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The Obsession with the word “Woke”
I saw a post on a popular anonymous parenting bulletin board talking about the “wokeness” level of a top ranked all boys school in the DC Metropolitan area.
By the 5th page of the thread, I grew frustrated and weary reading the comments and threw my hands up at how obsolete and ridiculous the term has become.
I’m outing myself right now but I wrote:
At this point in 2022, the only people who use the word “woke” are non-People of Color people who equate “woke’ to an amorphous movement that is going to force them to accept marginalized people and communities and they so not want to do that.
… so know that after today, when you utter that term in the context of discussions about diversity, inclusivity or identity, you’re telling on yourself and may be quietly judged.
Woke has been bastardized, politicized and demonized into a caricature of what it used to mean when conscious POC used to use it and dating back to as early as Marcus Garvey’s writings in the 1920s.
At this point, it’s as archaic as “on fleek” or “jive turkey” or some other outdated jargon that made its way out of the originating culture and into the secular mainstream.
I do not mean to come off as condescending in this writing but I feel I am, so do you.
