Ask any MAGA Republican to define Woke and you will get a myriad of vague explanations. Yet, they are happy to label anything they don’t agree with as being Woke. Instead, they will attempt to use the same standard many have used to define pornography; "I don’t know how to define it, but I’ll know it when I see it."
Don’t like a movie? It must be Woke. A certain song or artist isn’t to your taste? Yeah, it’s Woke. Anything supported by a Liberal? Definitely Woke!
You get the idea.
It wasn’t too long ago that MAGAs were screaming Cancel Culture as people raised objections to a White Supremacist speaking on a college campus. Then they started raising objections to things that offended them: Disney, M &Ms, Barbie, Legos, light beer. The list is growing every day, so they had to abandon Cancel Culture since they were the ones doing the canceling.
So, they began calling anything they disagreed with as Woke, yet they completely ignored the term’s original meaning. The true meaning of Woke goes back almost 100 years to a a song by Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, called “Scottsboro Boys”. The song laments the unfair treatment of Blacks at the hands of law enforcement and contains the ominous warning, “Be careful and stay woke” as it points out the racial injustices that are inherent in the legal system.
When Colin Kaepernick took to one knee during the National Anthem, there was outrage on the right. They demanded he, and others who later joined him, be punished. They distorted the message Kaepernick was trying to convey: the unequal treatment of minorities at the hands of law enforcement, and instead twisted it into an unpatriotic act of disrespecting the American flag. They organized boycotts of NFL games and refused to even watch them on television, or at least that’s what they claimed publicly as televised games saw only a slight ratings dip.
When the Black Lives Matter movement exploded following the deaths of George Floyd, Philando Castile and other Black men and women at the hands of law enforcement, the MAGA Republicans became apoplectic. They declared that the main motivation behind BLM was to defund the police and began demanding their members Back the Blue, in line with the racially motivated Law and Order policies of the 1970s.
They labeled BLM as Woke, but that wasn’t enough. Suddenly, it became Woke to give a realistic portrayal of history. Sexual identity and gender discrimination became Woke. Pretty much anything that MAGA Republicans didn’t like was mislabeled as Woke, which is the exact opposite of the true definition.
Prior to announcing his presidential bid, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis enacted several laws that he called anti-woke. He declared that Florida was where “Woke goes to die”. Given the fact Florida is a haven for retirees, isn’t the Sunshine State pretty much where everyone goes to die, Ron?
As a matter of fact, the hilarious video above from The Lincoln Project features DeSantis as he obsesses over "woke."
The list of what is considered Woke grows by the day, yet the true meaning of the phrase has become so distorted that the term itself is almost a cliché for MAGA incompetence. They use words without knowing their origin. They throw out baseless accusations without a shred of proof. And they keep on distorting them to fit whatever narrative they are attempting to push.
We all need to be aware of their lies and call them out when we hear them. We need to Stay Woke.