“Wokeism”: the tug-of-war over the term
by Suhlle Ahn
As I write, in early 2023, it’s impossible to talk about wokeism without talking about the political views of those using the term, because it’s become fraught with competing overtones.
Used by the U.S. political Right in particular, it’s practically a four letter word.
The day I googled wokeism, the top hit was an article titled, “Wokeism Is a Cruel and Dangerous Cult,” by historian Victor David Hanson. He paints wokeism as the modern-day equivalent of “Jacobinism,” referring to the bloodiest, most radical period of the French Revolution, known as the “Reign of Terror.”
To its adversaries, it’s an extremist (Leftist) ideology, with mob rule dictating who keeps or loses their head. (Hanson draws comparisons to “Mao’s Little Red Book” and “Red Guards hounding the counterrevolutionary.”)
Some have even declared war on it.
Among these are two of its most influential detractors, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis—who passed his Stop W.O.K.E. law in 2021—and Elon Musk. In their eyes, woke is an advancing foe to be slain or a rampant virus to be wiped out.
Upon winning re-election in November, DeSantis declared:
“Florida is where woke goes to die.”
Musk (a DeSantis supporter), after being booed on stage at a Dave Chapelle comedy event, tweeted:
“The woke mind virus is either defeated or nothing else matters.”
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Nothing else?
Why does the word woke inspire such animosity? Such fear and loathing? After all, the Oxford English Dictionary—which added a new definition in 2017—defines it simply as:
woke, adjective: Originally: well-informed, up-to-date. Now chiefly: alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice; frequently in stay woke.
Some clues lie in the history of the word.
Wokeism Roots in African American Vernacular English
Woke’s origins in African American Vernacular English (AAVE), and its transformation into a pejorative, have already been well-chronicled—for instance, in an article by Ishena Robinson, “How Woke Went From "Black" to "Bad".”
One of the earliest documented uses of the word was in 1938 by Blues musician Lead Belly. His song, “Scottsboro Boys,” recalls the true story of nine Black teenagers falsely accused of raping two white women in 1931, in Scottsboro, Alabama. In introducing the song, he uses the word to signal an awareness that justice may not be as blind as she’s purported to be—not if you’re Black in the Jim Crow South:
“I made this little song about down there…I advise everybody, be a little careful when they go down through there. Best stay woke. Keep their eyes open.”
But to see how rapidly the word has become politically charged over just the past five or six years, here’s a magnified timeline of its use (most notably, its adoption by early Black Lives Matter activists in 2014) in the decade between 2012 and 2022:
TheGrio columnist Michael Harriot (quoted by Robinson) describes this pattern of “insidious takeover and flipping of Black vernacular to anti-Black pejorative”:
“When you look at the long arc of history and America’s reaction to the request for Black liberation—every time Black people try to use a phrase or coin a phrase that symbolizes our desire for liberation, it will eventually become a cuss word to white people.”
While these days the word also draws ire for connotations of trans and non-binary gender acceptance, it’s hard to argue with the claim that it’s become just another dog whistle for “Black.”
And yet, complicating the matter is the fact that use of the word woke isn’t just criticized by those on the right of the political spectrum.
Wokeism Critiques from the Left
Most notably, criticism on the left has come from some Black commentators who lament the watering down of the word’s potency because of its adoption by “well-meaning white liberals,” as well as by corporate commercial interests.
Already by December, 2018, journalist Sam Sanders made the case that it was “Time To Put 'Woke' To Sleep.” He points to a 2017 Saturday Night Live parody about woke (sizeless, shapeless, gender non-conforming) jeans, calling it a “parody of death.”
Elijah Watson pronounced the word effectively dead by 2020, writing:
“To be woke is a fashionable identity. Like most creations derived from Black culture, woke was commodified and diluted of its essence. Anyone or anything can be woke: a brand, company, person. In capitalism’s possession, woke is more about performative grandstanding than anything else. Social media, which encourages behavior that’s performative, amplifies this.”
This problem of buzzwords being drained of battery power through overuse or overly casual use and leading to public fatigue is real. And with social media today, it can happen in a flash.
So even for those who may want to resurrect the word’s original meaning, there’s the question whether it’s worth the battle.
And there are a couple of questions to consider before you rush to declare yourself woke:
Who does/does not, should/should not, or might/might not feel comfortable using a word that some may view as inauthentic—even a form of cultural appropriation—depending on your identity?
Is there any truth to the accusation that some taking up the woke banner are guilty of a “mob rule” mentality?
Is the Word Woke “Off Limits” If You’re Not Black?
Does the origin of woke either tacitly or implicitly restrict its use to those with racial or cultural ties to AAVE? Do only some people have ‘license’ or ‘permission’ to use certain words?
To me, this is one of the most sensitive topics to broach, but I’ll make an attempt…although I admit I’m not a big fan of the cultural appropriation debate.
