Black Political Philosophy

The roots of the word "Woke," and the Black Intellectual Tradition

Mar 22, 2023

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There has been a lot of disinformation surrounding the word "woke." Woke is a word that finds its genesis within the Black community. Contrary to popular belief, the word is not from “The Left", Progressives, or Democrats. Instead, the word has a history that transcends party affiliation and finds its beginnings in Black political philosophy. It is a word used by various Black people in the Diaspora to talk about being conscious (aware) of various forms of racism (relational/systemic).

Here is Atlanta-based reporter King Williams (via his Twitter thread) offering up a historical analysis of the word. There are other resources at the end of this explanation that adds more information to Williams's linguistic and historical analysis. #staywoke2023 #StayWokePeople #StayWokeKings

Excerpt (Tweet Thread):

‘Woke’ is a decades-old slang term for ‘to be awoke’ to situations amongst African Americans dating back to the 1930s but popularized in the 1960s.

It can be argued the origins arrive a century ago in the US with the rise of Marcus Garvey and the Pan-African movement. In particular, his work ‘Philosophy and Opinions’ (1923).

In that text directly, Garvey, arguably the most famous Black person in the world at that time, asks for the Pan-African community to ‘wake up.' Specifically, Ethiopia and those on the continent. He wanted them to ‘awaken’ themselves.

By the 1930s, we have ‘woke’ in the sense of being aware already in Black music. As in the case of one protest song, ‘Scottsboro Boys’ about the incarceration of 9 Black Arkansas boys casket accused of r*ping a white woman.

The word and its various phrasings have managed to transition from generation to generation amongst African-Americans for decades. But that idea, of ‘stay woke’ persisted b/c the environment for Black people dictated its necessity.

It’s important to know that black vernacular English often changes and words/phrases can completely die. Often across generations and even regions prior to the advancement of television, and then the Internet. But some phrases/words stay within the culture, #woke is one of those words.

As Black Americans transitioned from the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s into the Black Power movement of the 1960s, a more aggressive and more direct form of political plus social movement emerges. #Staywoke and its variations are more prevalent within Black culture. It was also during this same period that white backlash directly went into misappropriating these two black political movements (Civil Rights/Black Power), their leaders, words, and ideologies.

They deliberately misled Black movements into broader anti-American ones and the broader false narratives that the movement was the byproduct of their white puppet masters, a trope that exists today. So much so that the office of the President of the United States (Eisenhower) investigated. This is also when the idea of #racebaiting comes into the mainstream.

One of the biggest efforts of white backlash to black progress of both of those movements was the rise of American neoconservatives and libertarianism between the 1970s to the 1990s. It’s important to note that Black people also used ‘woke’, ‘deep’, and other similar phrases throughout this time period to often reference the same thing—a critical assessment of larger society, organizations, and people.

‘Woke’ is a verb. Prior to the great shift in the current white establishment-led culture wars, ‘Ebonics’, or Ebony (black) phonetics, was the biggest topic on black words & speech. Until the recent #woke attacks by white conservatives and some Democrats, it’s been the last time, an effort in Black vernacular was attacked on this level. Since the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement + the bigger, white and conservative culture wars, "woke" has become the catch-all term to be used in replacement of things this group doesn’t like:

-liberalism

-LGBT issues

-diversity measures

-actual history

And the pattern is pretty simple:

1) denigrate

2) deny the existence of and/or the validity of said subject.

3) destroy — either politically, socially, or economically the subject in question.

4) (re) define — removing the original connotation and replacing it.

This is also why so much of the anti-woke debate is from people who are:

1) Not educated in Black history, Black English, Black culture, and

2) Only use their own personal interpretations as gospel.