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Wikipedia

Woke

Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) meaning "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination".[1][2] Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial justice, sexism and LGBT rights. Woke has also been used as shorthand for some ideas of the American Left involving identity politics and social justice, such as white privilege and reparations for slavery in the United States.[3][4][5]

Then–United States Congresswoman Marcia Fudge holding a T-shirt reading "Stay Woke: Vote" in 2018

The phrase stay woke has been present in AAVE since the 1930s. In some contexts, it referred to an awareness of social and political issues affecting African Americans. The phrase was uttered in recordings from the mid-20th century by Lead Belly and, post-millennium, by Erykah Badu.

The term woke gained further popularity in the 2010s. Over time, it became increasingly connected to matters beyond race such as gender and other marginalized identities. During the 2014 Ferguson protests, the phrase was popularized by Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists seeking to raise awareness about police shootings of African Americans. After the term was used on Black Twitter, woke was increasingly used by white people, who often used it to signal their support for BLM; some commentators criticized this usage as cultural appropriation. The term became popular with millennials and members of Generation Z. As its use spread internationally, woke was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017.

By 2020, many on the political right and some in the center in several Western countries began sarcastically using the term as a pejorative for various leftist and progressive movements and ideologies. In turn, some commentators came to consider woke an offensive term that disparages persons who promote progressive ideas involving identity and race. Since then, derivative terms such as woke-washing and woke capitalism were coined to describe the conduct of persons or entities who signal support for progressive causes rather than working toward genuine change.

Origins and usage Edit

"Wake Up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa! Let us work towards the one glorious end of a free, redeemed and mighty nation." —Marcus Garvey, Philosophy and Opinions (1923)[4][6][7]

In some varieties of African-American English, woke is used in place of woken, the usual past participle form of wake.[8] This has led to the use of woke as an adjective equivalent to awake, which has become mainstream in the United States.[8][9]

While it is not known when being awake was first used as a metaphor for political engagement and activism, one early example in the United States was the paramilitary youth organization the Wide Awakes, which formed in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1860 to support the Republican candidate in the 1860 presidential election, Abraham Lincoln. Local chapters of the group spread rapidly across northern cities in the ensuing months and "triggered massive popular enthusiasm" around the election. The political militancy of the group also alarmed many southerners, who saw in the Wide Awakes confirmation of their fears of northern, Republican political aggression. The support among the Wide Awakes for abolition, as well as the participation of a number of Black men in a Wide Awakes parade in Massachusetts, likely contributed to such anxiety.[10][11]

20th century Edit

 
Folk singer-songwriter Lead Belly used the phrase "stay woke" on a recording of his song "Scottsboro Boys".

Among the earliest uses of the idea of wokeness as a concept for Black political consciousness came from Jamaican philosopher and social activist Marcus Garvey,[4] who wrote in 1923, "Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!"[4][7]

A 1923 collection of aphorisms, ideas, and other writing by Garvey also adopts this metaphor in the following epigram: "Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa! Let us work towards the one glorious end of a free, redeemed and mighty nation. Let Africa be a bright star among the constellation of nations".[7][4]

Black American folk singer-songwriter Huddie Ledbetter, a.k.a. Lead Belly, used the phrase "stay woke" as part of a spoken afterword to a 1938 recording of his song "Scottsboro Boys", which tells the story of nine black teenagers and young men falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama in 1931. In the recording, Lead Belly says he met with the defendant's lawyer and the young men themselves, and "I advise everybody, be a little careful when they go along through there (Scottsboro) – best stay woke, keep their eyes open."[4][12] Aja Romano writes at Vox that this usage reflects "Black Americans' need to be aware of racially motivated threats and the potential dangers of white America".[4]

By the mid-20th century, woke had come to mean 'well-informed' or 'aware',[13] especially in a political or cultural sense.[8] The Oxford English Dictionary traces the earliest such usage to a 1962 New York Times Magazine article titled "If You're Woke You Dig It" by African-American novelist William Melvin Kelley, describing the appropriation of Black slang by white beatniks.[8]

Woke had gained more political connotations by 1971 when the play Garvey Lives! by Barry Beckham included the line: "I been sleeping all my life. And now that Mr. Garvey done woke me up, I'm gon' stay woke. And I'm gon help him wake up other black folk."[14][15]

2008–2014: #Staywoke hashtag Edit

Through the late 2000s and early 2010s, woke was used either as a term for literal wakefulness, or as slang for suspicions of infidelity.[4] The latter meaning was used in singer Childish Gambino's 2016 song "Redbone".[16] In the 21st century's first decade, the use of woke encompassed the earlier meaning with an added sense of being "alert to social and/or racial discrimination and injustice".[8]

 
"Master Teacher", a 2008 song by the American singer Erykah Badu (pictured in 2012) included the term stay woke.

This usage was popularized by soul singer Erykah Badu's 2008 song "Master Teacher",[9][13] via the song's refrain, "I stay woke".[14] Merriam-Webster defines the expression stay woke in Badu's song as meaning, "self-aware, questioning the dominant paradigm and striving for something better"; and, although within the context of the song, it did not yet have a specific connection to justice issues, Merriam-Webster credits the phrase's use in the song with its later connection to these issues.[9][17]

Songwriter Georgia Anne Muldrow, who composed "Master Teacher" in 2005, told Okayplayer news and culture editor Elijah Watson that while she was studying jazz at New York University, she learned the invocation Stay woke from Harlem alto saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin, who used the expression in the meaning of trying to "stay woke" because of tiredness or boredom, "talking about how she was trying to stay up – like literally not pass out". In homage, Muldrow wrote stay woke in marker on a T-shirt, which over time became suggestive of engaging in the process of the search for herself (as distinct from, for example, merely personal productivity).[18]

 
"#StayWoke" hashtag on a placard during a December 2015 protest in Minneapolis

According to The Economist, as the term woke and the #Staywoke hashtag began to spread online, the term "began to signify a progressive outlook on a host of issues as well as on race".[19] In a tweet mentioning the Russian feminist rock group Pussy Riot, whose members had been imprisoned in 2012,[20][21] Badu wrote: "Truth requires no belief. Stay woke. Watch closely. #FreePussyRiot".[22][23][24] This has been cited by Know Your Meme as one of the first examples of the #Staywoke hashtag.[25]

2014–2015: Black Lives Matter Edit

 
A 2015 protest in St. Paul by Black Lives Matter supporters against police brutality

