Woke is an adjective derived fromAfrican-American English used since the 1930s or earlier to refer to awareness ofracial prejudice anddiscrimination, often in the constructionstay woke. The term acquired political connotations by the 1970s and gained further popularity in the 2010s with thehashtag#staywoke. Over time,woke came to be used to refer to a broader awareness ofsocial inequalities such assexism and denial ofLGBTQ rights.Woke has also been used as shorthand for some ideas of theAmerican Left involvingidentity politics andsocial justice, such aswhite privilege andreparations for slavery in the United States.[1][2][3]
During the 2014Ferguson protests, the phrasestay woke was popularized byBlack Lives Matter (BLM) activists seeking to raise awareness about police shootings of African Americans. After being used onBlack Twitter, the termwoke was increasingly adopted bywhite people to signal their support forprogressive causes. The term became popular withmillennials and members ofGeneration Z. As its use spread beyond the United States,woke was added to theOxford English Dictionary in 2017.
By 2019, the term was widely being usedsarcastically as apejorative by thepolitical right and somecentrists, to disparageleftist and progressive movements as superficial and insincereperformative activism. The termswoke-washing andwoke capitalism later emerged to criticize businesses and brands who use politically progressive messaging for financial gain. In the mid-2020s, a number of political commentators also announced the appearance of a "woke right", meaning supporters of right-wing views usingcancel culture and similar tactics used by left-wing activists to enforceconservative beliefs.
Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa! Let us work towards the one glorious end of a free, redeemed and mighty nation. —Marcus Garvey,Philosophy and Opinions (1923)[2][4][5]
In some varieties ofAfrican-American English,woke is used in place ofwoken, the usualpast participle form ofwake.[6] This has led to the use ofwoke as an adjective equivalent toawake, which has become mainstream in the United States.[6][7]
While it is not known when being awake was first used as a metaphor for political engagement and activism, one early example in the United States was the paramilitary youth organization theWide Awakes, which formed inHartford, Connecticut, in 1860 to support the Republican candidate in the1860 presidential election,Abraham Lincoln. Local chapters of the group spread rapidly across northern cities in the ensuing months and "triggered massive popular enthusiasm" around the election. The political militancy of the group also alarmed many southerners, who saw in the Wide Awakes confirmation of their fears of northern, Republican political aggression. The support among the Wide Awakes forabolition, as well as the participation of a number of black men in a Wide Awakes parade in Massachusetts, likely contributed to such anxiety.[8][9]
One of the earliest uses of the idea ofwokeness as a concept for black political consciousness came from Jamaican philosopher and social activistMarcus Garvey,[2] who wrote in 1923, "Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!"[2][5] In a collection of aphorisms published that year, Garvey expanded the metaphor: "Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa! Let us work towards the one glorious end of a free, redeemed and mighty nation. Let Africa be a bright star among the constellation of nations."[5][2] This sentiment was later echoed by singerLauryn Hill during her 2002 live albumMTV Unplugged No. 2.0, where she urged listeners to "wake up and rebel".[10]
Black American folk singer-songwriter Huddie Ledbetter,a.k.a.Lead Belly, used the phrase "stay woke" as part of a spoken afterword to a 1938 recording of his song "Scottsboro Boys", which tells the story ofnine black teenagers and young men falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama in 1931. In the recording, Lead Belly says he met with the defendant's lawyer and the young men themselves, and "I advise everybody, be a little careful when they go along through there (Scottsboro) – best stay woke, keep their eyes open."[2][11] Aja Romano writes atVox that this usage reflects "black Americans' need to be aware of racially motivated threats and the potential dangers of white America."[2]
By the mid-20th century,woke had come to mean 'well-informed' or 'aware',[12] especially in a political or cultural sense.[6] TheOxford English Dictionary traces the earliest such usage to a 1962New York Times Magazine article titled "If You're Woke You Dig It" by African-American novelistWilliam Melvin Kelley, describing the appropriation of black slang by whitebeatniks.[6]
