It has become one of the most controversial words in modern English, used as a badge of honour by some and an insult by others.
In this episode, we look at the history of the word "woke", and ask ourselves what comes next.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:12] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about a word.
[00:00:26] I think this is the first time we’ve ever actually done this, focussed only on a single word, but there are few words in modern English that arouse such passion and create such division, few words that have been weaponised in such a short period of time.
[00:00:43] And that word is “woke”.
[00:00:47] To those who embrace the word, it means being aware of social injustice, aware of discrimination, understanding that the world is structured in an unfair way, and being prepared to do something about it.
[00:01:00] But to its detractors, its critics, it’s an insult, it’s used to describe someone who is virtue signalling, claiming to be morally better than other people, and is not prepared to listen to any other point of view.
[00:01:16] So, in this episode we are going to explore the evolution of this word, a word that is more than a word, actually, it’s a state of mind, a shorthand for a whole set of values and attitudes, which are either espoused vigorously by the believer or despised by its adversaries.
[00:01:36] Ok then, let’s get right into it and look at the evolution of woke.
[00:01:42] Now, if we are going to spend an entire episode talking about a word, we should first define what that word means, and the first place we should look is the dictionary.
[00:01:55] If you were to consult a dictionary 20 years ago, you would probably only have found one definition. It would say something like “the past tense of wake”, and might
[00:02:07] give
[00:02:07] Alastair Budge: you examples like “I woke up this morning”, or even “I woke this morning”.
[00:02:13] And of course, you can still use the word like that, it’s the past tense of “wake”, absolutely nothing has changed since then.
[00:02:22] But you would see another definition today, a definition that in many dictionaries actually now comes above the original definition, meaning it’s the more common usage of the word.
[00:02:35] And in fact, this definition is often split into two separate definitions, which reflects how polarising the word has become.
[00:02:46] So, let me give you the definition from the Merriam Webster dictionary.
[00:02:51] The first definition is, and I’m quoting directly, “aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues [especially issues of racial and social justice] ”
[00:03:05] And the second definition is, and again this is a direct quote, “politically liberal [ as in matters of racial and social justice] especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme”.
[00:03:21] And only after this, coming in at the third definition, do you find the original literal definition of what this word means.
[00:03:31] Now, this third definition, the original literal definition, is easy to understand and less controversial, I mean, it simply refers to not being asleep.
[00:03:42] So we will focus our attention today on the first two, the definitions of “woke” that are more to do with ideology and what you believe rather than simply your physical state.
[00:03:55] Now, in terms of where this word, “woke”, came from in this context, it was originally slang, or vernacular, used by African Americans going as far back as the 1940s.
[00:04:10] On one level, it was used as an alternative to woken or awake, so “I’m woke, I’m coming”, like “I’m awake, I’m coming”.
[00:04:21] But it also had another meaning, meaning if you were “woke” you were aware of the societal injustice faced by the African-American community.
[00:04:32] Its first use in print is thought to come from all the way back in 1962, in a New York Times article by an African-American author called William Melvin Kelley.
[00:04:45] The article’s title was “If You’re Woke You Dig It”, and it talked about dialect and language in 1960s America, in particular the language used by African-Americans.
[00:04:58] Importantly, this essay wasn’t about social injustice, police violence, or any kind of ideological point of view.
[00:05:07] He was simply explaining how language is used, and how slang terms, or idiomatic language would be discarded, not used any more when they become mainstream.
[00:05:21] We’ll come back to this idea in a few minutes, and it will be important when we look at the development of being “woke” in the 21st century.
[00:05:30] Anyway, back to the 1960s.
[00:05:33] The term continued to be used as African-American Vernacular, as a slang.
[00:05:39] Its most famous next use case then came a decade later, when a character in a 1971 play about the Jamaican political activist, Marcus Garvey, said ‘I been sleeping all my life. And now that Mr. Garvey done woke me up, I’m gon stay woke. And I’m gon' help him wake up other black folk’.
[00:06:00] So, the term existed, and it was used, but it wasn’t really until the 21st century that “woke” was brought into the mainstream.
[00:06:12] One of the first people to publicise this word was the singer Erykah Badu, who used the lyrics, ‘I stay woke’, in her 2008 song Master Teacher.
[00:06:23] And moving into the 2010s, the expression continued to grow in popularity and mainstream usage, and after the police shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old African American called Michael Brown, and the formation of The Black Lives Matter movement, it shot to public prominence.
[00:06:43] Black Lives Matter, or BLM, was formed in 2013, and this group really embraced the term “woke”, and “stay woke”, and promoted the use of the hashtag “#staywoke” on social media.
[00:06:59] And what did this mean?
