Google defines woke thusly:
“Woke” generally means being aware of and actively attentive to social justice issues, particularly those related to racism, sexism, and discrimination. It’s often used to describe individuals who are conscious of systemic inequalities and advocate for change. The term has gained popularity in recent years and is frequently used in discussions about social justice movements and activism.
Merriam-Webster defines woke this way:
Woke is now defined in this dictionary as “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice),” and identified as U.S. slang. It originated in African American English in the first half of the 20th century and gained more widespread use beginning in 2014 as part of the Black Lives Matter movement. By the end of that decade it was also being applied by some as a general insult for anyone who is or appears to be politically left-leaning.
Woke is a slang term that has made its way into the mainstream from some varieties of African American English. In AAE, awake is often rendered as woke, as in, “I was sleeping, but now I’m woke.”
Like many other terms from Black culture that have been adopted into the mainstream, woke has gained broader uses. Woke soon became associated with performative activism, with people often using the term mockingly or sarcastically to suggest insincerity about one’s expressed beliefs about social issues.
The disapproving sense of woke is today quite common, often used by politically conservative individuals to criticize people who are considered too politically liberal, especially in relation to issues of race and social justice.
Additional broader uses of woke include woke-washing and woke capitalism, with the former referring to the use of social movements by companies to increase sales while failing to actively contribute to social change or address these issues within their companies and the latter similarly being used to describe a company’s public support of and investment in social issues.
Woke-washing creates the appearance of intention without the substance of action. —Vern Howard, Forbes, 15 June 2021
Based on the aforementioned definitions, yes, I am woke. I am “actively attentive to social justice issues, particularly those related to racism, sexism, and discrimination.” My question then is this: why isn’t everyone woke? Shouldn’t all of us be “actively attentive to social justice issues, particularly those related to racism, sexism, and discrimination”?
President Donald Trump, his MAGA administration, and a MAGA congress are anti-woke. Of course, they are anti-woke concerning the woke strawman they have concocted in their minds. Most voting Evangelical Christians voted three times for Donald Trump. It is clear that most Evangelicals approve of Trump’s racist, bigoted, misogynistic, anti-children, anti-worker, anti-family, anti-LGBTQ, anti-environment, anti-global climate change, anti-vaccines, anti-science, Christian nationalist agenda. It’s impossible to square the MAGA agenda with the teachings of the Bible. Trump claims to be Christian, yet he shows no knowledge or understanding of the Bible. His actions reveal an opposition to the teachings of the Bible. The only thing Trump and most congressional Republicans care about is making the rich richer and making it easier for corporations to poison, maim, and kill us.
Go ahead and wear your red hat with a tee shirt that proudly says, 100% Anti-Woke. We will know that you are indifferent or hostile to social justice issues, particularly those related to racism, sexism, and discrimination. It is good for us to know who it is who doesn’t give a shit about his fellow human beings. But, don’t try to tell us you are followers of Jesus. The Bible condemns your behavior, as does Jesus himself.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Woke is an insult, but MAGA is a complement in much of America. Such are the crazy times we live in. 🙄 I would rather be Woke AF than a hypothetical, hateful Evangelical any day.
When the word ‘woke’ first started being bandied about I didn’t know about its African American origins, but I saw it as a form of modern day decency. A sort of secular attempt to do what the Ten Commandments should have done. Then it got corrupted as a word and as a concept, to the point it has become a form of extreme disparagement. It’s rather like the word gay turned from being a word describing an emotion to one describing one’s sexuality. I can’t now say I am ‘gay’ expecting someone to say ‘do you mean ‘happy or homosexual’, because the word now has just one dominant meaning. So it is with the word woke. If I say that I’m woke then I lose an awful lot of people in discussion because the word has been commandeered by the right. And it goes much further. Racists can’t say ‘you only got the job because you’re black’, but they can say exactly the same thing in a different way ‘your employer is working to a wokeist agenda’.
