Despite the word’s abduction by right, ‘woke’ still has work to do
This is from one of the people I’m least likely to bother quoting:
“We need a national divorce ... From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrats’ traitorous America Last policies, we are done.”
The words are those of our fellow American, Marjorie Taylor Greene, sputtering unhinged right-wing comedy for all the country to hear. The point she’s making, of course, is anything but unique. The right-wing chorus of snarling contempt is everywhere, focused essentially on a single word, which is the darling enemy of the moment: Woke.
“We will never, ever, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die.”
That’s Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, of course, who recently signed something called the Stop WOKE Act into law, which prohibits the teaching of uncensored (i.e., actual) racial history in the state’s schools, under threat of criminal prosecution, so that no little boy or girl will ever feel uncomfortable.
My purpose in splattering these words, yet again, onto the nation’s computer screens is not to counter them so much as simply to analyze them — indeed, to analyze the present moment itself, from which Greene wants her divorce – and into the larger possibilities of a “woke future.”
The amazing thing about the anti-woke crusade of the right is how fragile and linguistically cautious it is, compared to the “good old days,” whose passing the antiwokers so deeply lament. Please, dear Lord, make America great again. Bring back the days when white supremacy was simply the way things were, when America was overtly and indisputably racist and proud of it.
In other words, even though Republicans (i.e., white supremacists) maintain plenty of political clout, the power they had in the old days has been shattered. The civil rights movement, nonviolent at its core, pierced the national consensus. It created not simply political and legal, but spiritually transformative change in the USA.
Don’t get me wrong. In no way do I mean the country has fully transformed itself, made itself a land of equality, ended systemic racism, atoned for its history, which Greene, DeSantis and friends have devoted their lives to whitewashing. I simply mean systemic racism ain’t what it used to be. And that matters.
The fact that the white-supremacist wannabes have targeted, in their hate speech, not specific racial or ethnic groups as the enemy of their freedoms, but a word, shows the extent to which their authoritative power has diminished. Today’s America is complex, which is precisely what happens when a large part of the nation — to some extent against its own will — is awake, rather than asleep.
The assault on the word “woke” is, of course, dog-whistle racism. The word is African-American in its origins, dating from the early 20th century. Its original use was in relation to the dangers people of color faced simply living their lives. “Stay woke” meant, in essence, “be careful.” But over the years, the word began crossing cultural barriers and expanded to mean something hard-won and spiritual: awareness of how wrong things can be.
Soon thereafter it was seized by the right as a verbal scapegoat and, as John McWhorter noted in the New York Times, became “a prisoner in scare quotes,” uttered with a sneer. It was ransacked of its meaning and, you might say, is now used as the white supremacists’ placeholder until the n-word can return.
The point of what I’m trying to say is this: Woke lives! Despite the word’s abduction, the spiritual truth behind it remains a political force for change. It transcends the need for, and creation of, an enemy. The civil rights movement, nonviolent to the core – a movement emerging out love for all life, out of awareness of the world’s connectedness – is humanity’s force for evolution. Its work is far from over.