Discouraging because it went from meaning “be aware of what can harm Black folks,” to “I’m what wants to harm Black folks.”
When I first heard the phrase “stay woke,” it was in the early context as a warning to young Black people from their elders to constantly be aware and careful of the harm that stalks them for being black.
Wiki shows that meaning with their entry
I hadn’t realized until reading the article that “woke” in the sense of, “I’m a white person who has awareness of Black issues and struggles,” was used as early as the civil rights movement and the 70s. But it makes sense that I didn’t know, because it would only have been used by those directly active, and so wasn’t widely shared. (Social media changed a lot of that in the 2000s)
But then it morphed to include a more frustrated meaning of “the white person thinks they’re woke, but it’s shallow and ineffective.” It still meant the previous things as well, but now included a sense of, “you think you’re woke? You’re not woke.”
In the 2000s and 2010s its original meaning had a resurgence due to the increasingly visible recordings of actions that demonstrated the need. I don’t suppose this was new at all to Black folks, but that they were trying to wake up white folks by showing them video evidence of the need to stay woke all the time and how exhausting that was, and how dangerous it was to not.
This hit home with a lot of white folks, and they embraced the understanding that was forced by that video evidence. They wanted to make a difference. They wanted to be woke. Not all of them knew what to do, or the depth that they needed to do it, so we started to see “performative wokeness” which understandably frustrated the people who were trying to effect change. And then businesses started trying to make money from performative wokeness, adding to the frustration.
Although interestingly, that corporate performative wokeness served to raise the hackles and hyper-defensive reactions of the right, who started to feel like they were at risk of losing ground in public opinion and they began to lash out.
And so the right wing, as they do, decided to make it a perjorative. To attempt to stop the act of people becoming aware, by mocking them for the effort.
And so, now “woke” is used as a slur by the people who are inadvertantly advertising themselves as the people that Black folks have to be woke about.
Full circle. And here we are.
The other meanings still exist, but they are drowned out by the screeching of the white grievance party in most public discourse. (We will see it on this thread, I predict.).
I still keep in mind that original meaning form Lead Belly; that our society requires a level of alertness from some of our citizens that cannot be relaxed without danger to self. And also the civil rights-era meaning that we all need to understand the existence of that need and work to eliminate it. It’s a shame that that important message is being bludgeoned by the white right in an attempt to stop progress.
When I first heard the phrase “stay woke,” it was in the early context as a warning to young Black people from their elders to constantly be aware and careful of the harm that stalks them for being black.
Wiki shows that meaning with their entry
I hadn’t realized until reading the article that “woke” in the sense of, “I’m a white person who has awareness of Black issues and struggles,” was used as early as the civil rights movement and the 70s. But it makes sense that I didn’t know, because it would only have been used by those directly active, and so wasn’t widely shared. (Social media changed a lot of that in the 2000s)
But then it morphed to include a more frustrated meaning of “the white person thinks they’re woke, but it’s shallow and ineffective.” It still meant the previous things as well, but now included a sense of, “you think you’re woke? You’re not woke.”
In the 2000s and 2010s its original meaning had a resurgence due to the increasingly visible recordings of actions that demonstrated the need. I don’t suppose this was new at all to Black folks, but that they were trying to wake up white folks by showing them video evidence of the need to stay woke all the time and how exhausting that was, and how dangerous it was to not.
This hit home with a lot of white folks, and they embraced the understanding that was forced by that video evidence. They wanted to make a difference. They wanted to be woke. Not all of them knew what to do, or the depth that they needed to do it, so we started to see “performative wokeness” which understandably frustrated the people who were trying to effect change. And then businesses started trying to make money from performative wokeness, adding to the frustration.
Although interestingly, that corporate performative wokeness served to raise the hackles and hyper-defensive reactions of the right, who started to feel like they were at risk of losing ground in public opinion and they began to lash out.
And so the right wing, as they do, decided to make it a perjorative. To attempt to stop the act of people becoming aware, by mocking them for the effort.
And so, now “woke” is used as a slur by the people who are inadvertantly advertising themselves as the people that Black folks have to be woke about.
Full circle. And here we are.
The use of “woke” went from meaning “be aware of what can harm Black folks” to “I’m what wants to harm Black folks.”
The other meanings still exist, but they are drowned out by the screeching of the white grievance party in most public discourse. (We will see it on this thread, I predict.).
I still keep in mind that original meaning form Lead Belly; that our society requires a level of alertness from some of our citizens that cannot be relaxed without danger to self. And also the civil rights-era meaning that we all need to understand the existence of that need and work to eliminate it. It’s a shame that that important message is being bludgeoned by the white right in an attempt to stop progress.
