Woke is an adjective meaning alertness to racial prejudice and discrimination.It came to be used as slang for a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism, and denial of LGBT rights.
Woke has also been used as shorthand for some ideas of the American Left involving identity politics and social justice, such as white privilege and reparations for slavery in the United States.
In some contexts, it referred to an awareness of social and political issues affecting African Americans.
The term woke has become increasingly connected to matters beyond race such as gender and identities perceived as marginalized.
It was popularized by Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists seeking to raise awareness about police shootings of African Americans.
Woke was increasingly used by white people, who often used it to signal their support for BLM.
The term became popular with millennials and members of Generation Z.
The term was being used sarcastically as a pejorative among many on the political right and some centrists in Western countries, targeting various leftist and progressive movements.
Terms woke-washing and woke capitalism emerged to criticize organizations who advertise their commitment to social justice for financial gain.
Woke had come to mean ‘well-informed’ or ‘aware’, especially in a political or cultural sense..
Through the late 2000s and early 2010s, woke was used either as a term for literal wakefulness, or as slang for suspicions of infidelity.
Subsequently, the use of woke encompassed the earlier meaning with an added sense of being alert to social and/or racial discrimination and injustice.
The term began to signify a progressive outlook on a host of issues as well as on race.
The phrase stay woke was used by activists of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement to urge awareness of police abuses.
The word woke obtained the meaning politically and socially aware among BLM activists.
While the term woke initially pertained to issues of racial prejudice and discrimination impacting African Americans, it came to be used by other activist groups with different causes.
It has become to be primarily associated with ideas that involve identity and race and which are promoted by progressives, such as the notion of white privilege or slavery reparations for African Americans.
Woke evolved into a summation of leftist political ideology, centered on social justice politics and critical race theory.
David Brooks wrote to be woke is to be radically aware and justifiably paranoid, and to be cognizant of the rot pervading the power structures.
Woke is explicit and direct regarding injustice, racism, and sexism.
The term has gained popularity amid an increasing leftward turn on various issues among the American Left.
Associated with wokeness ideas include a rejection of American exceptionalism, and a belief that the United States has never been a true democracy; that people of color suffer from systemic and institutional racism, that white Americans experience white privilege; that African Americans deserve reparations for slavery and post-enslavement discrimination, that disparities among racial groups, for instance in certain professions or industries, are automatic evidence of discrimination; that U.S. law enforcement agencies are designed to discriminate against people of color and so should be defunded, disbanded, or heavily reformed; that women suffer from systemic sexism; that individuals should be able to identify with any gender or none; that U.S. capitalism is deeply flawed.
Many of these ideas were nevertheless unpopular among the U.S. population as a whole.
Opponents of progressive social movements are using the term mockingly or sarcastically, implying that it is an insincere form of performative activism.
The term is used to mock overrighteous liberal activties, meaning woeness follows intolerant and moralizing ideology.
American conservatives indicate woke has come to be used primarily as an insult.
Anti-woke posture is connected to promotion of backlash politics.
Wokeness can alert people to systemic injustice ,but also be an aggressive, performative take on progressive politics that only makes things worse.