When two of the most important English dictionaries added the word “woke” in 2017, their definitions were similar and unambiguous.
The Oxford English Dictionary explains it as follows:I woke upAdjective: Originally: Well-known, up-to-date. Now mainly: Alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice; often Stay awake.”
And here’s the definition of “woke” from the Merriam-Webster dictionary: “Knowing about and actively paying attention to important facts and issues (especially issues of race and social justice).”
But even before they entered mainstream English vocabulary, the terms “woke,” “wokeism,” and “wokeness” became weapons in America's long culture wars—and cultural exports that have never been as universally accepted as the items that came before them.
The list is long and covers a wide range of topics, from jazz and rock 'n' roll to jeans, Hollywood movies, computer software, Big Macs, Coca-Cola, Barbie dolls and Donald Duck.
“One question that the woke movement raises, though it’s rarely asked, is whether the United States can use these new intellectual tools to export American cultural influence,” said Tyler Cowan, an economics professor at George Mason University in Virginia.
'Woke people' and the Black Lives Matter movement.
There is reason to be skeptical. The British political philosopher John Gray has described awakeningism as “a distinctively American worldview,” and “it has become a powerful force only in countries heavily exposed to the American culture wars (e.g., Britain). In most of the world (e.g., Asia, Muslim societies, and much of Europe), awakening movements are marginal.”
The reason I see wokeness as a movement is because it is closely related to the Black Lives Matter movement, a mass protest movement that began in 2013 in response to the murder of an unarmed black American teenager by a white vigilante group.
A year later, the killing of Michael Brown, a black man, by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, sparked weeks of protests and sometimes violent riots. The hashtag #staywoke became a motto for Black Lives Matter activists and spread widely on social media.
The Ferguson protests spread to cities across the U.S. from Maine to California, but they stayed within U.S. borders. Six years later, another incident in which a white police officer killed an unarmed black man sparked massive protests not only in the U.S. but in at least 40 countries around the world.
The shocking video showing Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes has sparked global debates about racial injustice, colonialism and slavery.
So in Britain, awakened citizens tore down a statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston into Bristol Harbour. In Belgium, statues of King Leopold II, whose brutal colonial rule of the Congo left millions dead, were defaced in several cities. Authorities removed statues from public squares.
America's Culture Wars
Conservatives in the United States have long held a negative view of social justice protests, and under former President Donald Trump’s four years in office, the word “woke” went from a dictionary definition to a blanket un-American ideology.
Trump's Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, said in his final speech before leaving office, “Woke, multicultural, all-isms are not America. They distort everything about our country.”
The way right-wing Republicans (and some Democrats) define “woke” is the opposite of what it means, and it tends to be used as an insult or confused with “cancel culture,” a practice that has emerged on many college campuses that have capitulated to the demands of student activists and suppressed views that conflict with their worldview.
For example: In 2014, Smith College, an elite liberal arts school in Massachusetts, invited Christine Lagarde, then head of the International Monetary Fund, to give a commencement address. Student activists launched a social media campaign accusing her of being part of an “imperialist and patriarchal system.” Lagarde recanted.
Condoleezza Rice, who served as Secretary of State under former President George W. Bush, had a similar experience at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where she stepped down as commencement speaker after complaints were raised about her role in the Iraq war.
To critics, these incidents highlight wokeism as an ideology of censorship and intolerance. Woke Americans, on the other hand, see themselves as advocates for the rights of minorities, from people of color and immigrants to the LBGTQ and transgender communities.
Identity politics in other countries
While U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration have largely stayed out of the debate over woke thought, government leaders in France, long wary of an intellectual invasion of the “Anglosphere,” are watching closely and increasingly alarmed.
In October, the French government established the Institut de la Republic, a essentially anti-woke think tank. At the official opening, Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer described the institute’s purpose as defending “humanism and universalism” against workism, French news agency AFP reported.
Universalism, as defined in France, is the idea that everyone should be treated equally in a color-blind republic, while activism emphasizes race and identity.
The Republic's new laboratory harks back to past attempts to stifle American cultural influence, which met with mixed success.
Consider Coca-Colonisation, a term coined in France after World War II to describe the unwanted globalization of American culture. The word gained widespread use during the Cold War, and was adopted by countries on the left and the communist side of the ideological divide in the West.
According to today's beverage industry statistics, Coca-Cola is the most popular soft drink in France.