GIRL

2 Notes on Woke

‘Precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society.’

– BALDWIN

Few things in the Internet age have not been named. And many things, even if they have been named, have been rechristened, and rebranded again and again.

Healthy food, sleep and exercise combined to become ‘wellness’ and ‘clean living’. Down-time became ‘self-care’. Role models were repackaged, simply, as ‘Goals’ (with a capital G). And goals (lower case ‘g’) in the traditional sense became ‘intentions’. The practice of making those goals happen, meanwhile, is now called ‘manifestation’.

On the more sober end of the spectrum ‘racism’ was sugar-coated to read ‘unconscious bias’ and ‘white supremacy’ became ‘white nationalism’. On the Internet, no person, place or thing is exempt from rebranding. And in the process, the meaning evolves, twists and turns, and at times, gets lost. One of the biggest examples of this is the very old idea wrapped in thoroughly modern packaging called ‘woke’.

As I write this, I’m staring at a fashion magazine with the coverline ‘woke bespoke’. Next to it, a newspaper supplement featuring a dating diary on the search for ‘Mr Woke’. On my desktop, a guide to a ‘woke Christmas’, and in the adjacent tab, an Internet rant in response to said guide demanding people and publishers leave all writing about wokeness to Black writers. In another tab, an article bemoaning the Great Awokening of American politics. Meanwhile, on British television, a debate rages between royal correspondents and pundits about whether the royal family’s most polarising members, Meghan and Harry, have in fact become too woke for their own good.

But what is woke? Most online dictionaries define it as an awareness of inequality and other forms of injustice that are normally racial in nature — as in, Nelson Mandela or Malcolm X. A few describe the term as merely being ‘with it’ — as in every cool kid you knew at uni. And increasingly, these days, many use it as a pejorative term to describe someone who is a slave to identity politics. How can all three possibly be the same? It’s a sensibility, a quality, a state of being, a feeling backed up by a set of actions, sometimes all those things at once.

I can’t think of a word that reflects the era as well as ‘woke’ does. There’s its relative newness (woke was born and grew up alongside social media), its popularity as a hashtag and its political implications and activist leanings. And then there are its many definitions — the word’s nature changes with each rotation of the news cycle. There’s also its journey crossing over from Black culture to the Internet and mainstream news. Appropriation! All qualities that are extremely particular to this moment in time.

Confession: I’m allergic to the word. (An affliction I first developed in 2016, when MTV declared the term the new ‘on fleek’.) Ironic, considering I am textbook woke. I identify with what it was. But cringe at what it’s become. And bristle at the way the word is now weaponised. The disparity compels me to interrogate the term and its evolution. As Susan Sontag said in Notes on Camp, which inspired this very study, ‘no one who wholeheartedly shares in a given sensibility can analyse it; he can only, whatever his intention, exhibit it. To name a sensibility, to draw its contours and to recount its history, requires a deep sympathy modified by revulsion.’ So let’s consider what woke is, and what it isn’t.

1 Woke extends to conversations around art, politics, economic and social class, gender inequality, trans rights and environmentalism. But woke in its original incarnation rests on activism and Blackness.

2 The essence of woke is awareness. What you are newly aware of (a pay gap, systemic racism, unchecked privilege, etc) and what to do with that newfound knowledge is the question. And the answer keeps changing depending on who you talk to. But regardless, you’ve answered the wake-up call, pushed your way out of bed, and are now listening.

3 To be woke, in the original sense, is to understand James Baldwin’s declaration that ‘to be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.’ It’s to understand the unique kind of exhaustion that comes from being perpetually attuned to discrimination. It’s to be weary and wary. To be woke is to long for a day when one doesn’t have to stay woke.

4 Woke blurs the lines between politics and pop culture. You can’t have one without the other; the latter is how woke culture entered the public consciousness and is the thing that sustains its relevancy, for better and for worse.