[00:07:01] Well, it meant that you were aware of racial injustice, you were aware of the fact that police violence falls disproportionately on African Americans, that is, if you are an African American you are over twice as likely to be shot and killed by police than if you are a white American.
[00:07:20] And importantly, “staying woke” meant that you were prepared to do something about it.
[00:07:26] Protesting in the street, entering grassroots politics, you were prepared to do something about the injustices in the system.
[00:07:35] You would see people with posters or t-shirts with the “Stay Woke” message written on them, and the term entered the public consciousness, on both sides of the Atlantic, in the United States and in the UK.
[00:07:50] In 2017, in fact, this “new” definition was added to the Oxford English Dictionary, which is always slightly behind with these things, but this gives you an idea of quite how mainstream it had become.
[00:08:06] But as often happens, when a term that was previously used, created, owned even, by one particular group of people, when this term goes into the mainstream, especially when it is a term about an ideological viewpoint, the definition was twisted and used to mean something completely different, it’s used against the original creators of the term.
[00:08:33] And if you remember our second definition of “woke”, from the start of the episode, of “politically liberal [as in matters of racial and social justice] especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme”, woke has become an insult when used by certain types of people.
[00:08:53] If you were to watch Fox News, or read a right-wing newspaper, you would find all manner of references to wokeness in a negative light.
[00:09:03] Here’s one from Fox News at the start of 2020. And by the way, remember that Fox News is the most popular cable news show in the United States.
[00:09:15] So, here’s Tucker Carlson, the most popular cable news host in American history, with an average of 3.3 million viewers every single night:
[00:09:26] Tucker Carlson: wokeness is a virus. It's infectious. It destroys your brain. You're watching it happen to people all around you. Certainly on the left, some running for president, many working at CNN.
[00:09:39] Alastair Budge: So, to repeat, he says “wokeness is a virus. It’s infectious, it destroys your brain”.
[00:09:48] And here’s another clip from someone whose voice you probably will recognise:
[00:09:53] Donald Trump: Because woke means you're, a loser. Everybody ultimately loses with woke.
[00:09:59] Alastair Budge: And yes, that was the former President, Donald Trump, saying that “woke means you’re a loser”.
[00:10:07] So, how did one term, one idea, being “woke”, go from being aware of social issues to being an infectious virus that destroys your brain, making you a loser?
[00:10:20] Well, on one level, we must go back to the original New York Times article from 1962, the one titled “If You’re Woke You Dig It”.
[00:10:31] If you remember, Kelly, the author, wrote that as soon as a term becomes mainstream, it is no longer used by the group or people who originally used it, it becomes polluted and untouchable.
[00:10:45] And this is, to a certain extent, what happened with the term “woke”.
[00:10:52] In the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter movement, as people and also companies became more publicly aware of social injustice, the term moved further into the mainstream, and took on an altogether different meaning.
[00:11:08] Companies started to publicly pledge their support for social movements and racial equality, with some even going as far as describing themselves as “woke”.
[00:11:21] Was this because the leaders of the companies truly believed in what they were saying, or was it because they needed to appeal to a new generation both of social justice aware consumers and employees, and being woke was “just good for business”?
[00:11:38] I’ll leave you to be the judge of that, but many companies were criticised for what was perceived as piggybacking, jumping on the bandwagon, of a social movement.
[00:11:50] And as this happened, the term “woke” became even more politicised, weaponised, and binary.
[00:11:58] You were either woke, or you were not, there was no “middle ground”.
[00:12:04] To the critics of “woke” ideology, this was seen as virtue signalling, when someone shows off their beliefs so as to display their moral superiority, that they are a better human being because they believe something.
[00:12:21] And, given this new binary nature, of one either being woke or not being woke, to critics of “wokeism”, this word epitomised what they believed as liberal extremism.
[00:12:37] Wokeness meant a refusal to debate issues, being overly sensitive, viewing everything that happens in the world through a lens of social injustice and looking down on anyone with a different ideology.
[00:12:52] And as a result, “woke” took on a completely different, pejorative, negative meaning, it became an insult.
[00:13:01] Right wing talk show hosts talked about The Woke Mob, The Woke Police, Going Woke, The Woke Warrior Class, The Wokerati, and Woke Capitalism.
[00:13:14] As you heard Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump saying a few minutes ago, it was presented as a virus that infected the mind, something that nothing good could come from.
[00:13:26] Now, clearly, the issue of social injustice, discrimination, and political polarisation are huge issues, far too large to do justice to in a short episode like this, so instead I want to keep the focus on the evolution of the term, rather than go down the rabbit hole of the rights and wrongs of both sides.
[00:13:48] What is undeniable is that the term, “woke”, is now used far more frequently in a critical sense, by critics of the ideology, rather than its proponents.
