What is the meaning of ‘woke’? Once a term used by Black … – msnNOW

What is 'woke?' Co-author of 'Stay Woke' explains how the word is used by both sides.

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During the 2023Conservative PoliticalAction Conference, speaker after speaker attacked "woke"ideology in their speeches to conservative activists.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley decried wokeness as "a virus more dangerous than any pandemic, hands down."

"I traveled the country calling out the woke-industrial-complex in America, GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy bragged.

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Elsewhere, Republicans have declared war on "woke capitalismand even introduced legislation like the "Stop WOKE Act,"inFlorida, an acronym for Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees.

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The uptick on excoriating "woke "ideology has increased in recent years among politicians, including former President Donald Trump, as Americans across the nation battle over diversity, inclusion and equity efforts in the workforce, public schools and in legislation.

But what is "woke"? And what do the GOP attacksmean for 2024?

A GOP war on 'woke'?: Most Americans view the term as a positive, USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll finds

Among conservative lawmakers and activists"woke" tends to be an across-the-board denunciation of progressive values and liberalinitiatives.

Some have used it to attack trans and gay rights while others apply it tocritical race theorya legal theory that examines systemic racism as a part of Americaninstitutions and the teachings of the New York Times' 1619 project in public schools.

"If you ask people what woke is, I think what they meanis they want to stand against people who are engaging in some type of advocacy for marginalized people," said Andra Gillespie, political scientist at Emory University.

"It's kind of this lumping together of anybody whose views could be construed as being progressive on issues related to identity and civil rights."

At CPAC this year, for example,Daily Wire hostMichael Knowles called for the eradication of "transgenderism."

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But Black Americans have used the term "woke"since at least the early-to-mid 20th century to mean being alert to racial and social injustice.

A version of the termwas first used by Pan-African activist Marcus Garvey as early as 1923.It was later popularizedby Blues artists such as Lead Belly, who used it when singing about the Scottsboro Boys, a group of nine Black teenagers whowere falsely accused of raping two white women on a train in northeast Alabama in 1931.

As the Black Lives Matter movementbegan after the police killing ofMichael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, "woke"expanded outside of Black communities into the largerpublic lexicon.

Black artists and entertainers continued to insert the phrase in their music, includingGrammy-award-winning artists Erykah Badu and Childish Gambino a.k.a. Donald Gloverfor political causes.

Yet "woke" has now been hijacked by the political rightto mean something farfrom its original definition.

"The reason we have to 'stay woke'is because of exactly what these people are doing right now, which is finding very insidious ways to undercut our rights,"said Terri Givens, apolitical science professor at McGill University.

Givens called the attacks on the term "a full-on dog whistle"andpointed to attempts tolimit the right to vote, curtail reproductive and abortionrights and ban inclusive education in schools as examples of the backlash against Black and brown civil rights.

"Learning history is not about woke-ism," Given said.

Gov. Ron DeSantis cruises to victory to win a second term as he bashes 'woke mob'

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Political experts said the backlash to woke-ism greatly increased after the 2020 worldwide protests against the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor's killing.

Conservatives now use the term as a political retort to combat what they perceive aspolitical correctness gone haywire.

But progressive commentators note that the response alsocomes in the context of a changing America, which is becoming more diverse racially and ethically and along sexual orientation and gender identity lines.

"What they're trying to do is make the term a pejorative," said Kendra Cotton,chief operating officer of New Georgia Project, a progressive-leaning voting rights group.

As more marginalized groups are elected into office and exercising their voting power during elections, it can make some Americans afraid, said Cotton.

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a possible GOP presidential candidate, has built a persona crusading against ideas and policies conservatives deem as "woke."

In addition to championing the Stop WOKE Act, he has stated that the Sunshine state is "where woke goes to die."

TehamaLopez Bunyasi, a political scientist at George Mason University and co-author of the book "Stay Woke: A People's Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter,"said the legislation is "perhaps the most explicit way we see the co-optation of the term 'woke' today."

Right now, we're seeingracially conservative pundits and politicians positioning themselves as adversaries of themultiracial Black Lives Matter movement," saidLopez Bunyasi."One of the rhetorical tools they are using is the maligning of a term that has been in use by Black people and in Black politics for well over a hundred years."

Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin cruised to victory in 2021 riding a wave of parental anger over teaching inclusive history in public schools.

Keneshia Grant, a political scientist at Howard University, said Youngkin's success was part of an intentional pushback against marginalized communities, which includes misunderstanding terms like woke, critical race theory, and LGBTQ rights.

"He ends up successfully using the fear thatpeople have about teaching students Black history or American history through the guise of CRT and successfully uses that to motivate a base," Grant said. "They are doing this because they think it will help them win. And we have evidence that sometimes it actually does help them win."

What's telling is that despite the conservative backlash most Americans don't view "woke" negatively heading into the 2024 presidential contest.

A March 2023 USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll found that 56%of Americans said it means"to be informed, educated on, and aware of social injustices."

But the efforts to re-define "woke" have worked with a significant portion of the country. Roughly39% of those surveyed agree with the Republican definition,"to be overly politically correct and police others' words."

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"Racial resentment and grievance are certainly one of those things that have been very effectively used tomobilize a certain segment of the Republican population for a long time," said Gillespie.

Reporter Phillip M. Bailey contributed to this story.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What is the meaning of 'woke'? Once a term used by Black Americans, it's now a rallying cry for GOP

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What is the meaning of 'woke'? Once a term used by Black ... - msnNOW