Woke had gained more political connotations by 1971 when the playGarvey Lives! byBarry Beckham included 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."[13][14]
Through the late 2000s and early 2010s,woke was used either as a term for literalwakefulness, or as slang for suspicions ofinfidelity.[2] The latter meaning was used in singerChildish Gambino's 2016 song "Redbone".[15] In the 21st century's first decade, the use ofwoke encompassed the earlier meaning with an added sense of being "alert to social and/orracial discrimination and injustice".[6]
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This usage was popularized by soul singerErykah Badu's 2008 song "Master Teacher",[7][12] via the song's refrain, "I stay woke".[13]Merriam-Webster defines the expressionstay woke in Badu's song as meaning, "self-aware, questioning the dominant paradigm and striving for something better"; and, although within the context of the song, it did not yet have a specific connection to justice issues, Merriam-Webster credits the phrase's use in the song with its later connection to these issues.[7][16]
SongwriterGeorgia Anne Muldrow, who composed "Master Teacher" in 2005, toldOkayplayer news and culture editor Elijah Watson that while she was studying jazz atNew York University, she learned the invocationStay woke from Harlem alto saxophonistLakecia Benjamin, who used the expression in the meaning of trying to "stay woke" because of tiredness or boredom, "talking about how she was trying to stay up – like literally not pass out". In homage, Muldrow wrotestay woke in marker on a T-shirt, which over time became suggestive of engaging in the process of the search for herself (as distinct from, for example, merely personal productivity).[17]
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According toThe Economist, as the termwoke and the#Staywoke hashtag began to spread online, the term "began to signify a progressive outlook on a host of issues as well as on race".[18]In atweet mentioning the Russian feminist rock groupPussy Riot, whose members were imprisoned in 2012,[19][20] Badu wrote: "Truth requires no belief. Stay woke. Watch closely. #FreePussyRiot".[21][22][23] This has been cited byKnow Your Meme as one of the first examples of the #Staywoke hashtag.[24]
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Following theshooting of Michael Brown in 2014, the phrasestay woke was used by activists of theBlack Lives Matter (BLM) movement to urge awareness of police abuses.[2][25][24] TheBET documentaryStay Woke, which covered the movement, aired in May 2016.[26] Within the decade of the 2010s, the wordwoke (the colloquial,passively voiced past participle ofwake) obtained the meaning 'politically and socially aware'[27] among BLM activists.[6][25]
While the termwoke initially pertained to issues of racial prejudice and discrimination impacting African Americans, it came to be used by other activist groups with different causes.[3] While there is no single agreed-upon definition of the term, it came to be primarily associated with ideas that involve identity and race and which are promoted by progressives, such as the notion ofwhite privilege orslavery reparations for African Americans.[28] According to communication studies scholar Gordana Lazić,woke refers to "a heightened awareness of social inequalities and injustices".[29]Vox's Aja Romano writes thatwoke evolved into a "single-word summation of leftist political ideology, centered on social justice politics andcritical race theory".[2] ColumnistDavid Brooks wrote in 2017 that "to be woke is to be radically aware and justifiably paranoid. It is to be cognizant of the rot pervading the power structures."[30] Sociologist Marcyliena Morgan contrastswoke withcool in the context of maintaining dignity in the face of social injustice: "While coolness is empty of meaning and interpretation and displays no particular consciousness, woke is explicit and direct regarding injustice, racism, sexism, etc."[1]
The termwoke became increasingly common onBlack Twitter, the community of African American users of the social media platformTwitter.[15]André Brock, a professor of black digital studies at theGeorgia Institute of Technology, suggested that the term proved popular on Twitter because its brevity suited the platform's 140-character limit.[15] According to Charles Pulliam-Moore, the term began crossing over into general internet usage as early as 2015.[31] The phrasestay woke became anInternet meme,[16] with searches forwoke onGoogle surging in 2015.[3]
