(A beautiful world I’m trying to find)
She then imagines a world in which there are “no niggas, only master teachers” and reminds the listener, repeatedly, that she stays woke.
This is woke at its most pure: unapologetically Black and cryptic (only the woke recognize the woke). A word conceived by Black people for Black people. A word reminiscent of Spike Lee’s famous cry to “Wake uuuuuuuuup!” in his seminal film School Daze, as his character, a student at a fictitious historically Black university, demands his light skin–worshipping, good hair–seeking, sex-addicted peers wake up from self-hatred and materialism and become aware of the injustices in their community and, ideally, do something about them.
You can find a pocket guide to the essence of woke in the chorus of Childish Gambino’s single “Redbone,” a Funkadelic-esque R & B song released in 2016 that warns, “You better believe in something.” Equal parts lustful slow jam and cautionary social commentary, the lyrics implore listeners to resist the comfort of complacency and ignorance or pay the consequences: Now don’t you close your eyes
The last line best conveys the high stakes urgency of wokeness. The sense that something terrifying lurks in the shadows.
It’s an idea Jordan Peele expanded on in his horror film, Get Out, which famously uses the song in its opening scene. Because as the movie made clear—its protagonist slowly becoming aware of an elaborate plot to co-opt his body and trap his mind in an abyss called the sunken place—the consequences of sleeping are indeed horrific.
These examples in tandem solidified woke as the mood of a new era, rising in the aftermath of the modern-day horror story that was the EU referendum and the election of Donald Trump, a time when our freedoms can very much feel like they are on the line and in peril. Stay woke. Don’t get caught. Don’t get hypnotized. Don’t close your eyes.
Despite what the likes of MTV and Twitter would have you believe, it’s impossible to depoliticize woke. Woke, by its very nature, is engaged.
The goal is to wake up and then stay that way. As in, be alert and on guard, ready to recognize, call out, and actively resist the biases, fake news, and inequalities as they come, like the countless members of the Black Lives Matter movement do on Twitter and Facebook, posting smartphone footage of unjust killings, assaults, and arrests often with the hashtag #StayWoke and campaigning for legislative change. Woke is righteous indignation backed up by a set of actions as resistance. Woke is serious business. Often said aloud with a raised closed fist reminiscent of Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos’s famous Black Power salute at the 1968 Mexico City games.
Despite its changeable nature and twistable journey, woke is inextricably linked with the rise of Black consciousness, which has never really gone away but rather has experienced surges and swells. This latest wave is most defined by its relationship with social media—specifically, and thrillingly, how Black people have used Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and the like to amplify Black pride and call out systemic oppression. In short, being woke was originally tied to the experience of being Black. But can you be woke and not Black?
If you believe BuzzFeed, woke is also the much-needed awakening of the privileged to all manner of societal ills and the willingness to call them out—usually in the form of a White, cisgender, heteronormative man recognizing that others who are not White, cisgender, heteronormative, and male are often denied equal rights, treatment, and pay. See the website’s infamous love letter to Orange Is The New Black star Matt McGorry, a self-proclaimed feminist and BLM supporter. Titled, quite literally, “Can We Talk About How Woke Matt McGorry Was In 2015?,” it was an article remarkably redolent of and created for internet culture, and one that birthed the phenomenon #WokeBae. And while the hashtag had an expiration date, the meaning had value. Because privileged allies waking up to inequality and speaking out and working to end it is ultimately a good thing.
Woke is also actress Anne Hathaway speaking out against the killing of Black teenager Nia Wilson and challenging White people to check their privilege and recognize that “Black people fear for their lives daily in America.”
Woke is also Tarana Burke setting the hashtag #MeToo viral and inspiring hundreds of thousands of women to recognize and voice their experiences of sexual assault.
Woke is also a punch line. The wink of an ending to an online joke making fun of the perceived worthy righteousness of woke culture. The stuff of satire, usually said aloud with accompanying gestured air quotes.
One must always distinguish between woke as an earnest state of mind and woke as satire. The latter almost always pokes fun at the former. The latter is also the most grating due to its smugness and therefore usually unsatisfying.
Example: Maroon is just navy red. #staywoke
Woke is often susceptible to cultural appropriation. Tragically ironic, considering this is one of the very things the act of staying woke would be on high alert against. See woke’s journey from Black political circles to White internet slang via headlines in mainstream media. Also see the Evening Standard’s “woke-ometer,” which measured people on a scale of “asleep” (Theresa May) to “woke” (J. K. Rowling) . . . and included no persons of color.
Woke is not limited to righteous political types. In the Twitterverse, woke has become an awareness not only of racial, political, and social injustice but also of just about anything.
Woke, a study in three Tweets, from the earnest to the sardonic: Another reminder that Trump’s campaign is under FBI investigation. Nothing has changed except the media’s attention span #staywoke @RepMaxineWaters
Wake up, sheeple! Bowling Green was an inside job! (inside Kellyanne Conway’s head) #staywoke #BowlingGreenTruth @StephenAtHome
Bill Cosby is just a distraction from Arizona Tea being sold for $1.25 now instead of .99 cents. #staywoke @Phil_Lewis
Not only is woke a political state of mind, woke has also been commodified. There are woke books and woke movies, woke T-shirts and woke clothing brands. Woke songs and woke dating sites. Woke neighborhoods and woke vacation destinations. Woke has commercial currency. When Nike featured Colin Kaepernick, the NFL star who protested police brutality by refusing to stand for the National Anthem during his nationally televised games, many accused the brand of woke washing, the act of cashing in on social justice. But sales increased, and socially and politically progressive people began proudly wearing their Nikes and showing them off on social media out of solidarity. And other brands quickly realized you can be political and profitable.
Woke also became a form of social currency, a virtue signal on Facebook or Twitter by members of the ever-growing tribe of socially and politically conscious. But woke is most powerful, and most valuable, when it is lived and not performed. When it’s not viewed as a quality to be smug about. Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Biko, and Angela Davis didn’t declare themselves activists. They didn’t have to. Their actions did. Woke people know not to and need not describe themselves as woke.
A random sampling, in no particular order, of additional people and things that are in the original woke canon: Ida B. Wells
Shirley Chisholm
The writings of Zora Neale Hurston and James Baldwin
Black Lives Matter
Barack and Michelle Obama
Sadiq Khan