Following the shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, the phrase stay woke was used by activists of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement to urge awareness of police abuses.[4][26][25] The BET documentary Stay Woke, which covered the movement, aired in May 2016.[27] Within the decade of the 2010s, the word woke (the colloquial, passively voiced past participle of wake) obtained the meaning 'politically and socially aware'[28] among BLM activists.[8][26]

2015–2019: Broadening usage Edit

While the term woke initially pertained to issues of racial prejudice and discrimination impacting African Americans, it came to be used by other activist groups with different causes.[5] While there is no single agreed-upon definition of the term, it came to be primarily associated with ideas that involve identity and race and which are promoted by progressives, such as the notion of white privilege or slavery reparations for African Americans.[29] Vox's Aja Romano writes that woke evolved into a "single-word summation of leftist political ideology, centered on social justice politics and critical race theory".[4] Columnist David Brooks wrote in 2017 that "to be woke is to be radically aware and justifiably paranoid. It is to be cognizant of the rot pervading the power structures."[30] Sociologist Marcyliena Morgan contrasts woke with cool in the context of maintaining dignity in the face of social injustice: "While coolness is empty of meaning and interpretation and displays no particular consciousness, woke is explicit and direct regarding injustice, racism, sexism, etc."[3]

The term woke became increasingly common on Black Twitter, the community of African American users of the social media platform Twitter.[16] André Brock, a professor of black digital studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology, suggested that the term proved popular on Twitter because its brevity suited the platform's 140-character limit.[16] According to Charles Pulliam-Moore, the term began crossing over into general internet usage as early as 2015.[31] The phrase stay woke became an Internet meme,[17] with searches for woke on Google surging in 2015.[5]

 
Protester at a 2018 Women's March event in Missoula, Montana

The term has gained popularity amid an increasing leftward turn on various issues among the American Left; this has partly been a reaction to the right-wing politics of U.S. President Donald Trump, who was elected in 2016, but also to a growing awareness regarding the extent of historical discrimination faced by African Americans.[32] According to Perry Bacon Jr., ideas that have come to be associated with "wokeness" include a rejection of American exceptionalism; a belief that the United States has never been a true democracy; that people of color suffer from systemic and institutional racism; that white Americans experience white privilege; that African Americans deserve reparations for slavery and post-enslavement discrimination; that disparities among racial groups, for instance in certain professions or industries, are automatic evidence of discrimination; that U.S. law enforcement agencies are designed to discriminate against people of color and so should be defunded, disbanded, or heavily reformed; that women suffer from systemic sexism; that individuals should be able to identify with any gender or none; that U.S. capitalism is deeply flawed; and that Trump's election to the presidency was not an aberration but a reflection of the prejudices about people of color held by large parts of the U.S. population.[32] Although increasingly accepted across much of the American Left, many of these ideas were nevertheless unpopular among the U.S. population as a whole and among other, especially more centrist, parts of the Democratic Party.[32]

 
Placard criticising media mogul Rupert Murdoch at an environmentalist protest in Melbourne, Australia in 2020

The term increasingly came to be identified with members of millennials[16] and Generation Z.[33] In May 2016, MTV News identified woke as being among ten words teenagers "should know in 2016".[34][16] The American Dialect Society voted woke the slang word of the year in 2017.[35][36][37] In the same year, the term was included as an entry in Oxford English Dictionary.[38][8] By 2019, the term woke was increasingly being used in an ironic sense, as reflected in the books Woke by comedian Andrew Doyle (using the pen name Titania McGrath) and Anti-Woke by columnist Brendan O'Neill.[39] By 2022, usage of the term had spread beyond the United States, attracting criticism by right-wing political figures in Europe.[40]

2019–present: as a pejorative Edit

By 2019,[41] opponents of progressive social movements were often using the term mockingly or sarcastically,[4][42] implying that "wokeness" was an insincere form of performative activism.[4][43] British journalist Steven Poole comments that the term is used to mock "overrighteous liberalism".[41] In this pejorative sense, woke means "following an intolerant and moralising ideology".[19]

United States Edit

Among American conservatives and some centrists, woke has come to be used primarily as an insult.[4][29][43] Members of the Republican Party have been increasingly using the term to criticize members of the Democratic Party, while more centrist Democrats use it against more left-leaning members of their own party; such critics accuse those on their left of using cancel culture to damage the employment prospects of those who are not considered sufficiently woke.[29][44] Perry Bacon Jr. suggests that this "anti-woke posture" is connected to a long-standing promotion of backlash politics by the Republican Party, wherein it promotes white and conservative fear in response to activism by African Americans as well as changing cultural norms.[29][45] Such critics often believe that movements such as Black Lives Matter exaggerate the extent of social problems.[42]

Among the uses by Republicans is the Stop WOKE Act, a law that limits discussion of racism in Florida schools. A program of eliminating books by LGBT and Black authors from schools was conducted by the Florida government and by vigilantes calling themselves "woke busters".[46]

Linguist and social critic John McWhorter argues that the history of woke is similar to that of politically correct, another term once used self-descriptively by the left which was appropriated by the right as an insult, in a process similar to the euphemism treadmill.[47] Romano compares woke to canceled as a term for "'political correctness' gone awry" among the American right wing.[4] Attacking the idea of wokeness, along with other ideas such as cancel culture and critical race theory,[48] became a large part of Republican Party electoral strategy. Former President Donald Trump stated in 2021 that the Biden administration was "destroying" the country "with woke", and Republican Missouri senator Josh Hawley used the term to promote his upcoming book by saying the "woke mob" was trying to suppress it.[43]

Asia Edit

In Japan, the term has been used to describe Western progressive politics. It has most commonly been translated into Japanese as "お目覚め文化" (lit.'awakening culture'),[49] but also as "ウォーク" (which is a Katakana form of the word "woke").