![A woman draped in a rainbow flag and wearing sunglasses, standing with her back to the camera and holding a hand-lettered sign reading, "I [heart symbol] Naps But I Stay Woke"](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3a2018_Women%2527s_March_in_Missoula%2c_Montana_119.jpg)
The term has gained popularity amid an increasing leftward turn on various issues among theAmerican Left; this has partly been a reaction to the right-wing politics of U.S. PresidentDonald Trump, who was elected in 2016, but also to a growing awareness regarding the extent of historical discrimination faced by African Americans.[32] According to Perry Bacon Jr., ideas that have come to be associated with "wokeness" include a rejection ofAmerican exceptionalism; a belief that the United States has never been a truedemocracy; that people of color suffer fromsystemic andinstitutional racism; that white Americans experiencewhite privilege; that African Americans deserve reparations for slavery and post-enslavement discrimination; that disparities among racial groups, for instance in certain professions or industries, are automatic evidence of discrimination; that U.S. law enforcement agencies are designed to discriminate against people of color and so should bedefunded,disbanded, or heavily reformed; that women suffer fromsystemic sexism; that individuals should be able to identify with anygender or none; that U.S.capitalism is deeply flawed; and that Trump's election to the presidency was not an aberration but a reflection of the prejudices about people of color held by large parts of the U.S. population.[32] Although increasingly accepted across much of the American Left, many of these ideas were nevertheless unpopular among the U.S. population as a whole and among other, especially morecentrist, parts of theDemocratic Party.[32]
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The term increasingly came to be identified withmillennials[15] and members ofGeneration Z.[33]Les Echos listswoke among several terms adopted by Generation Z that indicate "a societal turning point" in France.[34] In May 2016,MTV News identifiedwoke as being among ten words teenagers "should know in 2016".[35][15] TheAmerican Dialect Society votedwoke the slang word of the year in 2017.[36][37][38] In the same year, the term was included as an entry inOxford English Dictionary.[39][6] By 2019, the termwoke was increasingly being used in an ironic sense, as reflected in the booksWoke by comedianAndrew Doyle (using the pen nameTitania McGrath) andAnti-Woke by columnistBrendan O'Neill.[40] By 2022, usage of the term had spread beyond the United States, attracting criticism by right-wing political figures in Europe.[41]
By 2019,[42] opponents of progressive social movements were using the term mockingly orsarcastically,[2][43] implying that "wokeness" was an insincere form ofperformative activism.[2][44]Woke has been used ironically by the right wing to ridicule perceived left-wing "social justice warriors" and "snowflakes", in connection with mockery ofMillennials andGen Z.[45]AuthorSergio C. Fanjul [es] writes that some leftists, such as writerDaniel Bernabé [es] and philosopherSusan Neiman, criticize wokeness as a form of tribalism which divides the working class and distracts from the universalist class struggle.[46]The termperformative wokeness has been used to refer to social media activity perceived as a self-serving and superficial form of activism, i.e. "slacktivism".[45]British journalistSteven Poole comments that the termwoke is used to mock "overrighteous liberalism".[42] Thispejorative sense ofwoke means "following an intolerant and moralising ideology" according toThe Economist.[18]
As in the United States, the termwoke is used by those on the political right wing in Canada to discredit individuals and policies they consider to be overly progressive.[47] During a debate in 2023 on theLaw Society of Alberta's 2020 adoption of a rule which made certain Continuing Professional Development (CPD) training courses onIndigenous Canadian history obligatory, a lawyer from theJustice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms wrote an op-ed arguing that the course was a form of "wokeness".[48][49] in the2025 Canada federal election,Conservative Party leaderPierre Poilievreweaponized the term in his campaign, characterizing "social justice advocacy as an authoritarian threat".[50]
Brazilian federal deputyKim Kataguiri has accused the governmentunder president Lula da Silva of promoting a "woke agenda" with a proposal to taxstreaming services andsocial media networks while requiring a certain amount of content to come from Brazilian companies with 51% of capital and shareholders belonging to "identity groups".[51][better source needed]