[00:14:01] This isn’t, of course, so unusual. It's simply joining a long list of terms that had one meaning when used by one group of people, then was used by another group either as a positive or negative term by people on the other side of the argument.
[00:14:17] Liberal, is one example, “politically correct” is another one, which have both gone from being simple descriptive terms to weaponised insults.
[00:14:29] Gay is another - it originally simply meant “happy”, then it was used to mean “homosexual”, and was also used by some groups as an insult to mean “bad” or “undesirable”.
[00:14:43] And another, which is coming from a slightly different angle, is the "N-word", which was originally used as an ethnic slur, an insulting term for black people. But, as you may know, it’s used by some African Americans as a colloquial term, it’s been embraced and has gone from an insult to a term of camaraderie, of endearment.
[00:15:09] So, this brings us to today, and to the status of the word “woke” in 2023.
[00:15:17] Will you still see people using it?
[00:15:19] Yes, probably, but more commonly as an insult rather than in its original sense.
[00:15:27] To the original proponents of the word “woke”, this is pretty depressing news.
[00:15:34] In an interview with the woman who wrote the “I stay woke” lyrics of the Erykah Badu song, the journalist wrote “Like anything created by black people, the phrase “stay woke” was appropriated by the masses, transformed into a trend term before ultimately mutating into a meme and becoming a form of irony.”
[00:15:57] Essentially, it was taken, stolen and used as an insult, meaning it can’t be used in its original sense.
[00:16:06] And the result of all of this, to quote the same article is that, “being woke isn’t fucking fun.”
[00:16:14] There are many different conclusions we might draw from this, from how the meaning of the word “woke” has changed and evolved in such a short period of time.
[00:16:26] Firstly, I think it’s yet another example of the power of a single word, of how a word can come to stand for much more than it means.
[00:16:36] Secondly, it might be to ask ourselves whether one group should have ownership over a particular word or phrase? And what happens if that ownership, that agency, is lost?
[00:16:50] Thirdly, it’s that the greater the number of people who say that they identify with a particular word, the less powerful that word often becomes. Its meaning becomes diluted, and even if the message might have been powerful to begin with, it’s harder to understand what it really means.
[00:17:12] And on a related note, finally, it’s that having more supporters doesn’t always yield better results.
[00:17:20] In the case of woke, it’s clear that the more people and companies jumped on the bandwagon, or claimed to hold certain socially progressive beliefs when their actions spoke otherwise, this opened up the entire woke movement for criticism and gave people like Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump the ammunition to criticise the entire movement, everyone who identified with the word “woke”.
[00:17:49] This being said, the past 10 years or so have “woken” many people to the social injustices, not just in America but in pretty much every country in the world.
[00:18:02] And looking to the future, while the word “woke” might be dead in the water, no matter how much Donald Trump might say it’s for losers, it’s clear that the ideas behind it are alive and well.
[00:18:17] OK then, that is it for today's episode on the history and evolution of the word “woke”.
[00:18:24] I hope it's been an interesting one, and that you've learnt something new.
[00:18:28] As always, I would love to know what you thought of this episode.
[00:18:32] Were you aware of this term before today, and if so, what impact has woke ideology had in your country?
[00:18:40] What do you think is next for “staying woke”, both the term and the idea behind it?
[00:18:46] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:18:49] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:18:57] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:19:02] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:12] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about a word.
[00:00:26] I think this is the first time we’ve ever actually done this, focussed only on a single word, but there are few words in modern English that arouse such passion and create such division, few words that have been weaponised in such a short period of time.
[00:00:43] And that word is “woke”.
[00:00:47] To those who embrace the word, it means being aware of social injustice, aware of discrimination, understanding that the world is structured in an unfair way, and being prepared to do something about it.
[00:01:00] But to its detractors, its critics, it’s an insult, it’s used to describe someone who is virtue signalling, claiming to be morally better than other people, and is not prepared to listen to any other point of view.
[00:01:16] So, in this episode we are going to explore the evolution of this word, a word that is more than a word, actually, it’s a state of mind, a shorthand for a whole set of values and attitudes, which are either espoused vigorously by the believer or despised by its adversaries.
[00:01:36] Ok then, let’s get right into it and look at the evolution of woke.
[00:01:42] Now, if we are going to spend an entire episode talking about a word, we should first define what that word means, and the first place we should look is the dictionary.
[00:01:55] If you were to consult a dictionary 20 years ago, you would probably only have found one definition. It would say something like “the past tense of wake”, and might
[00:02:07] give
[00:02:07] Alastair Budge: you examples like “I woke up this morning”, or even “I woke this morning”.
[00:02:13] And of course, you can still use the word like that, it’s the past tense of “wake”, absolutely nothing has changed since then.
