Thoughts on Being “Woke”

Every generation has its slang and meaningful words. The popular word now is “woke,” which stimulates a wide range of opinions and emotions.

Wikipedia defines “woke” as an African American slang that means “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination.”

This definition doesn’t even scratch the surface of the meanings of “woke.” Any thinking person, Black or white, regardless of where they’re from is alert to racism. “Woke” has so many layers of meaning. My favorite meaning is that “woke” means awareness of who we truly are as Afrikan descendants.

Back in “da day,” we used to use the word “conscious.” To be a conscious sister or brother meant that not only were we aware of who we were but that we were “down” for the struggle to make things better “for the people.”

Many songs and films have referred to “woke.” As early as 1938, blues artist Huddie William Ledbetter, known as Lead Belly sang a song urging AUSA (Afrikans from the United States of America) to stay woke. The situation at that time was the Scottsboro boys, a group of young AUSA boys who were wrongfully accused of raping white women. Even before that, the Honorable Marcus Garvey, who created the Red, Black and Green Liberation flag and led the largest mass movement of AUSA in history entreated Afrikans to “wake up.”

In 1988, Spike Lee ended his movie School Daze with actor Laurence Fishbourne ringing a bell shouting “wake up.” Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes had a hit song called Wake up Everybody in 2010. Erykah Badu said in her song Master Teacher, (2014) “I stay woke.” Childish Gambino begged us in his song Redbone (2016) to “Stay woke.”

Much of early hip hop music was called “conscious rap” and could have been called “woke rap.” Artists like X-Clan, KRS-One, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Arrested Development, Nas, and Lauryn Hill set the stage for groups like Dead Prez and Kendrick Lamar. Interestingly, when “conscious rappers” is googled, the list includes rappers who I would call “gangster rappers” more so than conscious ones. This is still another example of the confusion that is created when we allow others to control and define our realities.

This is also another example of our language and thoughts being redefined and weaponized against our best interests. It seems that attempts to accomplish these goals are becoming more frequent and more insidious. Another reason the “stay woke.”

The current effort to negate and demonize the word indicates a fear of what will happen if all Afrikans-not just AUSA, became “woke” or conscious. Unfortunately, many of us actually have to wake up before we can “Stay woke.”

What would happen if all AUSA were to wake up and stay woke? Probably nothing that has not already happened. The fears of the right-wing white folks are that they will lose control. They fear that “white supremacy” will cease to exist. They are correct. Without white supremacy, the country (and world) would be fairer and less violent. We would not do to them what they have done to us because we are generally not the violently vindictive people that these conservatives think we are.

I would recommend everyone read Michael Harriot’s essay on woke, “War on Wokeness: The Year the Right Rallied Around a Made-up Menace,” that was published in The Guardian on December 21, 2022. He also just completed a four-part series in The Grio entitled, South Carolina’s Critical Race War on Education that is a “must-read.” I must add Michael Harriot is not only an extremely gifted writer but is from Hartsville, SC - my young homeboy.

I have mentioned gaslighting frequently in these essays and this mess about woke is still another example of how definitions have been changed to confuse and further victimize AUSA. These definitions are designed to make us think there is something wrong with us wanting our children (and indeed, all children) to learn the truth in school. What is happening in Florida that is all over the news is also happening in South Carolina silently. After a while, the history taught in public schools will be lies designed to coddle the fragility of white conservatives (at this point, I will recommend the book, “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism,” by Robin DiAngelo, who is white herself).

We not only have to wake up and stay woke, but we gotta become active in defending our truths.

Food for thought.