Canada Edit

The term is widely used in Canada as in the United States to describe progressive politics.[citation needed] During a debate in 2023 on the Law Society of Alberta's 2020 adoption of a rule which made certain Continuing Professional Development (CPD) training courses on Indigenous Canadian history obligatory, a lawyer from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms wrote an op-ed arguing that the course was a form of "wokeness".[50][51]

France Edit

The phenomenon le wokisme (or wokeism[52]) has also seen use in French politics, particularly since the 2022 French presidential election.[53][54][55][56] Much of the opposition to le wokisme sees it as an American import, incompatible with French values.[52] Then-education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer established an "anti-woke think tank" in opposition to what is perceived as an export from the English-speaking world.[52][57][40] According to French sociologist and political scientist Alain Policar [fr], the term "woke" which originated from African American communities to describe awareness of social injustices, has been used pejoratively by French politicians from the former republican left, the right and the far right to label individuals engaged in anti-racist, feminist, LGBT, and environmental movements.[58] This derogatory usage gave rise to the noun "wokisme", suggesting a homogeneous political movement propagating an alleged "woke ideology".[59][60]

French philosopher Pierre-Henri Tavoillot characterizes "wokeism" as a corpus of theories revolving around "identity, gender and race", with the core principle of "revealing and condemning concealed forms of domination", positing that all aspects of society can be reduced to a "dynamic of oppressor and oppressed", with those oblivious to this notion deemed "complicit", while the "awakened (woke)" advocate for the "abolition (cancel) of anything perceived to sustain such oppression", resulting in practical implementations such as adopting inclusive language, reconfiguring education or deconstructing gender norms.[61]

Europe Edit

In a survey by YouGov, 73% of Britons who used the term said they did so in a disapproving way and 11% in an approving way.[62] In the United Kingdom, the term has also been used as a pejorative by conservative figures.[40]

In Hungary, Hungarian politician Balázs Orbán stated that "we [Hungary] will not give up fighting against woke ideology".[63]

In Sweden, singer Zara Larsson's commitment to expressions of "gender power", amongst other things, has been described as "very woke".[64]

In Switzerland, politicians from and supporters of the right-wing Swiss People's Party criticized Swiss bank UBS for "woke culture".[65]

Oceania Edit

During the 2022 Australian federal election campaign, both Scott Morrison, then-prime minister and leader of the centre-right Liberal-National Coalition, and Anthony Albanese, the current prime minister and leader of the centre-left Labor Party, insisted they were not "woke".[66] Peter Dutton, current Opposition Leader and leader of the Coalition, has also used the term several times before.[67][68] Members of minor right-wing parties, especially Pauline Hanson's One Nation and the United Australia Party, also frequently use the term.

In New Zealand, former deputy prime minister and leader of the New Zealand First Party, Winston Peters, referred to the government led by Jacinda Ardern and the Labour Party as a "woke guilt industry".[69] Then–opposition leader Judith Collins also referred to Ardern as "woke".[70]

Reception and legacy Edit

Scholars Michael B. McCormack and Althea Legal-Miller argue that the phrase stay woke echoes Martin Luther King Jr.'s exhortation "to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change".[71][page needed]

In March 2021, Les Echos listed woke among eight words adopted by Generation Z that indicate "un tournant sociétal" ["a societal turning point"] in France.[72]

Criticism Edit

Writer and activist Chloé Valdary has stated that the concept of being woke is a "double-edged sword" that can "alert people to systemic injustice" while also being "an aggressive, performative take on progressive politics that only makes things worse".[4] Social-justice scholars Tehama Lopez Bunyasi and Candis Watts Smith, in their 2019 book Stay Woke: A People's Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter, argue against what they term as "Woker-than-Thou-itis: Striving to be educated around issues of social justice is laudable and moral, but striving to be recognized by others as a woke individual is self-serving and misguided."[73][74][75] Essayist Maya Binyam, writing in The Awl, ironized about a seeming contest among players who "name racism when it appears" or who disparage "folk who are lagging behind".[26][further explanation needed]

Linguist Ben Zimmer writes that with mainstream currency, the term's "original grounding in African-American political consciousness has been obscured".[14] The Economist states that as the term came to be used more to describe white people active on social media, black activists "criticised the performatively woke for being more concerned with internet point-scoring than systemic change".[19] Journalist Amanda Hess says social media accelerated the word's cultural appropriation,[26] writing, "The conundrum is built in. When white people aspire to get points for consciousness, they walk right into the cross hairs between allyship and appropriation."[9][26] Hess describes woke as "the inverse of 'politically correct' [...] It means wanting to be considered correct, and wanting everyone to know just how correct you are".[26]

The impact of "woke" sentiment on society has been criticised from various perspectives. In 2018, the British political commentator Andrew Sullivan described the "Great Awokening", describing it as a "cult of social justice on the left, a religion whose followers show the same zeal as any born-again Evangelical [Christian]" and who "punish heresy by banishing sinners from society or coercing them to public demonstrations of shame".[5] In 2021, the British filmmaker and DJ Don Letts suggested that "in a world so woke you can't make a joke", it was difficult for young artists to make protest music without being accused of cultural appropriation.[76]

Woke-washing and woke capitalism Edit

By the mid-2010s, language associated with wokeness had entered the mainstream media and was being used for marketing.[38] Abas Mirzaei, a senior lecturer in branding at Macquarie University, says that the term "has been cynically applied to everything from soft drink to razors".[5] In 2018, African-American journalist Sam Sanders argued that the authentic meaning of woke was being lost to overuse by white liberals and co-option by businesses trying to appear progressive (woke-washing), which would ultimately create a backlash.[39]

The term woke capitalism was coined by writer Ross Douthat for brands that used politically progressive messaging as a substitute for genuine reform.[77] According to The Economist, examples of "woke capitalism" include advertising campaigns designed to appeal to millennials, who often hold more socially liberal views than earlier generations.[78] These campaigns were often perceived by customers as insincere and inauthentic and provoked a backlash summarized by the phrase "get woke, go broke".[5]

Cultural scientists Akane Kanai and Rosalind Gill describe "woke capitalism" as the "dramatically intensifying" trend to include historically marginalized groups (currently primarily in terms of race, gender, and religion) as mascots in advertisement with a message of empowerment to signal progressive values. On the one hand, Kanai and Gill argue that this creates an individualized and depoliticized idea of social justice, reducing it to an increase in self-confidence; on the other hand, the omnipresent visibility in advertising can also amplify a backlash against the equality of precisely these minorities. These would become mascots not only of the companies using them, but of the unchallenged neoliberal economic system with its socially unjust order itself. For the economically weak, the equality of these minorities would thus become indispensable to the maintenance of this economic system; the minorities would be seen responsible for the losses of this system.[79]

See also Edit

References Edit

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Further reading Edit

  • Adams, Joshua (May 5, 2021). "How 'Woke' Became a Slur". ColorLines.
  • Hunt, Kenya (November 21, 2020). "How 'woke' became the word of our era". The Guardian.
  • Kelley, William Melvin (May 20, 1962). "If You're Woke You Dig It; No mickey mouse can be expected to follow today's Negro idiom without a hip assist". Sunday Magazine. The New York Times. p. 45. ISSN 0028-7822.
  • McCutcheon, Chuck (July 25, 2016). "Speaking Politics word of the week: woke". The Christian Science Monitor.
  • Peters, Mark (December 2016). "Woke". 2016 Words of the Year. The Boston Globe.
  • Robinson, Ishena (August 26, 2022). . NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Archived from the original on August 26, 2022.
  • Rose, Steve (January 21, 2020). "How the word 'woke' was weaponised by the right". The Guardian. Retrieved October 21, 2022.
  • . Oxford English Dictionary. June 25, 2017. Archived from the original on July 16, 2021. Retrieved March 1, 2021.