[00:02:22] But you would see another definition today, a definition that in many dictionaries actually now comes above the original definition, meaning it’s the more common usage of the word.
[00:02:35] And in fact, this definition is often split into two separate definitions, which reflects how polarising the word has become.
[00:02:46] So, let me give you the definition from the Merriam Webster dictionary.
[00:02:51] The first definition is, and I’m quoting directly, “aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues [especially issues of racial and social justice] ”
[00:03:05] And the second definition is, and again this is a direct quote, “politically liberal [ as in matters of racial and social justice] especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme”.
[00:03:21] And only after this, coming in at the third definition, do you find the original literal definition of what this word means.
[00:03:31] Now, this third definition, the original literal definition, is easy to understand and less controversial, I mean, it simply refers to not being asleep.
[00:03:42] So we will focus our attention today on the first two, the definitions of “woke” that are more to do with ideology and what you believe rather than simply your physical state.
[00:03:55] Now, in terms of where this word, “woke”, came from in this context, it was originally slang, or vernacular, used by African Americans going as far back as the 1940s.
[00:04:10] On one level, it was used as an alternative to woken or awake, so “I’m woke, I’m coming”, like “I’m awake, I’m coming”.
[00:04:21] But it also had another meaning, meaning if you were “woke” you were aware of the societal injustice faced by the African-American community.
[00:04:32] Its first use in print is thought to come from all the way back in 1962, in a New York Times article by an African-American author called William Melvin Kelley.
[00:04:45] The article’s title was “If You’re Woke You Dig It”, and it talked about dialect and language in 1960s America, in particular the language used by African-Americans.
[00:04:58] Importantly, this essay wasn’t about social injustice, police violence, or any kind of ideological point of view.
[00:05:07] He was simply explaining how language is used, and how slang terms, or idiomatic language would be discarded, not used any more when they become mainstream.
[00:05:21] We’ll come back to this idea in a few minutes, and it will be important when we look at the development of being “woke” in the 21st century.
[00:05:30] Anyway, back to the 1960s.
[00:05:33] The term continued to be used as African-American Vernacular, as a slang.
[00:05:39] Its most famous next use case then came a decade later, when a character in a 1971 play about the Jamaican political activist, Marcus Garvey, said ‘I been sleeping all my life. And now that Mr. Garvey done woke me up, I’m gon stay woke. And I’m gon' help him wake up other black folk’.
[00:06:00] So, the term existed, and it was used, but it wasn’t really until the 21st century that “woke” was brought into the mainstream.
[00:06:12] One of the first people to publicise this word was the singer Erykah Badu, who used the lyrics, ‘I stay woke’, in her 2008 song Master Teacher.
[00:06:23] And moving into the 2010s, the expression continued to grow in popularity and mainstream usage, and after the police shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old African American called Michael Brown, and the formation of The Black Lives Matter movement, it shot to public prominence.
[00:06:43] Black Lives Matter, or BLM, was formed in 2013, and this group really embraced the term “woke”, and “stay woke”, and promoted the use of the hashtag “#staywoke” on social media.
[00:06:59] And what did this mean?
[00:07:01] Well, it meant that you were aware of racial injustice, you were aware of the fact that police violence falls disproportionately on African Americans, that is, if you are an African American you are over twice as likely to be shot and killed by police than if you are a white American.
[00:07:20] And importantly, “staying woke” meant that you were prepared to do something about it.
[00:07:26] Protesting in the street, entering grassroots politics, you were prepared to do something about the injustices in the system.
[00:07:35] You would see people with posters or t-shirts with the “Stay Woke” message written on them, and the term entered the public consciousness, on both sides of the Atlantic, in the United States and in the UK.
[00:07:50] In 2017, in fact, this “new” definition was added to the Oxford English Dictionary, which is always slightly behind with these things, but this gives you an idea of quite how mainstream it had become.
[00:08:06] But as often happens, when a term that was previously used, created, owned even, by one particular group of people, when this term goes into the mainstream, especially when it is a term about an ideological viewpoint, the definition was twisted and used to mean something completely different, it’s used against the original creators of the term.
[00:08:33] And if you remember our second definition of “woke”, from the start of the episode, of “politically liberal [as in matters of racial and social justice] especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme”, woke has become an insult when used by certain types of people.
[00:08:53] If you were to watch Fox News, or read a right-wing newspaper, you would find all manner of references to wokeness in a negative light.
[00:09:03] Here’s one from Fox News at the start of 2020. And by the way, remember that Fox News is the most popular cable news show in the United States.
[00:09:15] So, here’s Tucker Carlson, the most popular cable news host in American history, with an average of 3.3 million viewers every single night:
[00:09:26] Tucker Carlson: wokeness is a virus. It's infectious. It destroys your brain. You're watching it happen to people all around you. Certainly on the left, some running for president, many working at CNN.
