“Just Because It’s Uncomfortable, Doesn’t Mean It’s Not True:” Understanding the Perversion of ‘Woke’ in the Name of White Fragility
This piece is the second of three parts meant to reflect on our current political moment and the implications of the racialized rhetoric that has been flooding political dialogue and shaping the public lexicon around equity, particularly race and racial equity. Last month, we considered Vice President Kamala Harris being referred to as a “DEI hire” as an opportunity to interrogate the weaponization of language in political messaging. Here, we will continue that conversation by considering how “woke,” “wokeness,” or “woke ideology” has been co-opted by political figures under the guise of fighting against “indoctrination.”
There is no term that exemplifies how political actors have rallied around Black/African-American vernacular to pervert their true definition in the name of political gain more than the term “woke” or “wokeness.” Perhaps the best example of this intentional distortion is by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has shaped his whole political persona on campaigning against “woke ideology,” publicly naming that “Florida is where woke goes to die.”
As Governor DeSantis’ language highlights, “woke” is being used in conservative speech to denounce any and all ideologies, beliefs, values, or practices that center on being mindful about racial and social injustice. “Woke” now just means liberal or progressive. “Woke” policies mean those that recognize and rectify systemic inequity in the workplace or in public education by addressing the historic oppression of people of color and/or members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Put simply: “woke” is another example of how language is co-opted by white dominant culture to tarnish its integrity, similar to “DEI.” In this case, it was done so by framing “woke” as a pejorative and ultimately, fear-mongering about indoctrination. Drawing attention to how meaning, not necessarily language itself, has changed can help us understand our current political moment. I will preface that these examples are by no means a comprehensive timeline of the conception of this term. Rather, I seek to highlight just how quickly our language can evolve and be manipulated to fit a political purpose.
In its earliest lineage, “woke” was not necessarily the identity politic-ridden word it is today and instead, was used by a writer in the 1960’s, William Melvin Kelley, in a New York Times essay, entitled “If You’re Woke You Dig It,” which was essentially commentary on the way Black language gets appropriated, misinterpreted, and altered by white people to the point that it is forsaken by those who created it. The irony is uncanny.
#StayWoke was the rebirth of the term in 2014. Activism in the “digital age” was amplified by platforms like Twitter. In particular, the Black Lives Matter movement reenergized its usage, particularly around police brutality following the death of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri. Not surprisingly, as “woke” became more widespread through social media, it was often diluted as slang more than the original intention as in-group signaling about being “awake” to racial injustice and more of a label, badge, or descriptor to signify you are progressive.
This most recent usage of “woke” as “Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Act” or the Stop W.O.K.E. Act (Individual Freedom Act) was a Florida state law that was passed by the legislature in 2022 and “prohibited schools and businesses from teaching certain concepts related to race, gender, racism, and privilege.” Granted, part of this act was federally blocked by a judge. Regardless, “woke” policies were those that may cause an employee or student to feel distressed due to their race, sexual orientation, etc.
To reiterate, what once started as “in-group” terminology stemming from the awareness that society is stratified and inequitable by Black people is now a racist dog-whistle that dismisses the reality that this country was founded on anti-Blackness, which in turn makes social justice progress stagnant. I encourage you to recognize the throughline behind these singular points in time so as to understand how something that was once unifying the Black community around Black liberation is now suggestive of what some political actors don’t want to see in America.
Ironically, “stopping wokeness” implies that public education or workplaces are fully awake to the social injustices that exist, which is simply not true. Consider public education as an example—Florida public schools were never known as beacons of radical education, so could they really be too progressive?
The tension that exists in “wokeness” in public education arises in the following question: How do we tell the truth, while still feeling okay about ourselves as a nation?
While the majority of parents of all races support teaching the truth about race and the impacts of racism in schools, “woke” has been used in K-12 schools to:
remove history lessons that challenge the narratives around American exceptionalism, meritocracy, and “pulling yourself up by the bootstraps”
ban books and materials that address race/racism and gender identity
create a culture of fear for educators who no longer have the agency to integrate cultural responsiveness and information regarding systemic oppression into their curricula
mobilize (primarily white) parents to actively censor previously sanctioned school curriculum to ensure their children are not made to feel uncomfortable - which they seem to assume will make them ashamed of their identity
Central to these arguments is the idea of discomfort, so we must ask whose discomfort matters? It’s not Black students or LGBTQIA+ students. Nor is it their parents. Young people are getting denied access to knowledge to accommodate for the discomfort of white parents and their fragility. As a Black student, I might not see myself or my experience represented in modern tellings of history, but my discomfort does not matter. Make no mistake: you can tell the truth to white kids without them hating themselves, so isn’t “indoctrination” really just justifying modern censorship and reinforcing oppression?
