Here is what 'woke' actually means (2024)

The term ‘woke’ is at the centre of many of the fiercest political and cultural debates in the past few years, from LGBT+ rights toGB News.

‘Woke’ is a word found all over social media and the news – being used as praise, but far more commonly as an insult, depending on the situation.

For example, Neil Morrisey recently said he would love to do a new series of Men Behaving Badly but fears it wouldn’t be ‘woke’ enough, while Justice Secretary Dominic Raab said a new bill will stop free speech being ‘whittled away by wokery.’

As we mention in the video above, woke has now become weaponised – and the way it is used now is markedly different from the racialised origins of the term.

In 2017, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) added the term woke to its hallowed pages.

But what does woke actually mean? And where did this now-common term originate from?

What does ‘woke’ mean?

To find out, we need to look in the two main canons of British vocabulary: the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Urban Dictionary.

The OED defines it as ‘originally: well-informed, up-to-date. Now chiefly: alert toracialor social discrimination and injustice’.

While Urban Dictionary defines it as ‘being woke means being aware… knowing what’s going on in the community (related toracismand social injustice)’.

In other words, woke = consciously awake.

It’s not a new term. Like most street slang, ‘woke’ can trace its roots back hundreds of years.

In 1962, a New York Times Magazine glossary of‘phrases and words you might hear today in Harlem’ defined ‘woke’ in its current politically conscious state.

By 1972, a character in the Barry Beckham play ‘Garvey Lives!’ says he’ll ‘stay woke’ via the work of pan-Africanist, Marcus Garvey, with the line: ‘I been sleeping all my life. And now that Mr Garvey done woke me up, I’m gon stay woke. And I’m gon’ help him wake up other black folk’.

Though the term has been widely used among Black Americans, ‘#staywoke’ only came about in 2009.

It’s since become a kind of watchword for the Black Lives Matter movement – a call to arms against the various racial injustices still occurring in the United States, and beyond.

American singer-songwriter Erykah Badu is often credited to introducing the word to popular culture by singing the words ‘I stay woke’ in the 2008 track, Master Teacher.

Like most things, ‘woke’ has now become a watered-down phrase ascribed to any vaguely enlightened act.

For example, the term ‘woke bae’ refers to a white man who believes that other people are equal to him.

Is ‘woke’ an insult?

The term ‘woke’ is not inherently an insult, however, it has been weaponised in recent years to criticise people – usually in arguments surrounding identity politics.

Ricky Gervais recently said he hopes to live long enough to see the current generation ‘cancelled’ by a generation more ‘woke’ than it.

‘Woke’ has dethroned ‘politically correct’ and ‘snowflake’ as the insult du jour for many internet trolls wishing to mock the hypersensitivity of the left.

Caitlyn Jennerhas claimed she can’t ‘figure out’ what’s going on in today’s ‘woke world’, while in November, Jeremy Clarkson criticised Sir Lewis Hamilton for becoming too ‘woke’ amid the climate change movement.

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