External links Edit

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  •   The dictionary definition of woke at Wiktionary

woke, other, uses, disambiguation, stay, woke, redirects, here, other, uses, stay, disambiguation, adjective, derived, from, african, american, vernacular, english, aave, meaning, alert, racial, prejudice, discrimination, beginning, 2010s, came, encompass, bro. For other uses see Woke disambiguation Stay woke redirects here For other uses see Stay Woke disambiguation Woke is an adjective derived from African American Vernacular English AAVE meaning alert to racial prejudice and discrimination 1 2 Beginning in the 2010s it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial justice sexism and LGBT rights Woke has also been used as shorthand for some ideas of the American Left involving identity politics and social justice such as white privilege and reparations for slavery in the United States 3 4 5 Then United States Congresswoman Marcia Fudge holding a T shirt reading Stay Woke Vote in 2018The phrase stay woke has been present in AAVE since the 1930s In some contexts it referred to an awareness of social and political issues affecting African Americans The phrase was uttered in recordings from the mid 20th century by Lead Belly and post millennium by Erykah Badu The term woke gained further popularity in the 2010s Over time it became increasingly connected to matters beyond race such as gender and other marginalized identities During the 2014 Ferguson protests the phrase was popularized by Black Lives Matter BLM activists seeking to raise awareness about police shootings of African Americans After the term was used on Black Twitter woke was increasingly used by white people who often used it to signal their support for BLM some commentators criticized this usage as cultural appropriation The term became popular with millennials and members of Generation Z As its use spread internationally woke was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017 By 2020 many on the political right and some in the center in several Western countries began sarcastically using the term as a pejorative for various leftist and progressive movements and ideologies In turn some commentators came to consider woke an offensive term that disparages persons who promote progressive ideas involving identity and race Since then derivative terms such as woke washing and woke capitalism were coined to describe the conduct of persons or entities who signal support for progressive causes rather than working toward genuine change Contents 1 Origins and usage 1 1 20th century 1 2 2008 2014 Staywoke hashtag 1 3 2014 2015 Black Lives Matter 1 4 2015 2019 Broadening usage 1 5 2019 present as a pejorative 1 5 1 United States 1 5 2 Asia 1 5 3 Canada 1 5 4 France 1 5 5 Europe 1 5 6 Oceania 2 Reception and legacy 2 1 Criticism 3 Woke washing and woke capitalism 4 See also 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External linksOrigins and usage Edit Wake Up Ethiopia Wake up Africa Let us work towards the one glorious end of a free redeemed and mighty nation Marcus Garvey Philosophy and Opinions 1923 4 6 7 In some varieties of African American English woke is used in place of woken the usual past participle form of wake 8 This has led to the use of woke as an adjective equivalent to awake which has become mainstream in the United States 8 9 While it is not known when being awake was first used as a metaphor for political engagement and activism one early example in the United States was the paramilitary youth organization the Wide Awakes which formed in Hartford Connecticut in 1860 to support the Republican candidate in the 1860 presidential election Abraham Lincoln Local chapters of the group spread rapidly across northern cities in the ensuing months and triggered massive popular enthusiasm around the election The political militancy of the group also alarmed many southerners who saw in the Wide Awakes confirmation of their fears of northern Republican political aggression The support among the Wide Awakes for abolition as well as the participation of a number of Black men in a Wide Awakes parade in Massachusetts likely contributed to such anxiety 10 11 20th century Edit nbsp Folk singer songwriter Lead Belly used the phrase stay woke on a recording of his song Scottsboro Boys Among the earliest uses of the idea of wokeness as a concept for Black political consciousness came from Jamaican philosopher and social activist Marcus Garvey 4 who wrote in 1923 Wake up Ethiopia Wake up Africa 4 7 A 1923 collection of aphorisms ideas and other writing by Garvey also adopts this metaphor in the following epigram Wake up Ethiopia Wake up Africa Let us work towards the one glorious end of a free redeemed and mighty nation Let Africa be a bright star among the constellation of nations 7 4 Black American folk singer songwriter Huddie Ledbetter a k a Lead Belly used the phrase stay woke as part of a spoken afterword to a 1938 recording of his song Scottsboro Boys which tells the story of nine black teenagers and young men falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama in 1931 In the recording Lead Belly says he met with the defendant s lawyer and the young men themselves and I advise everybody be a little careful when they go along through there Scottsboro best stay woke keep their eyes open 4 12 Aja Romano writes at Vox that this usage reflects Black Americans need to be aware of racially motivated threats and the potential dangers of white America 4 By the mid 20th century woke had come to mean well informed or aware 13 especially in a political or cultural sense 8 The Oxford English Dictionary traces the earliest such usage to a 1962 New York Times Magazine article titled If You re Woke You Dig It by African American novelist William Melvin Kelley describing the appropriation of Black slang by white beatniks 8 Woke had gained more political connotations by 1971 when the play Garvey Lives by Barry Beckham included the line I been sleeping all my life And now that Mr Garvey done woke me up I m gon stay woke And I m gon help him wake up other black folk 14 15 2008 2014 Staywoke hashtag Edit Through the late 2000s and early 2010s woke was used either as a term for literal wakefulness or as slang for suspicions of infidelity 4 The latter meaning was used in singer Childish Gambino s 2016 song Redbone 16 In the 21st century s first decade the use of woke encompassed the earlier meaning with an added sense of being alert to social and or racial discrimination and injustice 8 nbsp Master Teacher a 2008 song by the American singer Erykah Badu pictured in 2012 included the term stay woke This usage was popularized by soul singer Erykah Badu s 2008 song Master Teacher 9 13 via the song s refrain I stay woke 14 Merriam Webster defines the expression stay woke in Badu s song as meaning self aware questioning the dominant paradigm and striving for something better and although within the context of the song it did not yet have a specific connection to justice issues Merriam Webster credits the phrase s use in the song with its later connection to these issues 9 17 Songwriter Georgia Anne Muldrow who composed Master Teacher in 2005 told Okayplayer