Woke


Woke, as a political term of African American origin, refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It derives from the African-American Vernacular English expression "stay woke", whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues.
By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics, socially liberal causes, feminism, LGBT activism, and cultural issues. It has been the subject of memes, ironic usage and criticism. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

History

Mid and late nineteenth century

The term 'woke' and 'wide awake' first appear in political culture and political ads during the 1860 presidential election in support of Abraham Lincoln. The Republican Party cultivated the movement to primarily oppose the spread of slavery as described in the Wide Awakes movement.

Early twentieth century

record early politically conscious usage in 1962 in the article "If You're Woke You Dig It" by William Melvin Kelley in The New York Times and in the 1971 play Garvey Lives! by Barry Beckham. Garvey had himself exhorted his early 20th century audiences, "Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!"
Earlier, J. Saunders Redding recorded a comment from an African American United Mine Workers official in 1940
Lead Belly uses the phrase near the end of the recording of his 1938 song "Scottsboro Boys", while explaining about the namesake incident, saying "I advise everybody to be a little careful when they go along through there, stay woke, keep their eyes open".

Contemporary

The first modern use of the term "woke" appears in the song "Master Teacher" from the album New Amerykah Part One by soul singer Erykah Badu. Throughout the song, Badu sings the phrase: "I stay woke." Although the phrase did not yet have any connection to justice issues, Badu's song is credited with the later connection to these issues.
To "stay woke" in this sense expresses the intensified continuative and habitual grammatical aspect of African American Vernacular English: in essence, to always be awake, or to be ever vigilant. David Stovall said: "Erykah brought it alive in popular culture. She means not being placated, not being anesthetized."

In popular culture

Implicit in the concept of being woke is the idea that such awareness must be earned. The rapper Earl Sweatshirt recalls singing "I stay woke" along to the song and his mother turning down the song and responding: "No, you're not."
In 2012, users on Twitter, including Badu, began using "woke" and "stay woke" in connection to social and racial justice issues and #StayWoke emerged as a widely used hashtag. Badu incited this with the first politically charged use of the phrase on Twitter; she tweeted out in support of the Russian feminist performance group Pussy Riot: "Truth requires no belief. / Stay woke. Watch closely. / #FreePussyRiot."
From social media and activist circles, the word spread to widespread mainstream usage. For example, in 2016, the headline of a Bloomberg Businessweek article asked "Is Wikipedia Woke?", in reference to the largely white contributor base of the online encyclopedia.

Modern usage

By the late 2010s, "woke" had taken to indicate "healthy paranoia, especially about issues of racial and political justice" and has been adopted as a more generic slang term and has been the subject of memes. For example, MTV News identified it as a key teen slang word for 2016. In The New York Times Magazine, Amanda Hess raised concerns that the word has been culturally appropriated, writing, "The conundrum is built in. When white people aspire to get points for consciousness, they walk right into the crosshairs between allyship and appropriation."

In business and marketing

In an article for Time magazine journalist Alana Semuels detailed the phenomenon of "woke capitalism" in which brands have attempted to include socially aware messages in advertising campaigns. In the article she cited the example of Colin Kaepernick fronting a campaign for Nike with the slogan “believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything,” after Kaepernick caused controversy by refusing to stand for the US national anthem as a protest against racism. The term "corporate wokeness" has also been used by conservative writer Ross Douthat. Feminist writer Helen Lewis wrote a long article for The Atlantic criticizing the minimal efforts some companies make to feign progressivism while maintaining existing power structures.

Parodies and criticism

Both the word and the concept of woke culture or woke politics have been subject to parodies and criticism by commentators from both sides of the political spectrum who have described the term as becoming pejorative or synonymous with radical identity politics, race-baiting, extreme forms of political correctness, internet call-out culture, censorship, virtue signalling and as part of a general culture war. It has also faced a backlash for its perceived negative influence on academia, corporate advertising and the media.
British conservative author Douglas Murray expresses criticism of modern social justice activism and "woke politics" in his book . He has also argued that woke is a movement with reasonable goals in mind but that it is "kind of overstretched and so a lot of people have been taking the mickey out of the woke in recent years and a lot of people themselves aren't so keen to be described as woke."
In 2019, Brendan O'Neill, editor of Spiked, described individuals who promote woke politics as people who tend to be identitarian, censorious and puritanical in their thinking or a "culture warrior who cannot abide by the fact there are people in the world who disagree with him or her." He also claimed woke politics to be a "more vicious form of political correctness."
The former United States President Barack Obama expressed comments that were interpreted as a critique on the woke culture, stating "This idea of purity and you're never compromised and you're politically woke, and all that stuff -- you should get over that quickly. The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws."
Fictional internet personality and social activist Titania McGrath, who was created by comedian Andrew Doyle, has been described as parodying ideas promoted by woke thinking. Doyle himself has criticised the idea of woke politics as being in a "fantasy world".