AmongAmerican conservatives andcentrists,woke has come to be used primarily as an insult.[2][28][44]Members of theRepublican Party have been increasingly using the term to criticize members of theDemocratic Party, while more centrist Democrats use it against more left-leaning members of their own party; such critics accuse those on their left of usingcancel culture to damage the employment prospects of those who are not considered sufficiently woke.[28][52] Perry Bacon Jr. suggests that this "anti-woke posture" is connected to a long-standing promotion ofbacklash politics by the Republican Party, wherein it promotes white and conservative fear in response to activism by African Americans as well as changing cultural norms.[28][53]Such critics often believe that movements such as Black Lives Matter exaggerate the extent of social problems.[43]
Among the uses by Republicans is theStop WOKE Act, a law that limits discussion of racism in Florida schools. A program of eliminating books by LGBT and black authors from schools was conducted by the Florida government and byvigilantes calling themselves "woke busters".[54] Florida governor and former presidential candidateRon DeSantis has frequently used the term, referring to his state as a place "where woke goes to die".[55][56]
Linguist and social criticJohn McWhorter argues that the history ofwoke is similar to that ofpolitically correct, another term once used self-descriptively by the left which was appropriated by the right as an insult, in a process similar to theeuphemism treadmill.[57]Romano compareswoke tocanceled as a term for"'political correctness' gone awry" among the American right wing.[2]Attacking the idea of wokeness, along with other ideas such as cancel culture andcritical race theory,[58] became a large part of Republican Party electoral strategy.[44] Beginning in thefirst presidency of Donald Trump, commentators from thealt-right, religious right, moderate liberals, and libertarians have attacked "woke" ideas and the "woke mind virus", a phrase popularized byElon Musk, as existential threats to American society.[59] Trump stated in 2021 that theBiden administration was "destroying" the country "with woke", and Republican Missouri senatorJosh Hawley used the term to promote his upcoming book by saying the "woke mob" was trying to suppress it.[44] According toUSA Today, the termwoke has been "co-opted byGOP activists".[60]
By 2025, conservative commentators such asRod Dreher andJames A. Lindsay had begun using the term"woke right" to characterize far-right beliefs as a mirror of the far left.[61][62] Political commentatorJonathan Chait has described paleoconservative commentatorPat Buchanan, who criticized the liberalism of theObama era in a way that prefiguredTrumpism, as the "godfather" of the "woke right".[63] Linguist John McWhorter writes thatsemantic broadening of the term "woke" resulted in a shift in its meaning to "a conspiracy-focused and punitive orientation to social change", regardless of left–right orientation.[64] The term "woke right" has also been used by pro-Israel sources to describe American conservatives who became increasingly critical of Israel during theGaza war.[65][66]
Following theassassination of Charlie Kirk, right-wing activists and the U.S. government undertook a wide-reaching campaign to punish critics of Kirk for allegedly celebrating his death that soon turned into policing any criticism of Kirk or his ideology.[67] AuthorJonathan Rauch of theBrookings Institution has characterized it as a "woke right" campaign paralleling earlier efforts to suppress right-wing speech on college campuses.[62]
In India, the term is used as a pejorative byHindutva activists andHindu nationalists to refer to the critics of the Hindu nationalist ideology who are deemed as anti-Hindu by the Hindu nationalist organizations such as theRashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.[68][69]The term is also synonymous with leftism in news headlines[70] and is commonly used in social media circles by critics ofsecularism in India.[71]
In Hungary, politicianBalázs Orbán stated that "we [Hungary] will not give up fighting against woke ideology".[72]
In Switzerland, members of the youth wing of the right-wing populistSwiss People's Party have criticized Swiss bankUBS for its diversity policies, calling them "woke".[73]