news and culture editor Elijah Watson that while she was studying jazz at New York University she learned the invocation Stay woke from Harlem alto saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin who used the expression in the meaning of trying to stay woke because of tiredness or boredom talking about how she was trying to stay up like literally not pass out In homage Muldrow wrote stay woke in marker on a T shirt which over time became suggestive of engaging in the process of the search for herself as distinct from for example merely personal productivity 18 nbsp StayWoke hashtag on a placard during a December 2015 protest in MinneapolisAccording to The Economist as the term woke and the Staywoke hashtag began to spread online the term began to signify a progressive outlook on a host of issues as well as on race 19 In a tweet mentioning the Russian feminist rock group Pussy Riot whose members had been imprisoned in 2012 20 21 Badu wrote Truth requires no belief Stay woke Watch closely FreePussyRiot 22 23 24 This has been cited by Know Your Meme as one of the first examples of the Staywoke hashtag 25 2014 2015 Black Lives Matter Edit nbsp A 2015 protest in St Paul by Black Lives Matter supporters against police brutalityFollowing the shooting of Michael Brown in 2014 the phrase stay woke was used by activists of the Black Lives Matter BLM movement to urge awareness of police abuses 4 26 25 The BET documentary Stay Woke which covered the movement aired in May 2016 27 Within the decade of the 2010s the word woke the colloquial passively voiced past participle of wake obtained the meaning politically and socially aware 28 among BLM activists 8 26 2015 2019 Broadening usage Edit While the term woke initially pertained to issues of racial prejudice and discrimination impacting African Americans it came to be used by other activist groups with different causes 5 While there is no single agreed upon definition of the term it came to be primarily associated with ideas that involve identity and race and which are promoted by progressives such as the notion of white privilege or slavery reparations for African Americans 29 Vox s Aja Romano writes that woke evolved into a single word summation of leftist political ideology centered on social justice politics and critical race theory 4 Columnist David Brooks wrote in 2017 that to be woke is to be radically aware and justifiably paranoid It is to be cognizant of the rot pervading the power structures 30 Sociologist Marcyliena Morgan contrasts woke with cool in the context of maintaining dignity in the face of social injustice While coolness is empty of meaning and interpretation and displays no particular consciousness woke is explicit and direct regarding injustice racism sexism etc 3 The term woke became increasingly common on Black Twitter the community of African American users of the social media platform Twitter 16 Andre Brock a professor of black digital studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology suggested that the term proved popular on Twitter because its brevity suited the platform s 140 character limit 16 According to Charles Pulliam Moore the term began crossing over into general internet usage as early as 2015 31 The phrase stay woke became an Internet meme 17 with searches for woke on Google surging in 2015 5 nbsp Protester at a 2018 Women s March event in Missoula MontanaThe term has gained popularity amid an increasing leftward turn on various issues among the American Left this has partly been a reaction to the right wing politics of U S President Donald Trump who was elected in 2016 but also to a growing awareness regarding the extent of historical discrimination faced by African Americans 32 According to Perry Bacon Jr ideas that have come to be associated with wokeness include a rejection of American exceptionalism a belief that the United States has never been a true democracy that people of color suffer from systemic and institutional racism that white Americans experience white privilege that African Americans deserve reparations for slavery and post enslavement discrimination that disparities among racial groups for instance in certain professions or industries are automatic evidence of discrimination that U S law enforcement agencies are designed to discriminate against people of color and so should be defunded disbanded or heavily reformed that women suffer from systemic sexism that individuals should be able to identify with any gender or none that U S capitalism is deeply flawed and that Trump s election to the presidency was not an aberration but a reflection of the prejudices about people of color held by large parts of the U S population 32 Although increasingly accepted across much of the American Left many of these ideas were nevertheless unpopular among the U S population as a whole and among other especially more centrist parts of the Democratic Party 32 nbsp Placard criticising media mogul Rupert Murdoch at an environmentalist protest in Melbourne Australia in 2020The term increasingly came to be identified with members of millennials 16 and Generation Z 33 In May 2016 MTV News identified woke as being among ten words teenagers should know in 2016 34 16 The American Dialect Society voted woke the slang word of the year in 2017 35 36 37 In the same year the term was included as an entry in Oxford English Dictionary 38 8 By 2019 the term woke was increasingly being used in an ironic sense as reflected in the books Woke by comedian Andrew Doyle using the pen name Titania McGrath and Anti Woke by columnist Brendan O Neill 39 By 2022 usage of the term had spread beyond the United States attracting criticism by right wing political figures in Europe 40 2019 present as a pejorative Edit By 2019 41 opponents of progressive social movements were often using the term mockingly or sarcastically 4 42 implying that wokeness was an insincere form of performative activism 4 43 British journalist Steven Poole comments that the term is used to mock overrighteous liberalism 41 In this pejorative sense woke means following an intolerant and moralising ideology 19 United States Edit Among American conservatives and some centrists woke has come to be used primarily as an insult 4 29 43 Members of the Republican Party have been increasingly using the term to criticize members of the Democratic Party while more centrist Democrats use it against more left leaning members of their own party such critics accuse those on their left of using cancel culture to damage the employment prospects of those who are not considered sufficiently woke 29 44 Perry Bacon Jr suggests that this anti woke posture is connected to a long standing promotion of backlash politics by the Republican Party wherein it promotes white and conservative fear in response to activism by African Americans as well as changing cultural norms 29 45 Such critics often believe that movements such as Black Lives Matter exaggerate the extent of social problems 42 Among the uses by Republicans is the Stop WOKE Act a law that limits discussion of racism in Florida schools A program of eliminating books by LGBT and Black authors from schools was conducted by the Florida government and by vigilantes calling