I’m old enough to remember when gay simply meant cheerful and happy. It’s use by the homosexual community seems to be as a benign synonym and it’s only a slur when aimed at a straight person. Woke on the other hand is an innocuous word that’s become weaponized in a calculated way by right wing public relations for it’s divisive potential. It’s use in political context may influence those who allow themselves to be told what they think. I find it’s use as anything besides the past tense of wake to be a transparent propaganda tool.
I take it as a compliment when anyone calls me “woke”. To me, it means that I take seriously that other people have experiences different from mine, that they may face obstacles that I don’t, and that I should listen to what they’re saying.
Adjacent to that is “DEI”. Many people fall under the DEI umbrella, people who would be pissed if that were pointed out. Anyone who is female, anyone who is older, anyone with any sort of disability (including mental health). It isn’t just reserved for people of color. And what if it were? What’s so wrong with acknowledging that people of color can and do face obstacles?
Happy Memorial Day, Bruce, family, everyone! Thinking about ‘ wokeness’ and it’s use as a pejorative these days, I’m also reminded of MAGA merch being manufactured in China, enemy #1. They should stay true to their principles and make everything here in the US.
I don’t find the principal of “woke-ness” to be negative in itself. Like a lot of ideologies based on a singular new term, it has the tendency to evolve into a “no true Scotsman” trap. It becomes a subjective viewpoint that lends itself to many different interpretations depending on who is using the term, both positive and negative.
Then you get into the problem of who defines “wokeness”? It’s easy when Dear Leader’s MAGA-stapo co-opt the term to encompass basically anything they don’t like (criminal justice reform, social safety net, environmental/renewable energy initiatives, equal rights for marginalized citizens), but it becomes more complicated when folks who generally agree with most but maybe not all aspect of wokeness begin to disagree on it’s extent or the means and methods to impose woke principals on apathetic or skeptical portions of the populace. I believe this last problem is partly why we are dealing with an “Empire Strikes Back” sequel of Comrade Trump 2.0.
The sad irony is that many of those who are apathetic or skeptical actually benefit from DEI/work policies. But in all honesty the marketing by it’s advocates has not been that great, although it is greatly improving with Pete Buttigieg engaging with conservative voters. It usually consists of “Support my version of wokeness totally or you’re a (fill in the blank).”
As a reformed Republican, this far-left accusatory rhetoric gets in the way. Yes, I get the whole “I’m tired of reasoning with racist relatives and friends”, but i would counter two points; First, I agree not to waste the effort on those who don’t even want to have a discussion, but also don’t lose hope either. Oft-times these folks are dealing with their own pain and anger, and surprisingly many times they hate everything “woke” until they don’t. These folks may also be struggling with aspects of themselves they have been taught to hate (for example, “doubt” for a hardcore evangelical worship leader). Give them room but don’t enable them.
Secondly, those who who actually do care about living in a fair, safe and just society, and have been manipulated by the media to associate wokeness/DEI with high crime, unfairness and a very small number of people who sometimes can be just be flat out assholes. These folks, just in my opinion, are worth the effort. Some “woke” concepts are new to them. If we respond to them the same way MAGA responds to their opponents, then we are no different or better. We have to find the balance between empathy but not enabling. That is what I have seen that distinguishes most Democrats from most current Republicans.
So to me, being woke is about a set of beliefs and a set of behaviors, all of which are in total opposition to the beliefs and behaviors of the extreme right MAGA folks. I realize and accept that not all of my friends on this page will agree with me, and that’s ok. I only have one perspective. Our ability to discuss, disagree, discuss and still respect and care for each other also distinguishes us from the opposition.
I keep thinking this horrible divide will lessen at some point, but I feel it more every day. People I thought I knew are now complete strangers.
Ouch! (Painful groan) I know what you mean having had it happen a few times. It happened to me when someone regurgitated deceptive right-wing talking points memorized from FOX News. When someone you think you know says something that reveals you never had any idea what they think, it lands with a crash.