(CNN Español) — The word “woke” has been associated in recent decades with different movements against social injustices, and recently it has even generated a crusade against it from broad sectors of politics in Europe, who fear its impact.
But what exactly is being or being woke?
Originally in black communities in the United States, “woke” was used to describe people who have awakened (from “wake up”) to progressive issues, and are alert to injustices.
What is being or being woke? Some definitions
The Oxford Dictionary incorporated it in 2016, and offers this definition, located within the umbrella of American informal English: “Alert to injustice in society, especially racism.”
The English football team kneels before matches to denounce racism, an example of a woke activity.
While the Merriam-Webster dictionary define a woke as “conscientious and attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)”, and rates it as slang, slang, American.
But the term has also been interpreted differently, depending on where it is used, and this includes outside the borders of the United States as well.
Evan Smith, visiting professor at Australia’s Flinders University and author of “No Platform: A History of Anti-Fascism and the Limits of Free Speech,” told CNN that in the UK, woke it is used to “describe everything that could previously be described as ‘politically correct'”.
The term “is used to describe a wide range of ideas [y] movements related to social justice “such as anti-racism, intersectional feminism, transgender rights and critical histories of the British Empire, he said.
For Samuel Hayat, a policy researcher at France’s National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), woke is seen by many in the traditional sectors of this European country as an atrocious American import of theories about race, postcolonialism and gender, which according to them, they pose a risk to French values and identity.
Where does the term woke come from?
The first use of the word is believed to have taken place in the 1940s and among black communities in the United States as a call for union activism, as reconstructed by Abas Mirzaei of Macquarie University at the site. The Conversation.
Since then “stay woke” has been an expression of the black communities, and in 1965 Martin Luther King used it in his speech “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution” , points out Mirzaei.
But the explosion in its use came with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013, following the death of Trayvon Martin in Florida.
Translated as “Black lives matter,” the Black Lives Matter movement was born in opposition to police violence against blacks in the United States and gained momentum on social media.
The expression “stay woke” then began to be used in parallel to the emergence of Black Lives Matter, and later it transcended it: it was also invoked within the framework of #MeToo, against sexual harassment and abuse and in other movements against different injustices.
Hence, the definition of Woke and the scope of “Wokeism” have expanded.
cnnespanol.cnn.com
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism