Greetings,
Maybe it is the anaesthesia talking from my medical procedure yesterday, and maybe tomorrow I might look at this article and ditch the lot, but I have a problem with "woke." Instantly, some readers are now going to turn away from this blog, because they are going to expect to hear some right-wing pronouncements, well, you're not. Just wait for my explanation...
I dislike "woke" on etymological terms... maybe this should go in my other blog about the English language... nope, this is a little political, so it can stay right where it is.
"Woke" according to the dictionary definition is the past tense of "wake." This is where my problem begins. It is associated with words such as "woken" or "awoken" which both mean to rise from sleep, meaning it has happened. People are woken from sleep suddenly, i.e., they are dragged from their sleeping state, and I dislike this concept. It is something that has happened, it is in the past, it tells nothing about the person in the present. Did they go back to sleep again?
"Awake" according to the dictionary definition means not sleeping, it is present tense. It is a current state of being. The person has not drifted off back to sleep, they are "awake." This is an active state, and we must be active, rather than passive if we want to stand against the issues of injustice. Hence, I think that the word "awake" is a much better term than "woke" and maybe there should be a shift toward this more active term.
I understand that the expression "stay woke" has a history back to the 1930s in African-American Vernacular English, and it was adopted by those with gender identity issues in the 2010s, though I suspect that many who use the word do not understand this history. I suspect that many have simply adopted the word and think that it simply represents all civil liberties issues. It doesn't.
The civil liberties issues it represents are important, but they are only some of the issues present. However, there is no representation of disability issues present, though most people will think those issues were solved with legislation, they haven't been, as a person with disabilities, I can tell you that for certain. Maybe a new term can include all civil liberties issues, and not leave any out in the cold. I am a humanist at heart, i.e., I believe in being a human being first above all things. I believe that the diversity of humanity is one of its greatest strengths, and that some of the active divisions in our society are actually hurting it. If we could all just treat each other as decent human beings many of our issues could be solved.
Then again, this could be just a pile of idle banter coming from a post-anaesthetic, drug-addled, brain.
Cheers,
Henry.
