This is how wokeness ends — for white people
From morning coffee to evening reading, I’m still black
I raised an eyebrow at the headline, but I was trying to be open-minded. I saw the post shared in a client’s newsletter and was curious about the New York Times op-ed — “This Is How Wokeness Ends.” But the whole time I read the post about Corporate America, intersectionality, patriarchy and diversity in the workplace, I kept thinking one thing: “I still wake up black — even when you lose interest.”
There’s nothing really offensive in the post. It’s true. When Mainstream America gets its hands on anything, it usually takes a grassroots campaign into Trendy World. In this case, it’s “wokeness.” I knew what “stay woke” was long before I’d heard of George Floyd or coronavirus. Black folks were already saying variations of the term. (Think of the end of “School Daze” with Laurence Fishburne screaming his heart out.) Now the term “woke” may have not been used as a constant catchphrase in years prior, but I didn’t raise an eyebrow when hearing “wake up, sis/bruh/brotha” when social justice arguments escalated.
But “wokeness” became a cool “new” term to use like many others. The same people who treated “woke” like it was unheard of pre-2020 are also the ones who don’t know whose porch Felisha got kicked off of (i.e. “Bye Felisha”) and have no idea what mile-wide grinning woman was getting cheered on for her success with a certain radio DJ boyfriend (i.e. “you go, girl”). It’s usually the same crowd who thinks Miley Cyrus invented “twerking” (as if 2 Live Crew is a figment of our imagination) and Bo Derek invented cornrows (like every black girl alive has not either legitimately or faked a “tender-headed moment” to get out of somebody rough-housing with her hair).
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It’s a cool term to use but often loses its original meaning. And when Mainstream America takes ahold of a trend, it will reach less-niche newspapers and get a few clips on the news. We wince by the time a GOP demographic gets wind of it, and close our ears when they try to pull it off as smoothly as a Dad joke. But eventually slang terms diminish in popularity, as opinion columnist David Brooks describes. The problem is the term or the movement doesn’t erase the problem — for us.