Woke: From Insight to Insult

It used to mean something to #staywoke. Now "woke" gets hurled as an insult. What gives?

I Once Was Blind But Now I See

The first verse of the cherished hymn, Amazing Grace, ends with this proclamation:

I once was lost, but now I'm found;

‘Twas blind, but now I see

By pulling in the metaphor of physical blindness to describe the spiritual journey, John Newton gave Christians a lasting image of spiritual awakening.

The meaning is clear: Prior to knowing God’s grace is like being unable to see anything, but then—on the other side of said grace—everything changes.

We didn’t see… then a shift occurred.. now we DO see.

This makes me think of those photos that occasionally circulate the web where an object is said to exist in the picture, though it’s obfuscated by the surrounding visual context.

Like this for example:

There is a phone in this photo. I swear.

Or this one (can you find the cat?)

Oh hi there, kitty kitty! (You do see it, right?)

What I love about things like this is the classic phenomenon where once you see it you can’t unsee it. And not only that, but you start to wonder how it is you hadn’t seen it before because now it seems so obvious.

Was blind but now I see.

And now I can’t not see it.

And how had I not seen it before?! (BTW: If you couldn’t find the phone or the cat I’ll post the answers at the end of the article)

Unless you’ve lived under a rock these past six years you’ve no doubt heard the term “woke.” For most of its existence, woke has been used as a shorthand expression for what Amazing Grace declares: I once was blind (to certain realities of society) but now I see (aka, I’ve woken up).

Yet recently we’ve seen a seismic shift to how this word gets used and abused. It’s quite the tragedy to see something that once had such rich and deep meaning to now, well, we’ll get there.

But first, I think there have been three eras or stages of what Woke means.

The Three Eras of Woke

Definitions for what woke is and means—at least, ones that we can all agree upon—are hard to find because it’s a word that has evolved over the last several decades.

Generally speaking I think there (so far) have been three eras of the term “woke” with regards to what it means and how it’s used.

• The Original Era: 1920-2016

• The Progressive Era: 2016-2022

• The Backlash Era: 2022-Present

Most of how “woke” gets used in today’s media falls under the Backlash Era in which woke has become a slur, an accusation, and the strawiest of straw man mischaracterizations. More on that later.

First, where did the term come from and how was it originally used?

The Original Era of Woke

If you’re curious of the origins of “woke” I strongly suggest this article from the LDF (Legal Defense Fund). It demonstrates how woke (and its correlate, wake-up) arose from different pockets of Black culture in America as far back as the 1920’s. It was a way to call out and warn other Black Americans of racial injustices happening in and around our country.

Waking up to systemic racism was, for many Black Americans, an important rite of passage to begin seeing the ugly legacy of slavery, and up and through Jim Crow laws and so on.

In one sense, to “be woke” was to “be Black,” but even more specifically to be Black and be aware of what all that meant in America. Again, worth the read.

Then in 2008 Erykah Badu is credited with reintroducing the terminology of “woke” with her song, “Master Teacher,” as well as when she Tweeted in 2012 a call for people to “stay woke,” responding to a threat to imprison a Russian rock band for their queer, sexually charged protest-performance against Vladimir Putin. Her Tweet put #staywoke on the map.

For nearly nine decades, then, the term woke lived almost exclusively within Black culture. During The Original Era, it only made sense to speak of being woke if you were Black because its meaning was tied to the experience of Black Americans waking up to systemic racism in our country.

The Progressive Era of Woke

The usage as well as the meaning of woke shifted during the tumultuous year of 2016. Namely, woke hit a fever pitch of usage among primarily progressive people online in response to several major news stories of police brutality against Black people. The publicizing of events (that have been occurring off-screen for many, many years) exposed many non-Black people to concepts such as privilege and systemic racism.

We were blind to the ways in which society was still largely bent to favor certain demographics. We were blind to ways our non-white neighbors were treated differently on the basis of skin color, gender, or sexual orientation. We were ignorant people waking up in real time.

