Speaking Politics word of the week: woke

Edgy, and an answer to the anti-PC campaign by the right, 'woke' is getting some play at the party conventions.

|
Mary Altaffer/AP
Tim Kaine is very 'woke,' according to a former Michigan governor.

Woke: A social media slang term that’s now found its way into politics; in that context, it signifies being mindful of and connected to a group’s important concerns.

Enthusing over Hillary Clinton’s selection of Tim Kaine as her running mate, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm praised Mr. Kaine on Twitter as someone who “is as decent, honorable, selfless [a] soul as you will ever meet. A man with the heart of a servant, who is ‘woke.’ ’’

Her endorsement provoked a flood of responses from liberals questioning whether the Virginia senator deserved the label because of his stances that they view unfavorably, such as supporting trade deals.

Ms. Granholm’s tweet came as various commentators have been trying to explain “woke.” The most popular entry in the Urban Dictionary defines it as “being aware” and “knowing what’s going on in the community.”

But such a definition is “not quite that simple,” said Charles Pulliam-Moore, writing in Fusion earlier this year. He noted it was popularized as a call to action associated with the Black Lives Matter movement, but that it “has taken on a different, more complex meaning” over time.

“Like most slang, the meaning of ‘woke’ changes depending on who’s saying it, and to whom,” he said. “Among black people talking about Ferguson [Missouri], ‘stay woke’ might mean something like: ‘stay conscious of the apparatus of white supremacy, don’t automatically accept the official explanations for police violence, keep safe.’ ”

Now that its popularity has spread, he added, the word “has slowly morphed into something that occasionally comes across as a derogatory jab at the very idea of staying ‘woke.’ ”

In another dissection in the New York Times Magazine, Amanda Hess described woke as “the inverse of ‘politically correct.’ If ‘P.C.’ is a taunt from the right, a way of calling out hypersensitivity in political discourse, then ‘woke’ is a back-pat from the left, a way of affirming the sensitive.”

Bustle’s Maddy Foley pointed out that singer/activist Erykah Badu first used “stay woke” in her 2008 song “Master Teacher,” and that within a few years, “the phrase had begun to gain popularity as a way of describing an informed, questioning, self-educating individual, which is essentially how we use it today.” 

Like other pop-culture words such as “cray-cray” and “throwing shade,” it appears to be finding a home in the political realm. At last week’s Republican National Convention, Jezebel writer Anna Merlan wrote of encountering veteran GOP strategist Karl Rove and asking him, “How woke are you?”

Merlan added: “ ‘I don’t know what that is,’ Rove said, a little irritably as he speed-walked away from us.”

She also tweeted about an encounter with radio show host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones: “Alex Jones says he’s ‘100 percent woke’ after I explained what woke is.”

Chuck McCutcheon writes his “Speaking Politics” blog exclusively for Politics Voices.

Interested in decoding what candidates are saying? Chuck McCutcheon and David Mark’s latest book, “Doubletalk: The Language, Code, and Jargon of a Presidential Election,” is now out.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Speaking Politics word of the week: woke
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Politics-Voices/2016/0725/Speaking-Politics-word-of-the-week-woke
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe