I was, like, in high school that I was white by association, which
02:52I know is, like, a totally different thing, but it's also, like, it totally takes away
02:56people's responsibility to learn about you.
02:59Right.
02:59Yeah.
03:00I think maybe something similar for me is, like, love is love, which, I mean, I appreciate
03:05the sentiment, truly.
03:06Like, I know it comes from a good place, but to me that just says we don't have to look
03:12at the ways that lesbian and gay's, like, relationships are different because, oh, like,
03:17it's just the same.
03:18Like, it's not the same.
03:19Yeah.
03:19We are not treated the same.
03:21Like, just saying that doesn't make it go away.
03:23Right.
03:24Like, you don't have to not think about, like, the ways that lesbians and gays are still
03:27brutalized.
03:28Right.
03:28Just because you don't want to.
03:30Well, I think that actually is a good point to talk about is, like, unwokeness is a symptom
03:36of our society's, like, obsession with trying to seem woke.
03:41Yeah.
03:41You know, it's, like, the ability to, like, sell wokeness ends up making you sound really
03:49fucking stupid.
03:50Yeah.
03:50Like, if we're just talking about these, like, slogans or whatever, then you can just,
03:55like, adopt this sort of, like, the appropriate way to think.
03:58And then you don't really have to work on yourself because you're wearing the right products.
04:02Right.
04:02You're, like, reblogging the right info sets.
04:05You know, you're saying the right thing on Facebook, but you're not actually helping.
04:08Yeah.
04:09If somebody posts everything on Facebook that they're supposed to do and then can't sit
04:12and have a conversation with you about why something is flawed or just, like, talking
04:20about the issues that they so often post about, then it's really, they're not actually doing anything.
04:25I think the number one evidence of not being woke is the inability to admit that you're wrong.
04:31It's hard.
04:31Yeah.
04:32It is hard, but it's, like, anything with practice, it becomes so easy.
04:36Like, for me now, I'm just, like, damn, you're right.
04:39I think now I just get to the point, especially, like, this election.
04:43Oh, my God.
04:44Yeah.
04:44People are so stubborn and in their ways to the point where a lot of times they aren't interested
04:49in hearing what you have to say.
04:51Yeah.
04:52You know, sometimes I find myself educating people a lot and, like, opening up my friend
04:55group and that means educating people a lot.
04:58And then I just get burnt out, so I end up just wanting to spend, like, weekends in.
05:04Like, it's not going out to parties.
05:05Yeah.
05:06Because inevitably, it doesn't matter where you are, there's going to be some conversation.
05:09Conversation about it, yeah.
05:10And I think that you just have to take time for self-care and remember that the issues will
05:15unfortunately probably always be there and the conversations are happening without you
05:22and that you are always welcome to jump back into them.
05:25But again, just take care of yourself, including all of you on YouTube.
05:29Yeah, well-rested educator is the best one.
05:31Yeah.
05:33Yes.
05:34Definitely comment below if you have any stories or comments about how to deal with unwokeness.
05:38Thank you again for watching.
05:39Until next time.
