It was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary in 2017:
chiefly US slang
: aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)
But we will only succeed if we reject the growing pressure to retreat into cynicism and hopelessness. … We have a moral obligation to "stay woke," take a stand and be active; challenging injustices and racism in our communities and fighting hatred and discrimination wherever it rises.
— Barbara Lee
… argued that … Brad Pitt is not only woke, but the wokest man in Hollywood … because he uses his status—and his production company Plan B—to create space for artists of color, with such films as 12 Years a Slave, Selma, and the upcoming film Moonlight.
Woke (/'wo?k/ WOHK) is an English adjective meaning 'alert to racial prejudice and discrimination' that originated in African-American Vernacular English (AAVE).
Google says: adjective: woke; comparative adjective: woker; superlative adjective: wokest
alert to injustice in society, especially racism.
"we need to stay angry, and stay woke"
Merriam Webster: chiefly US slang : aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)
So, that seems to be the accepted defintion. I can't really copypasta the whole Wikipedia page now, can I.
The last sentence was not a personal attack, it was merely the logical conclusion his own appraisal of himself; "I am an anti-woke"
If you have an alterative defintion that would refute the conclusion then I'm all ears.
> Woke (/'wo?k/ WOHK) 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 sexism, and has also been used as shorthand for American Left ideas involving identity politics and social justice, such as the notion of white privilege and slavery reparations for African Americans.
adjective, Slang.(often used in the phrase stay woke)
having or marked by an active awareness of systemic injustices and prejudices, especially those related to civil and human rights.
"Woke is an English adjective meaning 'alert to racial prejudice and discrimination' that originated in African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as sexism, and has also been used as shorthand for left-wing ideas involving identity politics and social justice, such as the notion of white privilege and slavery reparations for African Americans.[0,1]"
Unfortunately like most terms associated with progressivism, feminism or race, almost no one here ever uses the term in good faith, understanding either its history or taking its purpose at face value, and it's simply become another anti-leftist pejorative.
It’s literally that. Before being turned into a slur by the conservative spin machine “woke” was a century-old aave term for denoting continued awareness and understanding of the plight and challenges of african americans.
> Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) meaning "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination". Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism, and denial of 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.
When I was young, “woke” meant being aware of the excessive greed of the banking system, of injustices against the lower class, the treatment of minorities, and the crimes of the military industrial complex.
Today woke means counting how many black people a VP collected on last month’s corporate hiring spree.
It means a movie studio race swapping a classic movie character and applauding themselves for “diversity”, instead of taking the time and effort to actually write an original with a diverse cast.
It means a university reducing the number of Asian student admissions.
The list of cringey, obviously racist and condescending behavior goes on and on. The point is the term “woke” has changed. This happened some time after the Occupy movement, when corporations decided to co-opt this rhetoric.
Woke is an English adjective meaning "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination" that originated in African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as sexism, and has also been used as shorthand for American Left ideas involving identity politics and social justice, such as the notion of white privilege and slavery reparations for African Americans.
The phrase stay woke had emerged in AAVE by the 1930s, in some contexts referring to an awareness of the social and political issues affecting African Americans. The phrase was uttered in a recording by Lead Belly and later by Erykah Badu. Following the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, the phrase was popularised by Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists seeking to raise awareness about police shootings of African Americans. After seeing use on Black Twitter, the term woke became an Internet meme and was increasingly used by white people, often to signal their support for BLM, which some commentators have criticised as cultural appropriation. Mainly associated with the millennial generation, the term spread internationally and was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017.
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Being woke means that serving watermelon and fried chicken and collard greens on Juneteenth is an insult. (looking at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis)
Being woke means understanding why "Circling the wagons" when around Native Americans would be a terrible insult.
Being woke means understanding calling something a "cakewalk" brings up slave-history in the south where African Americans were forced to walk around and whoever "won" got a cake.
Being woke means understanding the child's song "knick knack paddywhack, give a dog a bone" is referring to watching Irish die in the Famine, and would rather give a dog the cast-offs rather than the Irish.
Being woke means understanding "Hip hip hurray" is a deeply antisemitic slur regarding the Hep-Hep riots in 19c Germany where many thousands of recently-freed Jews were lynched.
Remembering and understanding these historically terrible sayings are bad to you and your fellow anti-woke people. Naturally, these sayings require a bit of maturity, intelligence, and understanding to see why these phrases are terrible - and not everyone practices in using those faculties on a regular basis. It all comes down to the same core beliefs: "my race/sex/demographic is superior, and theirs is subservient to mine."
There are other terms for being "anti-woke". They usually wore white pointy hats, burned crosses in "undesirables" yards, and arranged public executions via tree and rope.
‘Woke’ just means, open to the idea that the way you behave may have unintended negative effects on other, potentially disadvantaged folks and it’s worth changing the way you behave in these circumstances.
So also - empathy. I’m pretty proud to be called woke, and so should you be.
So based on that definition, explain to me how being "aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)" is bad...
And does "woke culture" just mean a culture of being "aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)"?
I go by the initial Webster's definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/woke -- "aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)"
By that definition I consider myself to be woke. Aware and care. Easy peasy.
I've seen this game played before, and it was called "politically correct": take well intended movement, find egregious examples of it being applied, and then make those examples the definition of the movement.
It looks like you're doing exactly that (the word soup of your wiki link at least implies that).
Woke (/'wo?k/ WOHK) 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 sexism, and has also been used as shorthand for American Left ideas involving identity politics and social justice, such as the notion of white privilege and slavery reparations for African Americans.[3][4][5]
As is common among the right, people refuse to comprehend the language or engage with it in good faith in an attempt to sabotage progressive dialogue and poison the well of discourse by inverting the narrative (see some of the dead comments in this thread.)
But the odd thing is how many people claim not to know what "woke" means who also seem to know exactly what "anti-woke" means. How can you be against something without a definition?
[3] 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.
It was a term people - mostly minorities in the US - used back in 2015. Being woke means being conscious of the broader social context you are operating in and the ways it influences your thoughts and actions and those of the people around you. Not a while lot different from the whole “red pill” concept. Only prior to 2016 “woke” was only used by cool people - as opposed to incels in PUA forums (heh). Proper usage would have been something like, “Stay woke brother. Don’t let these mfs get you going sideways”.
Sometime after 2016 it got picked up by lame people - i.e the type who wanted to censor 2LiveCrew back in the day - and now it any time you hear someone using the term “woke” it is a pretty strong indicator that they are lame and utterly devoid of swagger. Like 100x more cringe than saying “yeet” or dabbing on fools in 2023.
chiefly US slang
: aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)
But we will only succeed if we reject the growing pressure to retreat into cynicism and hopelessness. … We have a moral obligation to "stay woke," take a stand and be active; challenging injustices and racism in our communities and fighting hatred and discrimination wherever it rises.
— Barbara Lee
… argued that … Brad Pitt is not only woke, but the wokest man in Hollywood … because he uses his status—and his production company Plan B—to create space for artists of color, with such films as 12 Years a Slave, Selma, and the upcoming film Moonlight.
— Giselle Defares
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