The word "woke" originated in African American communities in the 1950s, and had a positive meaning then, as a person "aware of political issues".
In the mid-2010s, in the wake of the #BlackLivesMatters movement, many people who spoke on social networks on the subject of discrimination claimed the word “woke” and it became very popular.
Barack Obama will criticize the sometimes excluding use of this word by people who are satisfied with a post on social networks as an action, and "woke" then becomes a weapon to castigate any form of action or speech anti-discrimination.
You may have seen it in articles, and even on the covers of mainstream newspapers: what does the word “woke” mean, used today in France mainly to criticize people committed against discrimination?
In English woke means "awake", it is a word that originated in African-American communities in the 1950s. It has a positive meaning, it is a synonym of knowledgeable person, aware of political issues, such as This
1962
New York Times
article shows this
.
In 2016, “Woke” was named “Word of the Year” by MTV
After being forgotten for a while, the word returned to the United States in the 2010s, in the wake of the assassination of Michael Brown and the #BlackLivesMatters movement.
A hashtag became popular: #staywoke and a website was set up: StayWoke.org.
In 2016, the word became so popular that the very serious American dictionary Merriam Webster made an article of it, and that the channel MTV put it in its words of the year.
But already, critics appear, who make fun of this facility to "display a so-called virtue", often empty of action.
Like this sketch from the Saturday Night Lives show, which imagines a Levis Woke jeans:
Jeans that fit every body, because they fit nobody: https://t.co/qq9fJyefq4 #SNL #LeviWokes pic.twitter.com/Udf3h9BPb1
- Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) October 3, 2017
Woke spreads abroad with a pejorative connotation
In October 2019, Barack Obama will strongly criticize what he considers to be an intransigent attitude of certain activists.
“The idea of purity, and no compromise, and that you're politically awake, and all that.
You should stop this very soon.
The world is complicated and full of ambiguities, ”he says.
From that moment on, the word “woke” spread abroad, in its negative version.
In France, it was labeled “buzzword” in 2019 by the BETC agency, which qualifies it as “a lazy posture of personal development”.
In Quebec, the conservative polemicist Mathieu Bock-Côté describes it as "the ideological plague of 2020".
And even in the United States, the word has taken on a largely pejorative connotation.
The definition that prevails over the Urban dictionary of slang words, which highlights the definitions most voted by readers, sums it up as being "pretentious and flaunting one's awareness of societal issues ”.
In France, the word "woke" does not cover any real political movement.
Today, the word "woke" is used in France only as a criticism, as a caricature which aims to discredit those committed against discrimination, believes the journalist Judith Lussier, who analyzed these criticisms in her book
We can no longer do anything. say
. To our knowledge, the word “woke” is not claimed by any anti-discrimination activist in France, and therefore does not cover any real political movement. It is more of a political and media tool against certain left-wing activists than a category of analysis. “No French researcher specializing in discrimination uses it,” adds researcher Sophie Pochic.
The importance of this term, which is ultimately used by a very small sphere of activists and intellectuals, should not be exaggerated.
In March, a
L'Express
poll
revealed that only 6% of people polled know what the weekly called “woke thinking”.
Even in the United Kingdom, where English is spoken, only half of people have heard of the expression "be woke".
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Sources for this article
Earning the woke badge
,
New York Time
s, 2016
Stay Woke: The new sense of 'woke' is gaining popularity
, article on the Merriam Webster dictionary site, 2017.
Speech by Barack Obama, October 2019.
Do you have the woke attitude?
, Strategies, 2019
Public split on whether 'woke' is compliment or insult, and unsure what 'culture wars' means
, King's college London, 2021.
L'Express
survey
, 2021.
Urban dictionary
Social media question, Twitter, 2021.
Interview with Judith Lussier, June 2021.
Dictionary
20 minutes video
United States
Racism
Discrimination
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