themselves woke busters 46 Linguist and social critic John McWhorter argues that the history of woke is similar to that of politically correct another term once used self descriptively by the left which was appropriated by the right as an insult in a process similar to the euphemism treadmill 47 Romano compares woke to canceled as a term for political correctness gone awry among the American right wing 4 Attacking the idea of wokeness along with other ideas such as cancel culture and critical race theory 48 became a large part of Republican Party electoral strategy Former President Donald Trump stated in 2021 that the Biden administration was destroying the country with woke and Republican Missouri senator Josh Hawley used the term to promote his upcoming book by saying the woke mob was trying to suppress it 43 Asia Edit In Japan the term has been used to describe Western progressive politics It has most commonly been translated into Japanese as お目覚め文化 lit awakening culture 49 but also as ウォーク which is a Katakana form of the word woke Canada Edit The term is widely used in Canada as in the United States to describe progressive politics citation needed During a debate in 2023 on the Law Society of Alberta s 2020 adoption of a rule which made certain Continuing Professional Development CPD training courses on Indigenous Canadian history obligatory a lawyer from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms wrote an op ed arguing that the course was a form of wokeness 50 51 France Edit The phenomenon le wokisme or wokeism 52 has also seen use in French politics particularly since the 2022 French presidential election 53 54 55 56 Much of the opposition to le wokisme sees it as an American import incompatible with French values 52 Then education minister Jean Michel Blanquer established an anti woke think tank in opposition to what is perceived as an export from the English speaking world 52 57 40 According to French sociologist and political scientist Alain Policar fr the term woke which originated from African American communities to describe awareness of social injustices has been used pejoratively by French politicians from the former republican left the right and the far right to label individuals engaged in anti racist feminist LGBT and environmental movements 58 This derogatory usage gave rise to the noun wokisme suggesting a homogeneous political movement propagating an alleged woke ideology 59 60 French philosopher Pierre Henri Tavoillot characterizes wokeism as a corpus of theories revolving around identity gender and race with the core principle of revealing and condemning concealed forms of domination positing that all aspects of society can be reduced to a dynamic of oppressor and oppressed with those oblivious to this notion deemed complicit while the awakened woke advocate for the abolition cancel of anything perceived to sustain such oppression resulting in practical implementations such as adopting inclusive language reconfiguring education or deconstructing gender norms 61 Europe Edit In a survey by YouGov 73 of Britons who used the term said they did so in a disapproving way and 11 in an approving way 62 In the United Kingdom the term has also been used as a pejorative by conservative figures 40 In Hungary Hungarian politician Balazs Orban stated that we Hungary will not give up fighting against woke ideology 63 In Sweden singer Zara Larsson s commitment to expressions of gender power amongst other things has been described as very woke 64 In Switzerland politicians from and supporters of the right wing Swiss People s Party criticized Swiss bank UBS for woke culture 65 Oceania Edit During the 2022 Australian federal election campaign both Scott Morrison then prime minister and leader of the centre right Liberal National Coalition and Anthony Albanese the current prime minister and leader of the centre left Labor Party insisted they were not woke 66 Peter Dutton current Opposition Leader and leader of the Coalition has also used the term several times before 67 68 Members of minor right wing parties especially Pauline Hanson s One Nation and the United Australia Party also frequently use the term In New Zealand former deputy prime minister and leader of the New Zealand First Party Winston Peters referred to the government led by Jacinda Ardern and the Labour Party as a woke guilt industry 69 Then opposition leader Judith Collins also referred to Ardern as woke 70 Reception and legacy EditScholars Michael B McCormack and Althea Legal Miller argue that the phrase stay woke echoes Martin Luther King Jr s exhortation to stay awake to adjust to new ideas to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change 71 page needed In March 2021 Les Echos listed woke among eight words adopted by Generation Z that indicate un tournant societal a societal turning point in France 72 Criticism Edit Writer and activist Chloe Valdary has stated that the concept of being woke is a double edged sword that can alert people to systemic injustice while also being an aggressive performative take on progressive politics that only makes things worse 4 Social justice scholars Tehama Lopez Bunyasi and Candis Watts Smith in their 2019 book Stay Woke A People s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter argue against what they term as Woker than Thou itis Striving to be educated around issues of social justice is laudable and moral but striving to be recognized by others as a woke individual is self serving and misguided 73 74 75 Essayist Maya Binyam writing in The Awl ironized about a seeming contest among players who name racism when it appears or who disparage folk who are lagging behind 26 further explanation needed Linguist Ben Zimmer writes that with mainstream currency the term s original grounding in African American political consciousness has been obscured 14 The Economist states that as the term came to be used more to describe white people active on social media black activists criticised the performatively woke for being more concerned with internet point scoring than systemic change 19 Journalist Amanda Hess says social media accelerated the word s cultural appropriation 26 writing The conundrum is built in When white people aspire to get points for consciousness they walk right into the cross hairs between allyship and appropriation 9 26 Hess describes woke as the inverse of politically correct It means wanting to be considered correct and wanting everyone to know just how correct you are 26 The impact of woke sentiment on society has been criticised from various perspectives In 2018 the British political commentator Andrew Sullivan described the Great Awokening describing it as a cult of social justice on the left a religion whose followers show the same zeal as any born again Evangelical Christian and who punish heresy by banishing sinners from society or coercing them to public demonstrations of shame 5 In 2021 the British filmmaker and DJ Don Letts suggested that in a world so woke you can t make a joke it was difficult for young artists to make protest music without being accused of cultural appropriation 76 Woke washing and woke capitalism EditFurther information Woke capitalism and Go woke go broke By the mid 2010s