| Nicky91 |
01-08-2022 01:28 PM |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke
Quote:
is an English adjective meaning "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination" that originated in African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as sexism, and has also been used as shorthand for American Left ideas involving identity politics and social justice, such as the notion of white privilege and slavery reparations for African Americans.
The phrase stay woke had emerged in AAVE by the 1930s, in some contexts referring to an awareness of the social and political issues affecting African Americans. The phrase was uttered in a recording by Lead Belly and later by Erykah Badu. Following the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, the phrase was popularised by Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists seeking to raise awareness about police shootings of African Americans. After seeing use on Black Twitter, the term woke became an Internet meme and was increasingly used by white people, often to signal their support for BLM, which some commentators have criticised as cultural appropriation. Mainly associated with the millennial generation, the term spread internationally and was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017.
The terms woke capitalism and woke-washing were coined to describe companies who signal support for progressive causes as a substitute for genuine reform. By 2020, parts of the political center and right wing in several Western countries were using the term woke, often in an ironic way, as an insult for various progressive or leftist movements and ideologies perceived as overzealous, performative, or insincere. In turn, some commentators came to consider it an offensive term with negative associations to those who promote political ideas involving identity and race. By 2021, woke had become used almost exclusively as a pejorative, with most prominent usages of the word taking place in a disparaging context
Among American conservatives, woke has come to be used primarily as an insult.[1][4][46] In this pejorative sense, woke means "following an intolerant and moralising ideology".[19] British journalist Steven Poole comments that the term is used to mock "overrighteous liberalism".[47] Romano says that on the American right, "'woke' – like its cousin 'canceled' – bespeaks 'political correctness' gone awry".[4]
Opponents of progressive social movements often use the term mockingly or sarcastically,[4][48] implying that "wokeness" is an insincere form of performative activism.[46][4] Such critics often believe that movements such as Black Lives Matter exaggerate the extent of social problems.[48] Linguist and social critic John McWhorter argues that the history of woke is similar to that of politically correct, another term once used self-descriptively by the left which was appropriated by the right as an insult, in a process similar to the euphemism treadmill.[2]
Members of the Republican Party in the U.S. have been increasingly using the term to criticize members of the Democratic Party, while more centrist Democrats use it against more left-leaning members of their own party; such critics accuse those on their left of using cancel culture to damage the employment prospects of those who are not considered sufficiently "woke".[1]
FiveThirtyEight writer Perry Bacon Jr. suggests that this "anti-woke posture" is connected to a long-standing promotion of backlash politics by the Republican Party, wherein it promotes white and conservative fear in response to activism by African Americans as well as changing cultural norms.[49][1]
By 2021, woke had become used almost exclusively as a pejorative,[better source needed] with most prominent usages of the word taking place in a disparaging context.[1] The term woke, along with other terms such as cancel culture and critical race theory,[50] became a large part of Republican Party electoral strategy. Former President Donald Trump stated in 2021 that the Biden administration is "destroying" the country "with woke", and Republican Missouri senator Josh Hawley used the term to promote his upcoming book by saying the "woke mob" was trying to suppress it
Scholars Michael B. McCormack and Althea Legal-Miller argue that the phrase stay woke echoes Martin Luther King, Jr.'s exhortation "to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change"
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meaning of the word ''Woke'' on wikipedia
consider myself woke then, and i am not ashamed of that at all, why should i, when its not a bad thing
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