Rather than answer this myself, I’ll let someone else speak for me:
The Google AI gives a good overview of the original definitions, the ones used, and the caricatures from the right:
woke definition (Google AI overview)
“Woke” is an adjective that means being aware of and attentive to important societal issues, especially those related to racial and social justice.
It can also mean being politically liberal, especially in a way that is considered extreme.
The term originated from Black American folk singer-songwriter Huddie Ledbetter, also known as Lead Belly. In 1938, he used the phrase “stay woke” in the spoken afterword to his song “Scottsboro Boys”. The song is about nine Black teenagers and young men who were falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama in 1931.
56% of respondents in a 2023 Ipsos poll said “woke” means being informed, educated on, and aware of social injustices.
39% of respondents in the same poll said “woke” means being overly politically correct and policing others’ words.
Some conservatives have used the term “woke” in a way that some argue is a racial “dog whistle”. They may be using it to depict being educated on social injustice as a bad thing.
IOW, as I noted before, when the right uses the word as a slur, it is the latest incarnation of “don’t be a n***** lover”
What could be more “woke” than Goya’s predated concept “From the Sleep of Reason comes Monsters” way back in 1799?
For context, Goya included this in The Caprices, a collection of etchings he made of things that pissed him off about society and human nature in general. Later, he’d illustrate the really terrible things in The Disasters of War, and later still fill his home with the depressing Black Paintings. Goya was a child of the Age of Reason, but his Spain was hostile towards it; with results that would last until the 1970s
Not as bad as Bourbon Spain, but still hostile, mainstream America dislikes Reason, and disparages it using the African American word “woke” the same way it enjoyed Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in blackface: “aren’t those negroes so silly!” Let’s take a humanist concept that goes back to Ancient Greece and the Renaissance, and dismiss it American-style. Black people don’t matter, and if we attach concepts of human emancipation to them, those concepts don’t matter either. Shit, we already have Christianity. (What was the mood like in church the first Sunday after a lynching in the Jim Crow era? Jubilation, or did everyone avoid eye contact?)
Performative sanctimony for leftist convictions is a real thing. YouTuber Lindsay Ellis was a victim of it when she thought a recent animated character was too derivative of an earlier one, and got dragged because, since both were of Asian origin, she was simply blinded by her racism to see the nuances. Defending herself, she called out “deliberate bad-faith interpretation for online clout.” Not once did she use the word “woke.”
The civil rights protests were an example of what I was saying–planning for the opposition. Things like sit-ins weren’t just spontaneous events done by random people. They were carefully planned out, both how to do them and how to deal with the fallout. They thought about how to dress and act, had bail money ready, had lawyers ready to handle the legal cases, etc. If it was just random people sitting in segregated diners hoping for the best, the opposition probably would have pushed civil rights backward. But instead, leaders like MLK, Jr. considered the real-world implications of their actions and planned out how to best push civil rights forward through the expected opposition. I sometimes feel that kind of thoughtfulness about how to handle the headwinds of opposition is missing from some progressive movements.
The local opposition did just that. Remember that armed soldiers stood ready to defend against black children going into previously whites only schools?
it was nearly 100 fucking years between the Emancipation Proclamation and the Johnson era civil rights laws.
I mean–sure. But how studied are you in the civil rights movement?
This is a great example. The Greensboro Four WERE random people sitting in a segregated diner. They planned their protest in advance, but they weren’t working with MLK or any other major activist when they started. Randos CAN effect change.
Of course people should plan for the opposition. Is the new definition of “woke” supposed to be “not planning for opposition”? Who exactly are these progressives who “ignore or downplay the potential for opposition”?
And about that, there was no guarantee that Eisenhower would send troops to enforce the civil rights of African Americans then. If Trump had been president, he would send troops, but to do it like “In The Arms Of Morpheus” way. To arrest the African Americans.
Non-woke example:
A: I enjoyed the movie “Sixteen Candles” as a teen in the 80s
B: I also enjoyed the movie as a teen in the 80’s, but we should acknowledge that there were some racist and sexist elements to the story. Let’s discuss that.
