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.
00:16It's whack, but it's real.
00:18I'm Courtney.
00:19I'm Ash.
00:20And I'm Ryan.
00:21And this is R29 Chatroom.
00:22And today, we're gonna 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.
00:37Yeah.
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, it's that I'm not brave enough, or whatever
01:38you want to call it, to say something about it and to make them uncomfortable.
01:42My mom always told me not to cause a stir, and even though I kind of want to cause a
01:47stir now, it's still hard.
01:48It's hard to make this big social faux pas, even though they're the ones making the faux
01:54pas in the first place.
01:55It's 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?
02:07Well, 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 the workplace and the work environment.
02:19No one's perfect anywhere, but fortunately, at Refinery29, we don't encounter it as often
02:26as we would in a more corporate setting.
02:29I wanted to say something about colorblindness.
02:32I don't like when people say that they don't see color.
02:36I don't see color.
02:36I'm sure.
02:36They say it because they think that it's going to make me feel better, but it's like set
02:40it to kind of take away from the fact that racism exists.
02:45I've had it in a different way.
02:47Somebody told me when I was in high school that I was white by association, which I know
02:52is like a totally different thing, but it's also like it totally takes away people's responsibility
02:57to learn about you.
02:59Yeah, I 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 it'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.
03:24You don't have to not think about like the ways that lesbians and gays are still brutalized
03:27just 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 fucking
03:49stupid.
03:50Like if we're just talking about these like slogans or whatever, then you can just like
03:55adopt 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 product.
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 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
04:24anything.
04:25I think the number one evidence of not being woke is the inability to admit that you're
04:30wrong.
04:31It's hard.
04:31Yeah, it is hard, but it's like anything with practice.
04:35It 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.
04:44People are so stubborn and in their ways to the point where a lot of times they aren't
04:49interested in hearing what you have to say.
04:51You 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.
05:00So I end up just wanting to spend like weekends in like it's not going out to parties like
05:05because inevitably it doesn't matter where you are.
05:08There's going to be some conversation about it.
05:10Yeah.
05:10And I think that you just have to take time for self-care and remember that the issues
05:15will unfortunately probably always be there and the conversations are happening without
05:21you and 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.
05:29A 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.