[00:09:39] Alastair Budge: So, to repeat, he says “wokeness is a virus. It’s infectious, it destroys your brain”.
[00:09:48] And here’s another clip from someone whose voice you probably will recognise:
[00:09:53] Donald Trump: Because woke means you're, a loser. Everybody ultimately loses with woke.
[00:09:59] Alastair Budge: And yes, that was the former President, Donald Trump, saying that “woke means you’re a loser”.
[00:10:07] So, how did one term, one idea, being “woke”, go from being aware of social issues to being an infectious virus that destroys your brain, making you a loser?
[00:10:20] Well, on one level, we must go back to the original New York Times article from 1962, the one titled “If You’re Woke You Dig It”.
[00:10:31] If you remember, Kelly, the author, wrote that as soon as a term becomes mainstream, it is no longer used by the group or people who originally used it, it becomes polluted and untouchable.
[00:10:45] And this is, to a certain extent, what happened with the term “woke”.
[00:10:52] In the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter movement, as people and also companies became more publicly aware of social injustice, the term moved further into the mainstream, and took on an altogether different meaning.
[00:11:08] Companies started to publicly pledge their support for social movements and racial equality, with some even going as far as describing themselves as “woke”.
[00:11:21] Was this because the leaders of the companies truly believed in what they were saying, or was it because they needed to appeal to a new generation both of social justice aware consumers and employees, and being woke was “just good for business”?
[00:11:38] I’ll leave you to be the judge of that, but many companies were criticised for what was perceived as piggybacking, jumping on the bandwagon, of a social movement.
[00:11:50] And as this happened, the term “woke” became even more politicised, weaponised, and binary.
[00:11:58] You were either woke, or you were not, there was no “middle ground”.
[00:12:04] To the critics of “woke” ideology, this was seen as virtue signalling, when someone shows off their beliefs so as to display their moral superiority, that they are a better human being because they believe something.
[00:12:21] And, given this new binary nature, of one either being woke or not being woke, to critics of “wokeism”, this word epitomised what they believed as liberal extremism.
[00:12:37] Wokeness meant a refusal to debate issues, being overly sensitive, viewing everything that happens in the world through a lens of social injustice and looking down on anyone with a different ideology.
[00:12:52] And as a result, “woke” took on a completely different, pejorative, negative meaning, it became an insult.
[00:13:01] Right wing talk show hosts talked about The Woke Mob, The Woke Police, Going Woke, The Woke Warrior Class, The Wokerati, and Woke Capitalism.
[00:13:14] As you heard Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump saying a few minutes ago, it was presented as a virus that infected the mind, something that nothing good could come from.
[00:13:26] Now, clearly, the issue of social injustice, discrimination, and political polarisation are huge issues, far too large to do justice to in a short episode like this, so instead I want to keep the focus on the evolution of the term, rather than go down the rabbit hole of the rights and wrongs of both sides.
[00:13:48] What is undeniable is that the term, “woke”, is now used far more frequently in a critical sense, by critics of the ideology, rather than its proponents.
[00:14:01] This isn’t, of course, so unusual. It's simply joining a long list of terms that had one meaning when used by one group of people, then was used by another group either as a positive or negative term by people on the other side of the argument.
[00:14:17] Liberal, is one example, “politically correct” is another one, which have both gone from being simple descriptive terms to weaponised insults.
[00:14:29] Gay is another - it originally simply meant “happy”, then it was used to mean “homosexual”, and was also used by some groups as an insult to mean “bad” or “undesirable”.
[00:14:43] And another, which is coming from a slightly different angle, is the "N-word", which was originally used as an ethnic slur, an insulting term for black people. But, as you may know, it’s used by some African Americans as a colloquial term, it’s been embraced and has gone from an insult to a term of camaraderie, of endearment.
[00:15:09] So, this brings us to today, and to the status of the word “woke” in 2023.
[00:15:17] Will you still see people using it?
[00:15:19] Yes, probably, but more commonly as an insult rather than in its original sense.
[00:15:27] To the original proponents of the word “woke”, this is pretty depressing news.
[00:15:34] In an interview with the woman who wrote the “I stay woke” lyrics of the Erykah Badu song, the journalist wrote “Like anything created by black people, the phrase “stay woke” was appropriated by the masses, transformed into a trend term before ultimately mutating into a meme and becoming a form of irony.”
[00:15:57] Essentially, it was taken, stolen and used as an insult, meaning it can’t be used in its original sense.
[00:16:06] And the result of all of this, to quote the same article is that, “being woke isn’t fucking fun.”
[00:16:14] There are many different conclusions we might draw from this, from how the meaning of the word “woke” has changed and evolved in such a short period of time.
