"Did you use "social justice warrior" BEFORE you used "hyperwoke?" Can you remember when it became a part of your vernacular? I don't think you've been using it since you met Jodi. So when and why did you adopt it?"

This is a fair question. I will try to answer it as best as I can.

I've never viewed the phrase "Social Justice Warrior" with a negative connotation, although I certainly recognize how the Far Right has intentionally poisoned the term in that manner. At its core, social justice is supposed to be a positive thing. So I never use the term "Social Justice Warrior" (unless I'm quoting somebody else...and refuting their quotation). I only use the term "social justice" to refer to actions that I view as inherently positive and forward-thinking.

I don't recall the exact year when I realized how "SJW" was being corrupted by the Right as a de facto slur. It was probably at some point in the early-2010s. But I realized what was happening right away.

As for the other word: I began attaching the prefix of "hyper-" because, when lacking that prefix, misuse of the four-letter term by itself is inaccurate when it comes to the history behind the term and its original meaning. I can't promise you I'll stop using it entirely (although I won't use it in any of our discussions), but I can be conscious in trying to minimize my usage of it while reserving it for only the most egregious offenders.

Which brings me to Jodi: I think what you might be picking up on, which I didn't explicitly disclose to you in my previous references, is that she and I never had follow-up conversations about her words and sentiments on that day. The few interactions she and I have had -- over the course of the following years -- have been artificially pleasant, noncontroversial, and rather superficial.

In some ways, it's probably preferable that she and I didn't have a follow-up conversation immediately. It gave me time to actually educate myself about the nature of systemic racism and to learn more about intersectional issues (not limited to race, either) about which I'd been ignorant as an eighteen-year-old.

If your question is: Why am I holding onto that memory so tightly? Why did it have the long-lasting traumatic effect on me that it has? It isn't because I attribute cruelty or inhumanity to Jodi herself. It's that her behavior symbolizes the performative self-righteousness of which I've seen flaunted (and, sometimes, of which I've been the subject) from a very young age...long before I even knew the direct definition of "performative." And I see it in so many other people in so many other places. So while it does bother me that Jodi is continuing to propagate that worldview from her position as a university administrator and DEI specialist, it's less about her as an individual and more about the movement of virtue-signaling that's exacerbating these tensions when --- as I'd imagine you and I both desire -- everyone SHOULD be focused on how we can attain constructive progress.

So I realize, especially now, that you don't view Jodi as your "ally." You've (in all likelihood) never met her in person. As I said: it's less about her as an individual, and more about the overall culture of virtue-signaling and performative activism that is being cultivated by people of a certain political/ideological persuasion. Again, Jodi isn't singlehandedly responsible for it -- it's millions of people who are cultivating this climate, either directly or indirectly. In terms of my own life, it probably initially hurt me so much because I had previously *THOUGHT* she was somebody who was open-minded and compassionate -- until she showed me that poisonous side of her. Now, years and years later, I'm no longer "hurt" by her. I'm disappointed in her.