5 Most date woke’s origins back to the American singer songwriter Erykah Badu’s anthemic political medley, ‘Master Teacher’ from her album New Amerykah, a work she released in 2008, two years after the birth of Twitter and eight months after Apple released a thing called the iPhone, two facts that are pertinent here because woke is a term that owes its popularity to both. Badu sings over a psychedelic collage of samples about a quest for what sounds like a new plane of enlightenment:‘I am known to stay awake(A beautiful world I’m trying to find)’She then imagines a world in which there are ‘no niggas, only master teachers’ and reminds the listener, repeatedly, that she stays woke.This is woke at its most pure: unapologetically Black and cryptic (only the woke recognise the woke). A word conceived by Black people for Black people. A word reminiscent of Spike Lee’s famous cry to ‘Wake uuuuuuuuup!’ in his seminal film School Daze, as his character, a student at a fictitious historically Black university, demands his light-skin-worshipping, good-hair-seeking, sex-addicted peers wake up from self-hatred and materialism and become aware of the injustices in their community and, ideally, do something about it.

6 You can find a pocket guide to the essence of woke in the chorus of Childish Gambino’s single, ‘Redbone’, a Funkadelic-esque R&B song released in 2016 that warns, ‘you better believe in something’. Equal parts lustful slow jam and cautionary social commentary, the lyrics implore listeners to resist the comfort of complacency and ignorance or pay the consequences:‘Now don’t you close your eyes’The last line best conveys the high-stakes urgency of wokeness. The sense that something terrifying lurks in the shadows.It’s an idea Jordan Peele expanded on in his horror film, Get Out, which famously uses the song in its opening scene. Because as the movie made clear — its protagonist slowly becoming aware of an elaborate plot to co-opt his body and trap his mind in an abyss called the sunken place — the consequences of sleeping are indeed horrific.These examples in tandem solidified woke as the mood of a new era, rising in the aftermath of the modern-day horror story that was the EU referendum and election of Donald Trump, a time when our freedoms can very much feel like they are on the line and in peril. Stay woke. Don’t get caught. Don’t get hypnotised. Don’t close your eyes.

7 Despite what the likes of MTV and Twitter would have you believe, it’s impossible to depoliticise woke. Woke, by its very nature, is engaged.

8 The goal is to wake up and then stay that way. As in, be aware and on guard, ready to recognise, call out and actively resist the biases, fake news and inequalities as they come, like the countless members of the Black Lives Matter movement do on Twitter and Facebook, posting smartphone footage of unjust killings, assaults and arrests, sometimes with the hashtag #StayWoke, and campaigning for legislative change. Woke is righteous indignation, backed up by a set of actions as resistance. Woke is serious business. Often said aloud with a raised closed fist reminiscent of Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos’s famous Black Power Salute at the 1968 Mexico City Games.

9 Despite its changeable nature and twistable journey, woke is inextricably linked with the rise of Black consciousness, which has never ever really gone away but rather has had surges and swells. This latest wave is most defined by its relationship with social media — specifically, and thrillingly, how Black people have used Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and the like to amplify Black pride and call out systemic oppression. In short, being woke was originally tied to the experience of being Black. But can you be woke and not Black?

10 If you believe BuzzFeed, woke is also the much-needed awakening of the privileged to all manner of societal ills and the willingness to call them out — usually in the form of a white, cisgender, heteronormative man recognising that others who are not white, cisgender, heteronormative and male are often denied equal rights, treatment and pay. See the website’s infamous love letter to Orange is the New Black star Matt McGorry, a self-proclaimed feminist and BLM supporter. Titled, quite literally, ‘Can We Talk About How Woke Matt McGorry Was In 2015?’, it was an article remarkably redolent of and created for Internet culture, and one that birthed the phenomenon, #wokebae. And while the hashtag had an expiration date, the meaning had value. Because privileged allies waking up to inequality, speaking out and working to end it is ultimately a good thing.

11 Woke is also actress Anne Hathaway speaking out against the killing of Black teenager Nia Wilson and challenging white people to check their privilege and recognise that ‘Black people fear for their lives daily in America.’

12 Woke is also Tarana Burke setting the hashtag #MeToo viral and inspiring hundreds of thousands of women to recognise and voice their experiences of sexual assault.