The term woke suddenly became an apt description for droves of white Americans as we woke up to realities about the waters we had been swimming in our whole lives. Woke succinctly and clearly articulated the experience of once being blind yet now seeing.

So from about 2016 to around 2022 the term woke grew beyond just the Black American experience of waking up, and adapted to describe the well-intentioned efforts by people with various amounts of privilege who sought to better understand the experiences of those with less privilege.

Some examples that come to mind:

• Men waking up to misogyny and patriarchy.

• Straight people waking up to the marginalization of LGBTQ people.

• And certainly white people waking up to the ways Black Americans (and other non white skinned people) continue to battle against racism in so many different ways.

I want to add that woke also became a shorthand way for many liberal-minded people to not only name an internal experience they were having, but also it implied they were actively trying to do better as well.

Here’s how Okayplayer Senior News and Culture Reporter Elijah Watson put it in his article on the origin of woke back in 2022:

“It’s a very surface-level descriptor of trying to claim that you’re progressive. It’s much more complex than just saying, ‘I’m a liberal.’ If you’re not trying to envision and make a better world for people, you’re not as woke as you think you are.”

I love that line: If you’re not trying to envision and make a better world for people, you’re not as woke as you think you are.

So for a hot minute in the larger culture the term “woke” felt like a synonym for a progressive person, but in a good way.

To be (or to try and be) woke meant you were embodying the immortal words of Dr Maya Angelou: When we know better, we do better.

The Co-Opting of “Woke”

Of course, as can often happen with us progressives, we can easily get riled up about something and leap before we look. And often times that leap is a very specific leaping over important context about something.

In the case of woke that important context was the above mentioned historical usage of, by, and for Black Americans.

Many of us did not slow down long enough to explore where the term woke came from, and whether or not it made sense for us to use it.

In my book The Shift I have a chapter titled, “When Progressives Attack,” in which I try to prepare readers for how to navigate those inevitable moments when you start taking friendly fire from other progressive, ex/post Christians (or just liberals in general).

Reflecting on the widespread usage of woke at the time, I wrote this in 2019:

For a brief stint during the mid 2010’s, many progressives used the term “woke” as a helpful shorthand to describe the important empathetic work in understanding the realities of the oppressed. To be woke implied you had more awareness than you used to (because it’s a process, not a destination) regarding systemic injustices perpetuated against communities such as black men and women (#BlackLivesMatter), LGBTQ individuals (#lgbtqequality), and women (#SmashThePatriarchy).

To stay woke meant you committed to keeping your eyes open, vigilant to how those in power bend the playing field to keep the marginalized in the margins.

Quickly, however, many progressives (myself included) needed to become “woke” about the term woke so as to avoid the pitfall of cultural appropriation.

I don’t want to judge too harshly those of us who saw found “woke” to be a helpful and quick articulation for the Newtonian experience of, “I once was lost, but now am found; was blind but now I see.” Yes, many people were indeed waking up to realities in our society, and that was and is a good thing! What we saw in our awakening rendered us astonished that we’d been blind for so long to what now seems so obvious. Of course everyone is ignorant until we’re not. Ignorance is nothing to be ashamed of—it’s the willful ignorance you want to avoid.

I also don’t want to judge those who were quick to properly situate “woke” in its historical context. Yes and yes. I can’t imagine what it’s like to feel as though so many things that originated in your culture/context (eg, Black American) eventually get taken and used outside and beyond that context/culture with zero credit given. Infuriating, painful, and exhausting, to say the least.

And that’s just in response to (primarily) white people… white liberal/progressive people… using “woke” in a positive sense.

Because eventually woke evolved (devolved?) from, “helpful word to describe growth and awakening,” to… well… how it largely gets used today.

Which is, an insult hurled by angry and scared conservative/republicans who not only show zero understanding of where the term originally came for, but they also refuse to appreciate what it meant for people to be called woke (in either era, the Original or the Progressive).

I’ll have more to say about the third and current era, The Backlash Era, in a future post.

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Hidden Phone & Cat

As promised, here ya go.

Now you can’t unsee it.