I DO think certain words—racial slurs, namely—should be off limits unless you’re of the targeted group, using the word in a way that turns it on its head. And I do know cultural exploitation can be real.
But broadly, I feel cultural fusions and linguistic borrowings are a natural part of cultural diffusion. They’re part of what makes the world go around.
Is doing yoga in the West really a form of cultural appropriation? Is it cultural appropriation if Black men love martial arts?
I struggle with where to draw these lines…
With AAVE, some view adoption as appropriation if you’re outside the group.
So where does this leave you with woke, if you’re not Black?
Personally, as someone who is not Black (although I’m of color), I know the word, coming from my mouth, woven into my vocabulary, sounds…well, contrived. A little forced. As if I’m trying too hard to sound cool…
I can’t help but think of Awkwafina, whose much-criticized use of a “blaccent” came across (to my ear) as an unspoken wish to fit in, by someone who didn’t feel they did, and wasn’t sure where they could; who likely gravitated toward an alternative where she felt a stronger affinity. And erred on the side of trying too hard.
But there are likely as many opinions about this as there are people trying to navigate their own path between individual and group identity. And I don’t think there’s an easy answer.
And the question adds a layer of complexity to the issue.
Woke Rigidity and the ‘Mob Rule’ Charge
Perhaps one of the most serious considerations in a debate over wokeness is Sam Sanders’s observation that:
“We’ve made woke a rigid state of being, instead of a process of continual growth.”
If to be woke is to adopt a certain mindset, has too much groupthink caused some champions of wokeness to become ideologically rigid?
And what about Hanson’s charge from the top of this article that wokeism is an updated version of “the bully Jacobin with his guillotine lists of the revolutionary unpure”?
First, ANY viewpoint risks calcification if it gets detached from the element of critical thought and becomes doctrinal. If a “you MUST” imperative, or even a moralistic tone, seeps in, it undermines the original aim of waking up the mind and opening up the heart.
And no doubt this is true of some who claim wokeness.
But to say something can be taken too far or applied in too rigid a way is different from saying the core idea is the problem. And giving equal merit to “both sides” of this debate creates, as I see it, a classic false equivalence.
Hanson, for example, claims “the woke are masters of censoring, blacklisting, scapegoating, deplatforming, ritual humiliation, doxxing, cancel-culture, ostracism, and disbarring.”
And it’s fair to acknowledge that collective public pressure—the kind that can expose powerful people once immune from accountability—can be misdirected toward lesser offenders, in ways that can make the punishment seem disproportionate to the crime.
But we also need to look broadly at the balance of power. And to ask ourselves, who really holds greater power to inflict greater harm on the less powerful and more vulnerable?
I would argue one of the richest men in the world, with enough wealth to buy Twitter, is a greater abettor of scapegoating when he amplifies far-right conspiracy theories and re-platforms people who tweet anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ+, and other forms of hate speech.
I would argue someone who could be elected the next “leader of the free world”; someone who uses the weight of state power to pass laws banning books; who bans AP courses on African American studies; who aims to “root out indoctrination” by “curbing” DEI-related activities at public colleges and universities; and who surely would continue his crusade at the national level if elevated to the Presidency—poses the greater censorship threat.
So as we head into 2023—with woke seemingly co-opted by anti-woke crusaders—what, if any, verdict do we pronounce on its future?
How do we rescue the wheat from the chaff?
And what IS the wheat?
To me, it’s still what Elijah Watson calls its root function: “to protect and give a voice to marginalized people and communities.”
To me, it’s the awareness that the inequalities and injustices that woke in its original incarnation tried to make us alert to are as real as ever. And that we need open minds and open hearts—not the clenched fists of social reactionaries—to make changes toward a more equal and equitable society.
As Michael Harriot puts it:
“It’s hard to get people to demonize human beings and lives and history. But it’s easy to get them to demonize a word. And if you can use that word as a placeholder for those people, for caring about those people, then it’s easy to demonize instead of saying, ‘We’re just gonna stop caring about people.’”
So whether or not you feel comfortable using the word, keep caring about the people.
And keep working to protect and give a voice to people who will be most harmed by the anti-woke backlash.
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What the fate of the word may be six months from now, or even three—who can say?
But I have no doubt the level of threat from those waging an anti-woke crusade will be as loud, if not louder. The backlash will be as intense, or more. Because wokeness—or whatever you want to call it—was catching on too widely for comfort.
It might help to remember that what most strikes fear and loathing in the heart of a reactionary; what causes an authoritarian to threaten, suppress, impose bans, and crack down on dissent, is their own AWAKE STATE to the potential loss of their power, if the knowledge, education, and awareness challenging their undue power really SPREADS.
That, I would say, is the real wheat.
And the part that I hope will continue to catch on and spread.
Suhlle Ahn
VP of Content and Community Relations