13 Woke is also a punchline. The wink of an ending to an online joke making fun of the perceived worthy righteousness of woke culture. The stuff of satire, usually said aloud with accompanying gestured air quotes.

14 One must always distinguish between woke as an earnest state of mind and woke as satire. The latter almost always pokes fun at the former. The latter is also the most grating due to its smugness and therefore it is usually unsatisfying. Example: Maroon is just navy red. #staywoke

15 Woke often susceptible to cultural appropriation. Tragically ironic, considering this is one of the very things the act of staying woke would be on high alert against. See woke’s journey from Black political circles to white Internet slang via headlines in mainstream media. Also see the Evening Standard’s ‘woke-ometer’, which measured people on a scale of ‘asleep’ (Theresa May) to ‘woke’ (JK Rowling)… and included no persons of colour.

16 Woke is not limited to righteous political types. In the Twitterverse, woke has become an awareness of not just racial, political and social injustice, but an awareness of just about anything.

17 Woke, a study in three Tweets, from the earnest to the sardonic:

Another reminder that Trump’s campaign is under FBI investigation. Nothing has changed except the media’s attention span.#staywoke @RepMaxineWaters

Wake up, sheeple. Bowling Green was an inside job! (inside Kellyanne Conway’s head). #staywoke @StephenAtHome

Bill Cosby is just a distraction from Arizona Tea being sold for $1.25 now instead of .99 cents. #staywoke @Phil_Lewis_

1 Not only is woke a political state of mind. Woke has also been commodified. There are woke books and woke movies, woke T-shirts and woke clothing brands. Woke songs and woke dating sites. Woke neighbourhoods and woke vacation destinations. Woke has commercial currency. When Nike featured Colin Kaepernick, the NFL star who protested against police brutality by refusing to stand for the National Anthem during his nationally televised games, many accused the brand of woke-washing, the act of cashing in on social justice. But sales increased and socially and politically progressive people began proudly wearing and showing off their Nikes on social media out of solidarity. And other brands quickly realised you can be political and profitable.

2 Woke also became a form of social currency, a virtue signal on Facebook or Twitter by members of the ever-growing tribe of socially and politically conscious. But, woke is at its most powerful, and valuable, when it is lived, and not performed. The likes of Martin Luther King Jr, Steve Biko and Angela Davis didn’t declare themselves activists. They didn’t have to. Their actions did. Woke people know not to and need not describe themselves as woke.

3 A random sampling, in no particular order, of additional people and things that are in the original woke canon:

Ida B Wells

Shirley Chisholm

The writings of Zora Neale Hurston and James Baldwin

Black Lives Matter

Barack and Michelle Obama

Sadiq Khan

Erykah Badu

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Rihanna

Stormzy

The film Queen & Slim

The Childish Gambino video for ‘This Is America’

Gina Miller

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Harry and Meghan

The Guardian

Brixton

Harlem

Lagos

Detroit

Grace Jones

Adwoa Aboah

Bob Marley

Vegetarianism and Veganism

The clothes of British fashion designers Grace Wales Bonner and Duro Olowu

The artwork of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Carrie Mae Weems, Glenn Ligon, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Toyin Ojih Odutola.

1 Woke has also been weaponised, used in conservative media circles as the highest insult, often placed within quotation marks, to mean rigid, uptight and socially and politically puritanical. When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex decided to step away from their roles, the Daily Mail complained that Prince Harry went from ‘fun loving bloke to the Prince of Woke’. Meanwhile, the HBO show host Bill Maher implored Democratic Presidential candidates to ‘get out of woke-ville’ or else lose the election altogether.

2 Woke has been just as weaponised in liberal circles as summed up by the BBC’s Gender and Identity Correspondent Megha Mohan’s Tweet: ‘Note to editor; no-one in diverse circles uses the word “woke” anymore. In fact, it’s the clearest indication of the insular nature of their world if they file copy using it in 2019.’