[00:16:26] Firstly, I think it’s yet another example of the power of a single word, of how a word can come to stand for much more than it means.
[00:16:36] Secondly, it might be to ask ourselves whether one group should have ownership over a particular word or phrase? And what happens if that ownership, that agency, is lost?
[00:16:50] Thirdly, it’s that the greater the number of people who say that they identify with a particular word, the less powerful that word often becomes. Its meaning becomes diluted, and even if the message might have been powerful to begin with, it’s harder to understand what it really means.
[00:17:12] And on a related note, finally, it’s that having more supporters doesn’t always yield better results.
[00:17:20] In the case of woke, it’s clear that the more people and companies jumped on the bandwagon, or claimed to hold certain socially progressive beliefs when their actions spoke otherwise, this opened up the entire woke movement for criticism and gave people like Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump the ammunition to criticise the entire movement, everyone who identified with the word “woke”.
[00:17:49] This being said, the past 10 years or so have “woken” many people to the social injustices, not just in America but in pretty much every country in the world.
[00:18:02] And looking to the future, while the word “woke” might be dead in the water, no matter how much Donald Trump might say it’s for losers, it’s clear that the ideas behind it are alive and well.
[00:18:17] OK then, that is it for today's episode on the history and evolution of the word “woke”.
[00:18:24] I hope it's been an interesting one, and that you've learnt something new.
[00:18:28] As always, I would love to know what you thought of this episode.
[00:18:32] Were you aware of this term before today, and if so, what impact has woke ideology had in your country?
[00:18:40] What do you think is next for “staying woke”, both the term and the idea behind it?
[00:18:46] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:18:49] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:18:57] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:19:02] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:12] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about a word.
[00:00:26] I think this is the first time we’ve ever actually done this, focussed only on a single word, but there are few words in modern English that arouse such passion and create such division, few words that have been weaponised in such a short period of time.
[00:00:43] And that word is “woke”.
[00:00:47] To those who embrace the word, it means being aware of social injustice, aware of discrimination, understanding that the world is structured in an unfair way, and being prepared to do something about it.
[00:01:00] But to its detractors, its critics, it’s an insult, it’s used to describe someone who is virtue signalling, claiming to be morally better than other people, and is not prepared to listen to any other point of view.
[00:01:16] So, in this episode we are going to explore the evolution of this word, a word that is more than a word, actually, it’s a state of mind, a shorthand for a whole set of values and attitudes, which are either espoused vigorously by the believer or despised by its adversaries.
[00:01:36] Ok then, let’s get right into it and look at the evolution of woke.
[00:01:42] Now, if we are going to spend an entire episode talking about a word, we should first define what that word means, and the first place we should look is the dictionary.
[00:01:55] If you were to consult a dictionary 20 years ago, you would probably only have found one definition. It would say something like “the past tense of wake”, and might
[00:02:07] give
[00:02:07] Alastair Budge: you examples like “I woke up this morning”, or even “I woke this morning”.
[00:02:13] And of course, you can still use the word like that, it’s the past tense of “wake”, absolutely nothing has changed since then.
[00:02:22] But you would see another definition today, a definition that in many dictionaries actually now comes above the original definition, meaning it’s the more common usage of the word.
[00:02:35] And in fact, this definition is often split into two separate definitions, which reflects how polarising the word has become.
[00:02:46] So, let me give you the definition from the Merriam Webster dictionary.
[00:02:51] The first definition is, and I’m quoting directly, “aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues [especially issues of racial and social justice] ”
[00:03:05] And the second definition is, and again this is a direct quote, “politically liberal [ as in matters of racial and social justice] especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme”.
[00:03:21] And only after this, coming in at the third definition, do you find the original literal definition of what this word means.
[00:03:31] Now, this third definition, the original literal definition, is easy to understand and less controversial, I mean, it simply refers to not being asleep.
[00:03:42] So we will focus our attention today on the first two, the definitions of “woke” that are more to do with ideology and what you believe rather than simply your physical state.
[00:03:55] Now, in terms of where this word, “woke”, came from in this context, it was originally slang, or vernacular, used by African Americans going as far back as the 1940s.
[00:04:10] On one level, it was used as an alternative to woken or awake, so “I’m woke, I’m coming”, like “I’m awake, I’m coming”.
[00:04:21] But it also had another meaning, meaning if you were “woke” you were aware of the societal injustice faced by the African-American community.
[00:04:32] Its first use in print is thought to come from all the way back in 1962, in a New York Times article by an African-American author called William Melvin Kelley.
[00:04:45] The article’s title was “If You’re Woke You Dig It”, and it talked about dialect and language in 1960s America, in particular the language used by African-Americans.
[00:04:58] Importantly, this essay wasn’t about social injustice, police violence, or any kind of ideological point of view.
