The political climate is changing rapidly every day and I am here to help you sort through all of the propaganda that is transforming our country into a single political non-democratic society. This blog will be about how people are using the term “Woke” and how it is affecting their lives. I am not going to debate the merits of “woke” or take sides one way or another. I just want to share other people’s actions of “woke.”
Woke is now defined in this dictionary as “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice),” and identified as U.S. slang. It originated in African American English and gained more widespread use beginning in 2014 as part of the Black Lives Matter movement. By the end of that same decade it was also being applied by some as a general pejorative for anyone who is or appears to be politically left-leaning.
Woke – it’s just four letters, but it has had a big impact on Republican politics ahead of the 2024 election. It’s hard to avoid criticism of, quote, “wokeness” and “wokeism” among GOP presidential hopefuls. But what does it actually mean?
Woke is a slang term that is easing into the mainstream from some varieties of a dialect called African American Vernacular English (sometimes called AAVE). In AAVE, awake is often rendered as woke, as in, “I was sleeping, but now I’m woke.”
Stay woke became a watch word in parts of the black community for those who were self-aware, questioning the dominant paradigm and striving for something better. But stay woke and woke became part of a wider discussion in 2014, immediately following the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The word woke became entwined with the Black Lives Matter movement; instead of just being a word that signaled awareness of injustice or racial tension, it became a word of action. Activists were woke and called on others to stay woke.
There’s one word on the Republican presidential campaign trail that’s hard to avoid.
RON DESANTIS: Now, this woke mind virus represents a war on merit, a war on… RON DESANTIS: Now, this woke mind virus represents a war on merit, a war on…
That’s presidential hopeful and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis using the word woke he’s repeated over and over and over again and made central to his politics.
DESANTIS: We will fight the woke in the legislature. We will fight the woke in education. We will fight the woke in the business. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Our state is where woke goes to die.
Republicans on the campaign trail are using it as something of a catchall to criticize anything on the progressive side of the political spectrum they don’t like, whether it’s teaching about racism in schools or gender transition policies or even books and libraries they deem inappropriate. Not every candidate likes this focus. Here’s North Dakota Republican Governor Doug Burgum on NBC’s Meet the Press.
DOUG BURGUM: I believe that the president of the United States has got to define a set of things they’re supposed to work on, and it’s not every culture war topic.
But Burgum is in the minority in his party on this and has minimal support at this point. What about the front-runner for the Republican nomination, former President Donald Trump?
DONALD TRUMP: And I don’t like the term woke because I hear woke, woke, woke. You know, it’s like just a term they use. Half the people can’t even define it. They don’t know what it is.
But that seems to be a new stance for Trump because he’s used the word multiple times to criticize the left. In fact, just hours after making that statement, he used it repeatedly in a town hall on Fox News.
TRUMP: A lot of things going on with our military, with the woke and all this nonsense. They’re not learning to fight and protect us from some very bad people. They want to go woke. They want to go woke.
I am of a good heart, soul, and mind, with an interesting blend of characteristics. I am very active, and I continuously seek out new information while reflecting upon what I have already gained.
I try to maintain a full perspective of the things that have occurred in my life, thus allowing me to think more clearly about different points of view that others may have that are sometimes directly opposite of my view, but far too often identical in many ways.
So don’t judge me by what you see, but by the contents of my character and my actions.
