To: Maple MAGA who wrote (24997 ) 1/9/2025 3:44:22 PM From: S. maltophilia Read Replies (1) | Respond to OT:This is where woke came from woke But where did this woke , with its pro-black meaning, originate? Woke itself, is much older than #StayWoke, and indeed had a meaning of being conscious of social systems of black oppression, among African Americans as early as the mid 20th century. The earliest example of a figurative meaning of woke that Oxford lexicographers could find is from 1962, when woke was listed in a glossary of African American slang with the definition ‘well informed, up-to-date’. This glossary was part of a 1962 article by the African American novelist William Melvin Kelley in the New York Times entitled “If you’re woke, you dig it’ about (among other things) how white beatniks were appropriating black slang.Garvey Lives! , author Barry Beckham writes. “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”. These examples, among others, provide evidence that woke with its pro-black political meaning dates back over 50 years in American usage. There are few examples of woke being used with this meaning in public writings in the late 20th century, but woke seems to have made a comeback in recent years. In her 2008 track ‘Master Teacher’, R&B star Erykah Badu sings “I stay woke”, and helps to bring this meaning of woke back into the public consciousness. However, it seems that the true woke renaissance coincided with the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement, following the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2013. Indeed, building on the association between woke and Black Lives Matter, black-oriented network BET (Black Entertainment Television) aired a documentary entitled ‘Stay Woke’ about the movement in May 2016.woke and stay woke have a meaning that is ever evolving and changing. Unfortunately for woke , its political meaning appears to have been removed in at least some contexts. Today, a search on Twitter reveals ‘stay woke’ being used in some tweets with its pro-black political meaning, but also being used in non-political, comical tweets like the following: on fleek and squad goals , woke has now lost some of its original meaning and ties to black communities. Woke featured prominently on MTV’s News’ list of words to use in 2016, and they define it simply as ‘being aware — specifically in reference to current events and cultural issues’. In MTVs conceptualization, woke simply means being aware, without any connections to black oppression or consciousness that it had when it re-entered wider usage in 2013. In this way, woke has been racially sanitized for a mainstream audience. Woke has been removed from its ties to black communities as well as its reference to black consciousness and political movements. As a result, woke itself can no longer perform the function of promoting and indexing black consciousness and liberation. The appropriation of woke has lulled it into a complacent, apolitical slumber where, ironically, it simply means ‘awake’.web.archive.org