Woke example:
A: I enjoyed the movie “Sixteen Candles” as a teen in the 80s.
B. Oh I see, you support racism, sexism. You think rape jokes are funny?
You don’t have to deny that Long Duck Dong is a racial stereotype. Long Duck Dong is a racial stereotype.
Educate not pontificate.
Given the near-genocidal racism of whites in the “Post-Reconstruction American race relations - Wikipedia” era, Booker T. Washington in his famous “Atlanta Compromise” speech essentially advocated surrender on the issue of civil rights. Unlike his critics such as W.E.B. Dubois, Washington evidently believed that trying to force political progress in the face of white intransigence was counter-productive to achieving what was realistically achievable for African-Americans, and his program consisted of working to placate and reassure white hearts and minds. As a result some have smeared Washington as the prototypical “Good N*****”; yet it’s debatable whether militancy at that time would have accomplished anything more than sparking a race war.
Growing up, Rosa Parks sitting at the back of the bus was presented as a situation where she just decided one day to refuse to surrender her seat. When I learned the truth, that this was as far from a spontaneous action on her part as you could get, I was a little disappointed. A myth died for me that day. But I really came to appreciate and respect the level of strategic thinking behind the Civil Rights Movement.
I sometimes wonder if people misuse King’s statement about white moderates. You can absolute critique the way someone is trying to get their message out. For whatever reason, the Democrat’s messaging has not resonated with Americans these last few years.
Often these days it seems like it’s
1985:
A. Sixteen Candles should be banned. Teenagers shouldn’t see movies that mention sex.
2024:
B: Man, I was just thinking about Sixteen Candles. I can’t believe I missed all that questionable stuff back when I saw it as a teen.
The now older A: Woke folks are attacking Sixteen Candles, can you believe it! What is the world coming to?
There is definitely a point at which a critique is not accurate in its depth or breadth (i.e. “all white people” or “casual racists are literally hitler!” for example), but the flaw runs deeper than that. At the point when King said that, the vast majority of Americans did not believe in interracial marriage. So much so that it’s a near mathematical certainly that a majority of white moderates also did not believe in it. I don’t think it’s informative to equate current mainstream Democrats with people who are so blatantly racist that they don’t even think people of different “races” should marry (albeit not so blatantly racist that they tow the segregationist/supremacist line in all aspects).
Marriage and civil unions are not the same thing and a person in a civil union has less rights in a marriage. Your analogy is similar to the “Separate but equal” doctrine used to legally segregate whites and coloreds.
You should really study how desegregation happened via the courts. Brown v Board of Education did not come out ex nihilo. Instead there were a series of court cases that sloooooooowly chipped away at the separate but equal doctrine. That’s how things usually work in this country. Piece by piece not all at once.
DemonTree has finally provided a definition of “woke”. For some reason, rather than give it in this thread, she has started a new thread in IMHO.
Yes. I was planning to link to it from here once I was free to post again, but you’ve beaten me to it.
You asked me to define what I meant when I used the word woke, and I have now spent considerable time doing so. I believe one reason you asked for a definition was so you could say whether you are woke according to it, so… are you?
No, I do not believe in the distortions of ideas and the misrepresntations of values you define as “woke”.
I remain very curious as to why you started a separate thread when the definition of “woke” is not only relevant to this thread, but is in fact one of the central issues of this thread. And why start in IMHO instead of GD?
Additionally, while you have finally provided (in another thread, in another forum) the definition I asked for, you have yet to provide a cite for your claim that ‘woke people care more about beliefs than actions’. Would you be so kind as to provide it now?
Here in the UK, civil unions were actually defined in law as giving exactly the same rights as marriage. The PM at the time was religious, which I think is the only reason they didn’t just legalise gay marriage.
But it was @GIGObuster who claimed supporting civil unions was a woke position, so you’ll have to take it up with him.
Clearly, I mean it’s not like GIGO put it in scare quotes or anything…
REMOVED
This was a fairly common right-wing claim too. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell said that that 9/11 attacks were justified, while rescue efforts were still going on