[00:05:07] He was simply explaining how language is used, and how slang terms, or idiomatic language would be discarded, not used any more when they become mainstream.
[00:05:21] We’ll come back to this idea in a few minutes, and it will be important when we look at the development of being “woke” in the 21st century.
[00:05:30] Anyway, back to the 1960s.
[00:05:33] The term continued to be used as African-American Vernacular, as a slang.
[00:05:39] Its most famous next use case then came a decade later, when a character in a 1971 play about the Jamaican political activist, Marcus Garvey, said ‘I been sleeping all my life. And now that Mr. Garvey done woke me up, I’m gon stay woke. And I’m gon' help him wake up other black folk’.
[00:06:00] So, the term existed, and it was used, but it wasn’t really until the 21st century that “woke” was brought into the mainstream.
[00:06:12] One of the first people to publicise this word was the singer Erykah Badu, who used the lyrics, ‘I stay woke’, in her 2008 song Master Teacher.
[00:06:23] And moving into the 2010s, the expression continued to grow in popularity and mainstream usage, and after the police shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old African American called Michael Brown, and the formation of The Black Lives Matter movement, it shot to public prominence.
[00:06:43] Black Lives Matter, or BLM, was formed in 2013, and this group really embraced the term “woke”, and “stay woke”, and promoted the use of the hashtag “#staywoke” on social media.
[00:06:59] And what did this mean?
[00:07:01] Well, it meant that you were aware of racial injustice, you were aware of the fact that police violence falls disproportionately on African Americans, that is, if you are an African American you are over twice as likely to be shot and killed by police than if you are a white American.
[00:07:20] And importantly, “staying woke” meant that you were prepared to do something about it.
[00:07:26] Protesting in the street, entering grassroots politics, you were prepared to do something about the injustices in the system.
[00:07:35] You would see people with posters or t-shirts with the “Stay Woke” message written on them, and the term entered the public consciousness, on both sides of the Atlantic, in the United States and in the UK.
[00:07:50] In 2017, in fact, this “new” definition was added to the Oxford English Dictionary, which is always slightly behind with these things, but this gives you an idea of quite how mainstream it had become.
[00:08:06] But as often happens, when a term that was previously used, created, owned even, by one particular group of people, when this term goes into the mainstream, especially when it is a term about an ideological viewpoint, the definition was twisted and used to mean something completely different, it’s used against the original creators of the term.
[00:08:33] And if you remember our second definition of “woke”, from the start of the episode, of “politically liberal [as in matters of racial and social justice] especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme”, woke has become an insult when used by certain types of people.
[00:08:53] If you were to watch Fox News, or read a right-wing newspaper, you would find all manner of references to wokeness in a negative light.
[00:09:03] Here’s one from Fox News at the start of 2020. And by the way, remember that Fox News is the most popular cable news show in the United States.
[00:09:15] So, here’s Tucker Carlson, the most popular cable news host in American history, with an average of 3.3 million viewers every single night:
[00:09:26] Tucker Carlson: wokeness is a virus. It's infectious. It destroys your brain. You're watching it happen to people all around you. Certainly on the left, some running for president, many working at CNN.
[00:09:39] Alastair Budge: So, to repeat, he says “wokeness is a virus. It’s infectious, it destroys your brain”.
[00:09:48] And here’s another clip from someone whose voice you probably will recognise:
[00:09:53] Donald Trump: Because woke means you're, a loser. Everybody ultimately loses with woke.
[00:09:59] Alastair Budge: And yes, that was the former President, Donald Trump, saying that “woke means you’re a loser”.
[00:10:07] So, how did one term, one idea, being “woke”, go from being aware of social issues to being an infectious virus that destroys your brain, making you a loser?
[00:10:20] Well, on one level, we must go back to the original New York Times article from 1962, the one titled “If You’re Woke You Dig It”.
[00:10:31] If you remember, Kelly, the author, wrote that as soon as a term becomes mainstream, it is no longer used by the group or people who originally used it, it becomes polluted and untouchable.
[00:10:45] And this is, to a certain extent, what happened with the term “woke”.
[00:10:52] In the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter movement, as people and also companies became more publicly aware of social injustice, the term moved further into the mainstream, and took on an altogether different meaning.
[00:11:08] Companies started to publicly pledge their support for social movements and racial equality, with some even going as far as describing themselves as “woke”.
[00:11:21] Was this because the leaders of the companies truly believed in what they were saying, or was it because they needed to appeal to a new generation both of social justice aware consumers and employees, and being woke was “just good for business”?
[00:11:38] I’ll leave you to be the judge of that, but many companies were criticised for what was perceived as piggybacking, jumping on the bandwagon, of a social movement.
