NEWS… BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT
For a term that was only coined little more than a decade ago and initially used by a minority, ‘woke’ has begun to feel wildly outdated.
It’s a term that originally wielded significant power, used first among the African-American community and then quickly by the Black diaspora in relation to racial injustice. It was these communities that gave the term its power in the modern day but the word has now been hijacked and turned into something much more demeaning.
When Jeremy Vine so flippantly disregarded the true meaning of ‘woke’ during a live TV discussion last week, it was a clear sign of just how meaningless it has become to others.
On his Channel 5 programme, Vine was asked by his guest, author and campaigner Natasha Devon, for his definition of woke.
‘Well, woke is, you know, you kind of read The Guardian and this and that, yeah,’ he responded with an air of nonchalance.
He continued: ‘I’m woke about three or four days a week, to be fair.’
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‘I love that for you,’ Natasha said, before explaining that woke is an African-American term meaning to be ‘awake to injustice in society’.
She added: ‘It just means you’re not racist, homophobic or misogynist, so I’d say you’re a woke person.’
Vine said: ‘Well it does in your definition it means that, but not to everyone.’
Correcting him, Natasha added: ‘Well that’s the dictionary [definition],’ but Vine interrupted: ‘No, no, not to everyone. It’s come to mean something else.’
In that moment, Vine disregarded what could have been a truly educational moment to understand how important the term ‘woke’ was to the Black community. You can’t pick and choose whether you’re ‘woke’ three days of the week or two and saying this is the case sends out completely the wrong message.
Unfortunately, he’s not the first and probably won’t be the last as we’ve now reached the point where restoring ‘woke’ to its former glory seems unachievable.
I remember the days when ‘woke’ was used sparingly and actually meant something.
When Childish Gambino sang ‘now stay woke’ on his stunning track Redbone in 2016, it felt like a novelty. That was only six years ago but now, ‘woke’ just feels oddly outdated due to others using it as a weapon to denounce certain groups of people.
Seeing the likes of Piers Morgan and Eamonn Holmes casually use the term when condemning ‘cancel culture’ just feels wrong. When I see one of them call out the so-called ‘woke mob’ at any given moment, it honestly makes my skin crawl.
Using terminology like ‘mob’ inspires a certain type of imagery – like a group of angry people charging at a target with pitchforks and, when you consider that ‘woke’ was coined by the Black community, it’s not too dissimilar to the ‘angry Black woman’ narrative.
It’s a term that has been weaponised and that was never the intention.
Erykah Badu said it best when she said that the word has become a substitute for ‘Black’ or ‘thug’.
‘It doesn’t belong to us anymore. Once something goes out in the world it takes a life of its own. It’s an energy of its own,’ she told MSNBC’s The Beat.
I wholeheartedly agree, the energy around ‘woke’ and the essence of what it meant to the Black diaspora has been lost but it’s never too late to try and reclaim it.
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Natasha did the right thing in schooling Vine when he attempted to redefine the meaning of ‘woke’, and that’s what should be done going forward.
Whenever ‘woke’ is hurled like a weapon, it’s a great opportunity to ask the user what it really means.
Chances are, they wouldn’t have a clue.
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