New Discourses New Discourses
  • Home
  • ND Podcast
  • ND Bullets
  • OnlySubs Podcast
  • SJ Encyclopedia
  • Grievance Studies
  • Consulting
  • Books
  • Merch
0
0
175K
0
0

Support This Work

Subscribe

About

Contact

Events

Articles

Videos

Audio

FAQ

Tags
academia america antiwoke audio bullets communism Critical Pedagogy Critical Race Theory critical social justice Critical Theory education encyclopedia gender glossary helen pluckrose herbert marcuse history Identity Politics Ideology James Lindsay karl marx marxism members only ND Bullets nd podcast neo-marxism new discourses onlysubs philosophy podcast politics postmodernism Queer Theory race racism schools social justice social justice dictionary terms tftw translations from the wokish woke woke marxism wokeness wokish
  • About
  • Articles
  • Videos
  • Audio
  • Events
  • Contact
  • Support This Work
  • FAQ
Subscribe
New Discourses New Discourses

Pursuing the light of objective truth in subjective darkness.

New Discourses New Discourses
  • Home
  • ND Podcast
  • ND Bullets
  • OnlySubs Podcast
  • SJ Encyclopedia
  • Grievance Studies
  • Consulting
  • Books
  • Merch

Woke/Wokeness

Social Justice Usage

Source: Roy, Laura A. Teaching While White: Addressing the Intersections of Race and Immigration in the Classroom. Rowman & Littlefield: Lanham, MD, 2018, pp. 150–151.

The notion of “getting woke” (or staying woke) is defined as being acutely aware of racial and social injustice—not just awareness and acknowledgement of isolated incidents, but awareness from a position of understanding systemic and institutional racism. … The notion of getting woke encapsulates the first stage of becoming an accomplice in addressing the system of racism… White accomplices should strive to be woke enough not to call themselves woke and instead strive to embody this state of being by building with people of color. … Be in a perpetual state of learning and be woke enough to know you are never woke enough.

…

Source: Bunyasi, Tehama Lopez, and Candis Watts Smith. Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter. New York University Press, 2019, p. 12.

Just so we’re all on the same page, we should mention that having knowledge about the facts of racism and the mechanisms that (re)produce racial inequality doesn’t necessarily make someone “woke.” There are many people who know the facts and use them to insist on anti-Black narratives and pursue public policy that enhance racial inequity. Knowledge is a necessary but not sufficient component of being anti-racist. You have to put your knowledge to use in order to eradicate the problems of racial injustice.

New Discourses Commentary

In brief, “woke” means having awakened to having a particular type of “critical consciousness,” as these are understood within Critical Social Justice. To first approximation, being woke means viewing society through various critical lenses, as defined by various critical theories bent in service of an ideology most people currently call “Social Justice.” That is, being woke means having taken on the worldview of Critical Social Justice, which sees the world only in terms of unjust power dynamics and the need to dismantle problematic systems. That is, it means having adopted Theory and the worldview it conceptualizes.

Under “wokeness,” this awakened consciousness is set particularly with regard to issues of identity, like race, sex, gender, sexuality, and others. The terminology derives from the idea of having been awakened (or, “woke up”) to an awareness of the allegedly systemic nature of racism, sexism, and other oppressive power dynamics and the true nature of privilege, domination, and marginalization in society and understanding the role in dominant discourses in producing and maintaining these structural forces. Furthermore, being woke carries the imperative to become a social activist with regard to these issues and problems, again, on the terms set by Critical Social Justice. This—especially for white people—is to include a lifelong commitment to an ongoing process of self-reflection, self-criticism, and (progressive) social activism in the name of Theory and Social Justice (see also, antiracism).

Historically, the term “woke” has been used somewhat extensively in slang throughout the twentieth century to refer to a state of awareness of the discrimination, disenfranchisement, and mistreatment of blacks, especially in America, and it is in that sense always had some connection to the critical mode of thought in the New Left. (See also, black liberation, liberation theology, false consciousness, and consciousness raising.) The term is alleged to have gained its first contemporary connotation in 2008 with the Erykah Badu song “Master Teacher,” in which Badu envisions and dreams of a world of racial equality and then advises genuine activism with the admonishment that listeners should “stay woke.” The term developed from there, particularly via black activism on Twitter.

The term then gained particular significance and tied itself to the contemporary Social Justice movement in the mid 2010s as it became an activist watchword of the Black Lives Matter movement. There, say following the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the phrase “stay woke” took on the very specific meaning of being aware of the reality (according to critical race Theory) of systemic racism in American society that activists blamed for being at the root of the incident. This has, in turn, led to the term being nearly synonymous with having a critical consciousness as provided through critical race Theory, although it has been appropriated through intersectional thought to apply to other issues of identity relevant to postcolonial Theory, queer Theory, feminism, and so on. It has since expanded and memefied further and is now seen from the outside as being wholly synonymous with having been converted to a Social Justice critical consciousness. As such, “wokeness” often refers to both critical Social Justice doctrine and the state of having accepted it.