[00:11:50] And as this happened, the term “woke” became even more politicised, weaponised, and binary.
[00:11:58] You were either woke, or you were not, there was no “middle ground”.
[00:12:04] To the critics of “woke” ideology, this was seen as virtue signalling, when someone shows off their beliefs so as to display their moral superiority, that they are a better human being because they believe something.
[00:12:21] And, given this new binary nature, of one either being woke or not being woke, to critics of “wokeism”, this word epitomised what they believed as liberal extremism.
[00:12:37] Wokeness meant a refusal to debate issues, being overly sensitive, viewing everything that happens in the world through a lens of social injustice and looking down on anyone with a different ideology.
[00:12:52] And as a result, “woke” took on a completely different, pejorative, negative meaning, it became an insult.
[00:13:01] Right wing talk show hosts talked about The Woke Mob, The Woke Police, Going Woke, The Woke Warrior Class, The Wokerati, and Woke Capitalism.
[00:13:14] As you heard Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump saying a few minutes ago, it was presented as a virus that infected the mind, something that nothing good could come from.
[00:13:26] Now, clearly, the issue of social injustice, discrimination, and political polarisation are huge issues, far too large to do justice to in a short episode like this, so instead I want to keep the focus on the evolution of the term, rather than go down the rabbit hole of the rights and wrongs of both sides.
[00:13:48] What is undeniable is that the term, “woke”, is now used far more frequently in a critical sense, by critics of the ideology, rather than its proponents.
[00:14:01] This isn’t, of course, so unusual. It's simply joining a long list of terms that had one meaning when used by one group of people, then was used by another group either as a positive or negative term by people on the other side of the argument.
[00:14:17] Liberal, is one example, “politically correct” is another one, which have both gone from being simple descriptive terms to weaponised insults.
[00:14:29] Gay is another - it originally simply meant “happy”, then it was used to mean “homosexual”, and was also used by some groups as an insult to mean “bad” or “undesirable”.
[00:14:43] And another, which is coming from a slightly different angle, is the "N-word", which was originally used as an ethnic slur, an insulting term for black people. But, as you may know, it’s used by some African Americans as a colloquial term, it’s been embraced and has gone from an insult to a term of camaraderie, of endearment.
[00:15:09] So, this brings us to today, and to the status of the word “woke” in 2023.
[00:15:17] Will you still see people using it?
[00:15:19] Yes, probably, but more commonly as an insult rather than in its original sense.
[00:15:27] To the original proponents of the word “woke”, this is pretty depressing news.
[00:15:34] In an interview with the woman who wrote the “I stay woke” lyrics of the Erykah Badu song, the journalist wrote “Like anything created by black people, the phrase “stay woke” was appropriated by the masses, transformed into a trend term before ultimately mutating into a meme and becoming a form of irony.”
[00:15:57] Essentially, it was taken, stolen and used as an insult, meaning it can’t be used in its original sense.
[00:16:06] And the result of all of this, to quote the same article is that, “being woke isn’t fucking fun.”
[00:16:14] There are many different conclusions we might draw from this, from how the meaning of the word “woke” has changed and evolved in such a short period of time.
[00:16:26] Firstly, I think it’s yet another example of the power of a single word, of how a word can come to stand for much more than it means.
[00:16:36] Secondly, it might be to ask ourselves whether one group should have ownership over a particular word or phrase? And what happens if that ownership, that agency, is lost?
[00:16:50] Thirdly, it’s that the greater the number of people who say that they identify with a particular word, the less powerful that word often becomes. Its meaning becomes diluted, and even if the message might have been powerful to begin with, it’s harder to understand what it really means.
[00:17:12] And on a related note, finally, it’s that having more supporters doesn’t always yield better results.
[00:17:20] In the case of woke, it’s clear that the more people and companies jumped on the bandwagon, or claimed to hold certain socially progressive beliefs when their actions spoke otherwise, this opened up the entire woke movement for criticism and gave people like Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump the ammunition to criticise the entire movement, everyone who identified with the word “woke”.
[00:17:49] This being said, the past 10 years or so have “woken” many people to the social injustices, not just in America but in pretty much every country in the world.
[00:18:02] And looking to the future, while the word “woke” might be dead in the water, no matter how much Donald Trump might say it’s for losers, it’s clear that the ideas behind it are alive and well.
[00:18:17] OK then, that is it for today's episode on the history and evolution of the word “woke”.
[00:18:24] I hope it's been an interesting one, and that you've learnt something new.
[00:18:28] As always, I would love to know what you thought of this episode.
[00:18:32] Were you aware of this term before today, and if so, what impact has woke ideology had in your country?
[00:18:40] What do you think is next for “staying woke”, both the term and the idea behind it?
[00:18:46] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:18:49] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:18:57] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:19:02] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