The phenomenonle wokisme (sometimes translated 'wokeism'[74]) has also been used inFrench politics to criticizeanti-racist movements and leftist scholarship, particularly since the2022 French presidential election.[75][76][77][78] Much of the opposition tole wokisme sees it as an American import, incompatible with French values.[74] Mohamed Amer Meziane reported that then-education ministerJean-Michel Blanquer, organized a conference at which he argued "woke" ideology "plots against the greatness of a white European civilization" and is therefore an "anti-Republican political religion".[75] Blanquer established an "anti-woke think tank" in opposition to what is perceived as an export from the English-speaking world.[74][79][41] This view also includes a conspiracy theory connecting "wokism" with pre-existing right-wing conspiracy theories of "Islamo-leftism", suggesting that leftists are manipulated by Islamists toreplace European white-Christian civilization with Islam. In this context, "woke" is used pejoratively to describe progressive, anti-colonial, and anti-racist positions that are seen as incompatible with traditional French values.[75]
According to French sociologist and political scientistAlain Policar [fr],woke originated from African American communities to describe awareness ofsocial injustices and has been used pejoratively by French politicians from the former republican left, the right and the far right to label individuals engaged inanti-racist,feminist,LGBTQ, andenvironmental movements.[80] This derogatory usage gave rise to the nounwokisme, suggesting a homogeneous political movement propagating an alleged woke ideology.[81][82]
French philosopher Pierre-Henri Tavoillot characterizes wokeism as a corpus of theories revolving around "identity,gender andrace", with the core principle of "revealing and condemning concealed forms ofdomination", positing that all aspects of society can be reduced to a "dynamic of oppressor and oppressed", with those oblivious to this notion deemed "complicit", while the "awakened (woke)" advocate for the "abolition (cancel) of anything perceived to sustain such oppression", resulting in practical implementations such as adoptinginclusive language,reconfiguring education or deconstructinggender norms.[83]
In the United Kingdom, anti-wokeness discourse is driven primarily byConservative Party politicians and right-wing media outlets.[84] Conservative papers such asThe Daily Telegraph andDaily Mail commonly publish articles critical of what they deem to be woke.[citation needed]The Mail on Sunday publishes an annual "Woke List" criticising public figures for perceived "virtue signalling".[85][better source needed] The right-wing television channelGB News was proclaimed at its founding to be explicitly anti-woke.[84] Its onetime chairmanAndrew Neil has presented a regular segment on the channel entitled "Wokewatch", which aims to be a counter-voice to "woke warriors".[86]
The termwoke is often used as a pejorative by conservative figures.[41] During the run-up to the2024 general election, the governing Conservative Party attracted criticism for attempting to create aculture war based on the woke concept.[87] While promoting her bookThe Abuse of Power in 2023, former Conservative prime ministerTheresa May declared herself to bewoke, in the sense of "somebody who recognizes that discrimination takes place".[88][89]
In a survey byYouGov, 73% of Britons who used the term said they did so in a disapproving way, 11% in an approving way and 14% neither used it in an approving or disapproving way.[90] ColumnistZoe Williams writes inThe Guardian that public discourse aroundcycling has become "the perfect microcosm of the wokeness split in all its forms", with anti-cycling voices portraying cyclists as a "lunatic fringe".[91]
During the2022 Australian federal election campaign, bothScott Morrison, then-prime minister and leader of the centre-rightLiberal Party, andAnthony Albanese, the subsequently elected prime minister and leader of the centre-leftAustralian Labor Party, insisted they were not "woke".[92]
Peter Dutton, formerOpposition Leader and leader of the Coalition, has also used the term several times before.[93][94]
Members of minor right-wing parties, especiallyPauline Hanson's One Nation and theUnited Australia Party, also frequently use the term.[citation needed]
In the2025 Australian federal election campaign opposition leader Dutton stated that he wanted to rid the schooling and university system of "woke" policies.[95]
In New Zealand, former deputy prime minister and leader of theNew Zealand First Party,Winston Peters, referred to the government led byJacinda Ardern and theNew Zealand Labour Party as a "woke guilt industry".[96] Then–opposition leaderJudith Collins also referred to Ardern as "woke".[97]
In March 2025, Peters declared a "war on woke" during his "State of the Nation" speech, taking aim atDEI,sexual education programs at schools, and"Cultural Marxism".[98][99]