3 Dropping the word ‘woke’ into conversation among strangers in a social setting is a pretty easy way to determine where someone sits on the political spectrum without having to invest too much time in uncomfortable debates. Just watch for the nods, stiffened smiles or eye rolls.

4 As various feminists have done with the colour pink, asserting it and the idea of femininity as symbols of strength and power, rather than sexist marketing and naff children’s toys, some have attempted to reclaim woke away from Internet misuse, punchlines and clickbait in the spirit of Black consciousness.

5 Wokeness is often twinned with youthful indignation and optimism. See the scores of students who populated the People’s Vote March against Brexit in the UK, the March For Our Lives against gun violence in America, and, in reality, the entire history of student protest. Also see the record number of young people who have entered politics in recent years, from Mhairi Black to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

6 Ultimately, wokeness is rooted in love — of self, family, humanity — just as injustice is rooted in hate.

7 Because despite its inherently pessimistic nature, woke is hopeful. To search for Badu’s beautiful world requires the belief that one is out there — or at least, capable of being made.

3 Wakanda Forever

Much has been said and written about the fact that social media can make a person feel lonely. But I’d argue it can do the opposite for those who live chunks of their lives in spaces where they are an Only, an experience many Black people are well acquainted with. Anyone who has ever worked or socialised within a setting in which you are The Only One of One, Two, or at most, Three — understands the distinct sense of relief that comes from finally finding a network of people who have lived through similar experiences and understand the particularity of yours. That unique kind of gladness in finding your tribe, people who can be both a mirror and validation of one’s difference, as well as providing a kind of encouragement to embrace and celebrate it.

And while studies and polls reveal a loneliness epidemic sweeping through a generation of millennials thanks to social media, it’s impossible to ignore how Black Twitter, Instagram and Facebook have heightened a sense of community, connectivity and solidarity for an entirely different demographic, particularly Black people and especially Black women.

In my case, the alternative network I found on social media helped soften the culture shock of moving to a new country until I could find my own tribe on the ground IRL.

As a transplant to the UK, navigating insular, impenetrable circles in publishing and fashion, I have often felt the isolation of life as an Only in a way I hadn’t necessarily Stateside. Back home, during my childhood in Virginia and twenties in New York, if I was an Only in the classroom or at work, the extensive tribe of girlfriends I had outside of it all helped fortify me against any feelings of exclusion.

Not to mention I could wake up in Virginia or New York, walk out the door and dive into any variety of enriching Black experiences according to whatever mood I so happened to be in that day. This was something I took for granted, until I moved to London where I found myself in the position of outsider more than not.

In the UK, where I had moved in the late aughts into a historically white, working-class south-east London neighbourhood in the throes of gentrification, I found myself seeking out sameness, in any form, as a reprieve from Otherness. I knew the city had a rich Black cultural scene, I just hadn’t discovered how or where to tap into it just yet. During those first six months here, I lived alone waiting for my boyfriend (who is now my husband, and, I should point out, an American mix of Irish and Italian) to tie up loose ends back in the States so that he could board a plane in order to move in with me.

I craved the company of other Americans, people who shared my accent and colloquialisms, people who didn’t pepper their spellings with u’s or say ‘sorry’ instead of ‘excuse me’ as they attempted to navigate crowded pubs and rush hour trains. I formed tight, if fleeting, bonds with people I would have probably never gravitated toward back home in the States, over the smallest Americanisms: a guilty affinity for Chick-fil-A and Ben’s Chilli Bowl or subscriptions to The New Yorker and New York magazine. It didn’t take much.

But more than anything, I craved a sense of community with other Black people, specifically Black women, and especially as Black people throughout the diaspora revelled in a new wave of pride and consciousness in the wake of the Obama presidency. I had grown up the product of institutions built to strengthen Black people in the face of systemic discrimination, the child of two graduates of historically Black universities. I understood the power in a strong tribe. And I knew if I was to successfully live in another country, I needed to find a community, even if it meant building one myself. I longed to be in a room where I was one of a loud, rambunctious many — like the greatest of all Black block parties, Sunday dinners, cookouts or family reunions — rather than just the contained, observant party of one.