language associated with wokeness had entered the mainstream media and was being used for marketing 38 Abas Mirzaei a senior lecturer in branding at Macquarie University says that the term has been cynically applied to everything from soft drink to razors 5 In 2018 African American journalist Sam Sanders argued that the authentic meaning of woke was being lost to overuse by white liberals and co option by businesses trying to appear progressive woke washing which would ultimately create a backlash 39 The term woke capitalism was coined by writer Ross Douthat for brands that used politically progressive messaging as a substitute for genuine reform 77 According to The Economist examples of woke capitalism include advertising campaigns designed to appeal to millennials who often hold more socially liberal views than earlier generations 78 These campaigns were often perceived by customers as insincere and inauthentic and provoked a backlash summarized by the phrase get woke go broke 5 Cultural scientists Akane Kanai and Rosalind Gill describe woke capitalism as the dramatically intensifying trend to include historically marginalized groups currently primarily in terms of race gender and religion as mascots in advertisement with a message of empowerment to signal progressive values On the one hand Kanai and Gill argue that this creates an individualized and depoliticized idea of social justice reducing it to an increase in self confidence on the other hand the omnipresent visibility in advertising can also amplify a backlash against the equality of precisely these minorities These would become mascots not only of the companies using them but of the unchallenged neoliberal economic system with its socially unjust order itself For the economically weak the equality of these minorities would thus become indispensable to the maintenance of this economic system the minorities would be seen responsible for the losses of this system 79 See also Edit nbsp United States portal nbsp Politics portalCulture war Conflict between cultural values Go woke go broke Political slogan affiliated with the American political rightPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Feminazi Pejorative term for feminists Political hip hop Music genre Social justice warrior Pejorative term for a progressive person Straw feminism Distortion or fabrication of feminist arguments New Left 1960s 70s Western political movementReferences Edit Oberg Dan Hagstrom Linus 2022 Female Nationalist Activism in Japan Truth Telling Through Everyday Micro Practices Alternatives Global Local Political 47 4 194 208 doi 10 1177 03043754221126279 ISSN 0304 3754 Calcutt Clea October 19 2021 French education minister s anti woke mission Politico Retrieved November 27 2022 a b Morgan Marcyliena 2020 We Don t Play Black Women s Linguistic Authority Across Race Class and Gender In Alim H Samy Reyes Angela Kroskrity Paul V eds The Oxford Handbook of Language and Race Oxford University Press pp 276 277 doi 10 1093 oxfordhb 9780190845995 013 13 ISBN 978 0 19 084599 5 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Romano Aja October 9 2020 A history of wokeness Vox Retrieved March 2 2023 a b c d e f Mirzaei Abas September 8 2019 Where woke came from and why marketers should think twice before jumping on the social activism bandwagon The Conversation Cauley Kashana February 2019 Word Woke The Believer No 123 ISSN 1543 6101 Archived from the original on May 10 2022 a href Template Cite magazine html title Template Cite magazine cite magazine a CS1 maint unfit URL link a b c Garvey Marcus Garvey Amy Jacques 1986 first published 1923 The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey Or Africa for the Africans Dover Mass The Majority Press p 5 ISBN 978 0 912469 24 9 a b c d e f g New words notes June 2017 Oxford English Dictionary June 16 2017 a b c d Stay Woke The new sense of woke is gaining popularity Words We re Watching Merriam Webster n d Grinspan Jon 2009 Young Men for War The Wide Awakes and Lincoln s 1860 Presidential Campaign The Journal of American History 96 2 357 378 doi 10 1093 jahist 96 2 357 Wills Matthew June 29 2020 Abolitionist Wide Awakes Were Woke Before Woke JSTOR Daily Matheis Frank August 2018 Outrage Channeled in Verse Living Blues Vol 49 no 4 p 15 ISSN 0024 5232 a b Krouse Tonya O Callaghan Tamara F 2020 Introducing English Studies London Bloomsbury Academic p 135 ISBN 978 1 350 05542 1 a b c Zimmer Ben April 14 2017 Woke From a Sleepy Verb to a Badge of Awareness Word on the Street The Wall Street Journal Beckham Barry 1972 Garvey Lives A Play OCLC 19687974 a b c d e Marsden Harriet November 25 2019 Whither woke What does the future hold for word that became a weapon The New European Archived from the original on April 15 2021 Retrieved April 8 2021 a b Pulliam Moore Charles January 8 2016 How woke went from black activist watchword to teen internet slang Splinter News Watson Elijah C February 27 2018 The Origin Of Woke How Erykah Badu And Georgia Anne Muldrow Sparked The Stay Woke Era Okayplayer a b c How has the meaning of the word woke evolved The Economist explains The Economist July 30 2021 Parker Suzi September 14 2012 Pussy Riot should continue their mission even if freed The Washington Post Parker Suzi April 21 2012 What American women could learn from Pussy Riot a Russian punk rock girl band The Washington Post Watson Elijah C February 25 2020 The Origin Of Woke How The Death Of Woke Led To The Birth Of Cancel Culture Okayplayer Holloway James October 31 2019 Obama warns against social media call out culture New Atlas Badu Erykah fatbellybella August 8 2012 Truth requires no belief Stay woke Watch closely FreePussyRiot Tweet via Twitter a b Richardson Elaine Ragland Alice Spring 2018 StayWoke The Language and Literacies of the BlackLivesMatter Movement Community Literacy Journal 12 2 27 56 doi 10 25148 clj 12 2 009099 ISSN 1555 9734 a b c d e f Hess Amanda April 19 2016 Earning the Woke Badge The New York Times Magazine ISSN 0028 7822 Holliday Nicole November 16 2016 How Woke Fell Asleep OxfordWords Oxford Dictionaries Archived from the original on December 27 2016 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint unfit URL link Harper Douglas wake Online Etymology Dictionary a b c d Bacon Perry Jr March 17 2021 Why Attacking Cancel Culture And Woke People Is Becoming The GOP s New Political Strategy FiveThirtyEight But in culture and politics today the most prominent uses of woke are as a pejorative Republicans attacking Democrats more centrist Democrats attacking more liberal ones and supporters of the British monarchy using the term to criticize people more sympathetic to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Brooks David July 25 2017 Opinion How Cool Works in America Today The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Quoted in Morgan 2020 p 277 Hartley John 2020 Communication Cultural and Media Studies The Key Concepts 5th ed Routledge pp 290 291 ISBN 978 1 3518 4801 5 a b c Bacon Perry Jr March 16 2021 The Ideas That Are Reshaping The Democratic Party And America FiveThirtyEight https sponsored chronicle com Generation Z The Woke Generation Generation Z The Woke Generation The Chronicle of Higher Education Trudon Taylor January 5 2016 Say Goodbye To On Fleek Basic And Squad In 2016 And Learn These 10 Words Instead MTV News Steinmetz Katy January 7 2017 Dumpster Fire Is the American Dialect Society s 2016 Word of the Year Time King Georgia Frances January 7 2017 The American Dialect Society s word of the year is dumpster fire Quartz Metcalf Allan January 6 2017 2016 Word of the Year is dumpster fire as voted by American Dialect Society PDF Press release American Dialect Society a b Sobande Francesca 2019 Woke washing Intersectional femvertising and branding woke bravery PDF European Journal of Marketing 54 11 2723 2745 doi 10 1108 EJM 02 2019 0134 ISSN 0309 0566 S2CID 213469381 via ResearchGate The adverts span from 2015 2018 which reflects the point at which the language of woke ness entered mainstream media and marketing spheres a b Shariatmadari David October 14 2019 Cancelled for sadfishing the top 10 words of 2019 The Guardian a b c How US wokeness became a right wing cudgel around the world France 24 March 1 2022 Retrieved October 21 2022 a b Poole Steven December 25 2019 From woke to gammon buzzwords by the people who coined them The Guardian a b Butterworth Benjamin January 21 2021 What does woke actually mean and why are some people so angry about it inews co uk a b c Smith Allan Kapur Sahil May 2 2021 Republicans are crusading against woke NBC News Luk Johnny Why woke became toxic www aljazeera com Retrieved September 28 2023 Kilgore Ed March 19 2021 Is Anti Wokeness the New Ideology of the Republican Party Intelligencer Vox Media Retrieved October 23 2022 Bethea Charles February 7 2023 Why some Florida schools are removing books from their libraries The New Yorker McWhorter John August 17 2021 Opinion How Woke Became an Insult The New York Times Anderson Bryan November 2 2021 Critical race theory is a flashpoint for conservatives but what does it mean PBS NewsHour Associated Press Retrieved November 3 2021 脱北ヒロイン 米エリート校に広がる お目覚め文化 に 北朝鮮と似ている と苦言 アメリカの名門校にがっかり June 21 2021 Grant Meghan January 30 2023 Mandatory Indigenous course at risk after group of lawyers aims to change Law Society rule CBC News Retrieved February 6 2023 Mosleh Omar January 31 2023 Alberta lawyers launch petition against mandatory course on Indigenous history Toronto Star Retrieved February 5 2023 a b c Schofield Hugh December 13 2021 France resists US challenge to its values BBC News Retrieved October 21 2022 Sastre Peggy April 9 2021 Le wokisme une ideologie atomisee Le Point Williams Thomas Chatterton February 4 2023 The French Are In A Panic Over Le Wokisme The Atlantic John Tara January 7 2022 The anti woke crusade has come to Europe Its effects could be chilling CNN Mamane Eliott March 14 2023 Aux Etats Unis l election presidentielle pourrait etre determinee par le clivage entre woke et anti woke Le Figaro Calcutt Clea May 30 2022 France s culture wars reignited after Macron appoints woke minister Politico Retrieved October 21 2022 Policar Alain De woke au wokisme anatomie d un anatheme Raison presente 2022 1 N 221 pp 115 118 doi 10 3917 rpre 221 0115 Read Online Sibony Daniel Wokisme et psychologie collective Commentaire 2022 4 Numero 180 pp 879 884 doi 10 3917 comm 180 0879 Read Online Dely Renaud Vous avez dit Wokisme Humanisme 2022 2 N 335 pp 4 9 doi 10 3917 huma 335 0004 Read Online Tavoillot Pierre Henri Le wokisme ou le progressisme devenu fou Administration 2022 1 N 273 pp 63 66 doi 10 3917 admi 273 0063 Read Online Smith Matthew September 26 2022 Most Britons now know what woke is YouGov Retrieved October 21 2022 Orban Balazs Nem adjuk fel a woke ideologia elleni harcot November 29 2022 Edstam Fanny December 30 2016 Har ar internets mest overanvanda ord in Swedish Goteborgs Posten UBS Targeted by Swiss Populist Party for Woke Culture Buckley John March 23 2022 Morrison and Albanese Desperately Want You to Know They Are Not Woke Vice com Retrieved January 7 2023 Butler Josh August 23 2022 Labor defence minister ends Peter Dutton s war on wokeness within department The Guardian Retrieved January 7 2023 Greene Andrew August 23 2022 Peter Dutton s ban on woke defence events overturned ABC News Retrieved January 7 2023 Dimitrof Stefan September 29 2022 Winston Peters tells Aussie TV about New Zealand s woke guilt industry Te Ao Maori News Retrieved January 7 2023 Sadler Rachel June 15 2020 Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern should stop being so woke Judith Collins Newshub Retrieved January 7 2023 McCormack Michael B Legal Miller Althea 2019 All Over the World Like a Fever Martin Luther King Jr s World House and the Movement for Black Lives in the United States and United Kingdom In Crawford Vicki L Baldwin Lewis V eds Reclaiming the Great World House The Global Vision of Martin Luther King Jr University of Georgia Press p 260 ISBN 978 0 8203 5602 0 JSTOR j ctvfxv9j2 15 Belin Soisic March 29 2021 Huit mots pour comprendre la generation Z Eight words to understand Generation Z Les Echos Start in French Worth Sydney February 19 2020 The Language of Antiracism Yes Magazine Bunyasi Tehama Lopez Smith Candis Watts 2019 Stay Woke A People s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter NYU Press p 202 ISBN 978 1 4798 3648 2 Spinelle Jenna June 19 2020 Take Note Authors Of Stay Woke On Structural Racism Black Lives Matter amp How To Be Anti Racist WPSU Thomas Tobi March 16 2021 Woke culture is threat to protest songs says Don Letts The Guardian Lewis Helen July 14 2020 How Capitalism Drives Cancel Culture The Atlantic Woke not broke Bartleby The Economist Vol 430 no 9127 January 26 2019 p 65 ISSN 0013 0613 Kanai A Gill R 2020 Woke Affect neoliberalism marginalised identities and consumer culture New Formations A Journal of Culture Theory amp Politics 102 102 10 27 doi 10 3898 NewF 102 01 2020 ISSN 0950 2378 S2CID 234623282 Further reading EditAdams Joshua May 5 2021 How Woke Became a Slur ColorLines Hunt Kenya November 21 2020 How woke became the word of our era The Guardian Kelley William Melvin May 20 1962 If You re Woke You Dig It No mickey mouse can be expected to follow today s Negro idiom without a hip assist Sunday Magazine The New York Times p 45 ISSN 0028 7822 McCutcheon Chuck July 25 2016 Speaking Politics word of the week woke The Christian Science Monitor Peters Mark December 2016 Woke 2016 Words of the Year The Boston Globe Robinson Ishena August 26 2022 The Evolution of Woke From Black Empowerment to Whitewashed Fear Mongering NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Archived from the original on August 26 2022 Rose Steve January 21 2020 How the word woke was weaponised by the right The Guardian Retrieved October 21 2022 woke adjective earlier than 2008 Oxford English Dictionary June 25 2017 Archived from the original on July 16 2021 Retrieved March 1 2021 External links EditListen to this article 25 minutes source source nbsp This audio file was created from a revision of this article dated 14 August 2023 2023 08 14 and does not reflect subsequent edits Audio help More spoken articles nbsp The dictionary definition of woke at Wiktionary Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Woke amp oldid 1179831854, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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