Scholars Michael B. McCormack and Althea Legal-Miller argue that the phrasestay woke echoesMartin Luther King Jr.'s exhortation "to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change".[100][page needed]
Writer and activistChloé Valdary has stated that the concept of being woke is a "double-edged sword" that can "alert people to systemic injustice" while also being "an aggressive, performative take on progressive politics that only makes things worse".[2] Social-justice scholars Tehama Lopez Bunyasi and Candis Watts Smith, in their 2019 bookStay Woke: A People's Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter, argue against what they term as "Woker-than-Thou-itis: Striving to be educated around issues of social justice is laudable and moral, but striving to be recognized by others as a woke individual is self-serving and misguided."[101][102][103] Essayist Maya Binyam, writing inThe Awl, ironized about a seeming contest among players who "name racism when it appears" or who disparage "folk who are lagging behind".[25][further explanation needed]
LinguistBen Zimmer writes that, with mainstream currency, the term's "original grounding in African-American political consciousness has been obscured".[13]The Economist states that as the term came to be used more to describe white people active on social media, black activists "criticised the performatively woke for being more concerned with internet point-scoring than systemic change".[18] JournalistAmanda Hess says social media accelerated the word'scultural appropriation,[25] writing, "The conundrum is built in. When white people aspire to get points for consciousness, they walk right into the cross hairs between allyship and appropriation."[7][25] Hess describeswoke as "the inverse of 'politically correct' ... It means wanting to be considered correct, and wanting everyone to know just how correct you are".[25]
In 2021, the British filmmaker and DJDon Letts suggested that "in a world so woke you can't make a joke", it was difficult for young artists to make protest music without being accused ofcultural appropriation.[104]
By the mid-2010s, language associated with wokeness had entered the mainstream media and was being used for marketing.[39] Examples have includedNike's social-justice campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick, aPepsi advertisement featuring Kendall Jenner, andGillette's commentary on toxic masculinity.[3] In 2018, African-American journalistSam Sanders argued that the authentic meaning ofwoke was being lost to overuse by white liberals and co-option by businesses trying to appear progressive (woke-washing), which would ultimately create a backlash.[40]
The termwoke capitalism was coined by writerRoss Douthat for brands that used politically progressive messaging as a substitute for genuine reform.[105] According toThe Economist, examples of "woke capitalism" include advertising campaigns designed to appeal to millennials, who often hold more socially liberal views than earlier generations.[106] Abas Mirzaei, a senior lecturer in branding atMacquarie University, says brands "without a clear moral purpose" who use social-justice messages in advertising have been increasingly perceived as inauthentic, damaging the concept of wokeness and spawning the meme "get woke, go broke".[3]
Cultural scientists Akane Kanai andRosalind Gill describe "woke capitalism" as the "dramatically intensifying" trend to include historically marginalized groups (currently primarily in terms of race, gender, and religion) asmascots in advertisement with a message ofempowerment to signal progressive values. On the one hand, Kanai and Gill argue that this creates an individualized and depoliticized idea of social justice, reducing it to an increase in self-confidence; on the other hand, the omnipresent visibility in advertising can also amplify abacklash against the equality of precisely these minorities. These would become mascots not only of the companies using them, but of the unchallengedneoliberal economic system with its socially unjust order itself. For the economically weak, the equality of these minorities would thus become indispensable to the maintenance of this economic system; the minorities would be seen responsible for the losses of this system.[107]
But in culture and politics today, the most prominent uses of 'woke' are as a pejorative — Republicans attacking Democrats, more centrist Democrats attacking more liberal ones and supporters of the British monarchy using the term to criticize people more sympathetic to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
The adverts span from 2015–2018, which reflects the point at which the language of 'woke(ness)' entered mainstream media and marketing spheres
The dictionary definition ofwoke at Wiktionary