In the meantime, social media met the need, connecting me with my extended sister circle back home as well as a group of talented Black women writers, early generation bloggers and editors in other cities around the world who I got to know through the Internet. Social media was the thing that tided me over until I could find what I was looking for offline.

I had found small pockets of it in London. At my first Notting Hill Carnival. At the dinner party of a cousin of a friend’s friend later that autumn. And at a string of Afro hair salons I tried. But it wasn’t until January 2010 that I finally found what I had been looking for on a larger scale.

A friend, determined to show me that London was just as rich in community and melanin as New York (her words: ‘if not even more so!’), had invited me to be her plus one for an art party. The Tate Britain had just launched a sprawling, mid-career retrospective of the British painter Chris Ofili’s work. Chris Ofili, unapologetically Black and Manchester born, of Nigerian descent. Chris Ofili, Turner Prize-winning member of the famed YBAs. Chris Ofili, the man behind that painting of the Madonna rendered as a Black woman surrounded by big, Black, sexualised asses and actual elephant dung on canvas. The one that offended not just Catholics the world over, but divided the art world and pissed off a fair proportion of the viewing public. The one the mayor of New York tried to ban. Yeah, I’ll be there.

It was the Blackest party I had ever been to in London so far, not quite a sea of melanin, but definitely more Black faces than I had seen in a single gathering thus far, beyond my semi-regular trips to Brixton for hair supplies and goat curry. It was 5 February and damp and glacial outside. But indoors, the rooms were warm and the crowd was hot. A DJ played Afrobeat as guests milled around dressed in their finest.

I was buoyed not just by the Blackness in the room — a photogenic mix that included tall, elegant-looking older men in jackets and kente shirts, young, stylish women in clashing graphic prints with all manner of braids and twist-outs, and lean, straight-backed tracksuit-wearing guys with towering, free-growing dreadlocks — but also the Blackness hanging on the walls. Collaged, painted, beaded and gold-flecked odalisques, Black women in regal and sensual repose. A constellation of Afroed heads. Teardrops containing the image of slain Stephen Lawrence. Cut-out images from Blaxploitation films. Ice T. Don King. Blackness was the star, subject and guest of honour at the show.

Near the gift shop, a line snaked its way through the ground floor as guests waited for the artist to sign catalogues and prints.

The mood was celebratory and dazzling. The night felt glamorous, even if much of the work on the walls was haunting and devastating. The evening was a moment and a rarity — a historically white institution and an enduringly homogenous industry honouring the country’s most famous Black artist.

But this was a different era to where we are now. Instagram had launched but #Blackexcellence hadn’t yet taken off as the natural progression from the Black Power Movement, born in the 1960s, it would eventually become. And I hadn’t yet solidified the network of girlfriends I would go on to build following that night — effervescent, ambitious journalists, artists, stylists and executives with thriving careers who not only lived Black excellence but wanted to create space for other women to join them. Women who did make space for other women, building out teams, publishing imprints and brands that created new jobs and platforms. I had finally found my tribe! And the shared experience helped minimise the isolation I felt in my work life.

No, Black excellence hadn’t yet evolved into a social media phenomenon and cultural sea change. But that was where it had reached by the time Marvel’s Black Panther, perhaps the decade’s most definitive visualisation of Black excellence, beyond the Obama White House itself, hit theatres in 2018.

Like the Chris Ofili exhibition, the Black Panther premiere in London had taken place in February. Not that the cold weather stopped anyone from showing up in their boldest, brightest clothes, accessories and African prints. And not since the Ofili exhibition had an unapologetic study and celebration of Blackness generated such fervent excitement among Black folk and the white mainstream alike. Yes, London had hosted the Basquiat retrospective Boom For Real at the Barbican a year before, but that was largely an American show staged in the UK. There was something about the Black Panther moment that, like Ofili’s evening, felt uniquely British with its cast full of homegrown talent filling both the screen (despite being written and directed by Americans) and the theatre.