What’s the Alternative to “Woke”?

The absurd attack against being “woke”

In this article, I demonstrate how the attack against “woke ideology” is all the evidence needed to demonstrate the importance and necessity of being woke.

In an attempt to push back against social justice progress, the term “woke” has been weaponized by political conservatives. Florida governor and Republican presidential nominee, Ron DeSantis, is a vocal opponent of what he and other conservatives call “woke ideology.” At a campaign event in Iowa, Desantis said “woke” 7 times in 26 seconds.

Desantis sponsored the Stop-WOKE (Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees) Act, which prohibits educational institutions and businesses from teaching students and employees anything that would cause anyone to “feel guilt, anguish or any form of psychological distress” due to their race, color, sex or national origin.

According to Desantis and his wife Casey Desantis, “our state [Florida] is where woke goes to die.”

What is it about the term “woke” that is so terrifying to conservatives?

White opposition to “woke” is connected to the origins of “woke”

While the term “woke” has recently received a lot of attention, it has a long history in Black vernacular. In 1923, a collection of aphorisms and ideas by the Jamaican philosopher and social activist Marcus Garvey included the summons “Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!” as a call to Black people across the globe to become more socially and politically conscious.

In 1938 the phrase “stay woke” turned up as part of a spoken afterword in the 1938 song “Scottsboro Boys,” a protest song by Blues musician, Lead Belly. The song describes the 1931 saga of a group of nine Black teenagers in Scottsboro, Arkansas, who were accused of raping two white women. The song ended with Lead Belly advising Black folk traveling through Alabama to “stay woke.”

In a 1962 New York Times essay, “If You’re Woke You Dig It”, Harlem-based writer William Melvin Kelley highlighted the phenomenon of Black American slang being appropriated by white people who often missed or altogether distorted the words’ original meanings.

When I was growing up, the term “woke” simply meant being aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues. It meant seeing injustices and inequities for what they are and seeking to bring an end to them. It meant being self-aware, questioning the dominant paradigm, and actively striving for something better.

Being “woke” is simply about being aware and acting on that awareness for the sake of justice. African-Americans have been doing this for decades (if not hundreds of years) and white conservatives have been opposing it for just as long.

Republican politicians have redefined the historical definition of “woke”, using it as a political buzzword to galvanize a far-right conservative base.

Anti-woke rhetoric and policies are forms of anti-black racism

The so-called “woke ideology” that conservatives seek to put an end to is an awareness and awakening to the injustices and inequities that Black people and other marginalized groups have been systemically subjected to.

Despite the current conservative weaponizing of the term, “woke” has never meant teaching white people to “feel guilt, anguish or any form of psychological distress” due to their whiteness. It has never meant teaching white children that they bear “guilt” for the sins of their slave-owning great-great-grandparents, even though white wealth and inheritances can be directly traced to slavery and racism in America.

Being woke has never meant teaching or trying to force cisgender heterosexual children to be “queer,” even though queer children have long been taught in school to “feel guilt, anguish [and other] forms of psychological distress” on account of their sexual orientation.

Being woke means being aware of the history, current ramifications, and legacies of political, social, and cultural injustices and inequities (many enshrined in law). It also means taking responsibility to correct and not perpetuate such injustices and inequities.

The anti-woke movement reflected in the rhetoric of Republican politicians and demonstrated in legislation like DeSantis’ Stop-WOKE Act is meant to stop people from speaking out in ways that challenge racism and other kinds of discrimination.

By intentionally distorting the meaning of “woke” exemplified in black culture, conservative politicians demonstrate the anti-black racist objectives of the anti-woke movement. They have deliberately transformed the meaning of “woke” from “Black” to “bad” demonstrating that the anti-woke movement is nothing more than bigotry and anti-black racism.

The alternative to “woke”

I’m happy to be identified as “woke.” I’m also committed to helping others wake up and stay woke. The alternative to being woke is being asleep — being unaware.

It seems that conservative politicians want to promote being asleep — being unaware — so that they can retain the benefits bequeathed them as a result of dominant and long-standing systems of injustice and inequity.

While many (if not most) conservative politicians are not “unaware”, they benefit from promoting unawareness.

Promoting unawareness by distorting the actual meaning of “woke” and attacking so-called “woke ideology” helps conservative politicians maintain systems of injustice and inequity. Maintaining such systems benefits their constituency and keeps their constituency voting for them.

Keeping people asleep and unaware allows them to remain blind to the “truth” that Republicans claim to value so much. It promotes ignorance because for Republican politicians and their constituents, “ignorance is bliss.”

A closing spiritual caveat

The name Buddha means the “Awakened One.” Buddha was the prophet who was “woke.” The ultimate goal of Buddhism is to be aware of the source(s) of suffering and to seek the cessation of suffering.

Illustrating the oppressive dangers of unawareness and the liberating power awareness, the Rev angel Kyodo williams, the author of Radical Dharma, responded to a white Buddhist asking about racism by saying,

once you recognize that there is something else operating that is beyond your ordinary sight, don’t bother with the content. watch the pattern. the content is a distraction from you being able to see the vastness of the construct because if you could see it, it would begin to fail. PAY ATTENTION. this isn’t about ONE INCIDENT.

Being woke is the key. Awareness is the key to ending injustice and inequity. The anti-woke rhetoric of political conservatives demonstrates that the “path to awakening” is not easy. It must, nevertheless, be pursued.

May we all seek to be woke.

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