In that “wokeness” has become a term directly associated with the critical consciousness provided by applied postmodern Theories, especially critical race Theory (see also, postmodern, Marxian, Neo-Marxism, Post-Marxism, and Cultural Marxism). As such, it is centrally concerned with being aware of the intersecting systems of racism, sexism, and other forms of alleged societal oppression and analyzing these in terms of privilege. This is most often done, under woke consciousness, by engaging in discourse analysis, especially using close reading, which enables racism (or other systemic bigotries) that are assumed to be present in all situations to then be read into them. This is then treated as proof of the systemic problem that was assumed to exist in the first place (see also, mask). Being “woke” would entail being able to “see” the intersecting web of dominance and oppression that arises from the function of privilege in society and taking up efforts to challenge, disrupt, subvert, deconstruct, or overthrow the existing system in the attempt to bring those unjust intersecting power dynamics to an end (see also, Matrix of Domination).

See also – Critical Consciousness, Multiple Consciousness, and Kaleidoscopic Consciousness

Related Terms

Antiracism; Applied postmodernism; Black liberation; Close reading; Consciousness raising; Critical; Critical Consciousness; Critical race Theory; Critical Theory; Cultural Marxism; Cultural racism; Deconstruction; Discourse; Discourse analysis; Dismantle; Disrupt; Dominance; Equality; False consciousness; Feminism; Gender; Identity; Injustice; Institutional racism; Intersectionality; Justice; Kaleidoscopic consciousness; Liberation theology; Marginalization; Marxian; Mask; Matrix of Domination; Multiple consciousness; Neo-Marxism; New Left; Oppression; Postcolonial Theory; Post-Marxism; Postmodern; Privilege; Problematic; Progressive; Queer Theory; Race; Racism (systemic); Sexism (systemic); Social Justice; Subversion; System, the; Systemic Power; Theory; White

Languages

  • Deutsch

Revision date: 2/24/20

⇐ Back to Translations from the Wokish

James Lindsay
6 comments
  1. Joe Blow says:
    December 10, 2024 at 9:57 pm

    You are retarded. Perception is not shaped by social position with respect to power. It is shaped through the lens of our beliefs. Woke people are those whose beliefs are shaped through faith, unchecked knowledge from secondhand sources. Whereas aware people view the world through the lens of firsthand experiences and critical thinking. This is why woke people are irrational and aware people are rational. Aware people live in a world very close to reality because they fact check their beliefs through personal firsthand experiences. Woke people live very far from reality because they trust in what they hear and read from sources that seek to deceive them and use them for their own benefits.
    In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king. Woke people are the blind who serve the agenda of those who rule the world through faith.

    Reply
  2. Luiz C says:
    June 14, 2024 at 11:22 pm

    Excellent, very useful. Thanks.

    Reply
  3. Marisol Guzman says:
    May 21, 2023 at 12:50 pm

    I created a chat group call woke is not inclusive . Under sustainable metrics , inclusion seem to be the flag yet nothing mention on how this help the poor farmers and indigenous communities In undeveloped countries. We have violence since Che Guevara so I guess we back there when it proved that Society does not work in poverty neither we see colors or gender in survival and attack . Let’s go back to be real and create inclusion in access to market

    Reply
  4. Peter Steenkamp says:
    August 7, 2022 at 2:51 pm

    Some people see, and some people are blind. But there is a state that is worse than blindness and that is seeing things that aren’t there. This is not a natural state. You have to be “educated” into that state.

    Reply
  5. Michael Mills says:
    February 23, 2022 at 11:33 am

    Excellent — as always!

    A musical offering:

    WOKE (re-imagined version of “God” by John Lennon)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DtDwSpOKug

    Reply
  6. B. VanDyke says:
    February 22, 2022 at 12:19 am

    Thanks, James. I appreciate your explanations and translations of this ideology. Hopefully we can come out of this crisis with a more positive and realistic narrative.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

ND Banner Image for sidebar copy
ND Banner Image for sidebar copy
ND Banner Image for sidebar copy
book ad v 2
3x2-Promo-copy
Social
Twitter 0
Instagram 0
YouTube 175K
Facebook 0
SoundCloud 0
Subscribe
New Discourses
  • About
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Contact
© 2025 New Discourses. All Rights Reserved.

Input your search keywords and press Enter.