The term woke exists back to the early 1900’s with a grassroots origin and shared through the pop culture of those times. An easy concept to be aware and open to knowledge of social problems and solutions to meet the needs of the people. While the origins are within the African-American community, the concept can be used by any community for awareness. 

In the modern African-American community the term has been lost. What was once openly spoken and used to describe a state of Black America is now seemingly passed over as if the term is no longer helpful. But the issues  have not changed and still need to be corrected and there is still a need for a state of awareness in the Black community. We still need a term to provoke mass awareness of problems and the need for social and political solutions.

Today the Black community no longer seeks to own the term, woke, and instead has allowed the term to be used by others where its meaning is being diluted and discredited. The term has been applied to desired political objectives that are not necessarily social problems requiring solutions. Such as an awareness of racial slurs or the acceptance of alternate lifestyles. Woke has been applied to personal preferences, even if they are for individuals instead of a group, that could be overcome by addressing prejudice and discrimination. Historically woke was to address inequality and mistreatment by government or society as a whole. The civil rights and voting rights movement was a woke movement because they were issues not completely understood by the affected population.  Now the attempt is to apply the term for political gain by any disgruntled group that seeks more political power. Such that there can be a phrase described as Woke 1 as though there are variations or stages to being woke.

This past week featured an argument on who is Black and who has the rights to historical slurs against the Black community. This type of argument could be considered anti-woke behavior. Black community politics have regressed to the challenge of who is authentically Black. A designation without a purpose. A benchmark of a weakening group dynamic. It’s a fundamental denial of the state of the Black community. We still live in a society where no other community on Earth would change places with African-Americans because of the low quality of life and poor life expectancy.

So we must again revisit MLK Jr’s essay of what it means to be an ally to our own brothers and sisters. We must relearn what it means to be African-American and part of the diaspora. The Black community has been slowly tricked into leaving the world of Afrocentric societies, a system we never completely adopted. Its a challenge internally on being woke versus in the dark and then simultaneously resisting oppression.