The word “woke” has been co-opted in recent years and is now used as a pejorative to criticize anti-racism and social justice activism and the teaching of factual U.S. history. But what are the origins of the word? A very brief 🧵 of what “woke” actually means:
In a 1942 edition of the Negro Digest, J. Saunders Redding used the term in an article about labor unions. A black, unionized mine worker told him: “Waking up is a damn sight harder than going to sleep, but we’ll stay woke up longer.”
In 1962, we see the first printed, political use of woke, in a 1962 New York Times article titled “If You’re Woke You Dig It,” about appropriation of black language.
nytimes.com/1962/05/20/arc…
In 1972, Barry Beckham’s play Garvey Lives! features the use of "woke" in a political context. A character exclaims, in reference to Marcus Garvey, “I been sleeping all my life. And now that Mr. Garvey done woke me up, I’m gon’ stay woke.”
After George Zimmerman was acquitted of murdering Trayvon Martin in 2013, #staywoke proliferated on social media. In 2017, Oxford English Dictionary expanded the definition of “woke” to mean “alert to injustice in society, especially racism.”
cherwell.org/2017/06/27/oxf…
So when people use the term as a pejorative and criticize “woke culture,” what they’re revealing is a desire to maintain the status quo, an unwillingness to talk about power and privilege, & a lack of care & concern for how people who are different from them experience the world.
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