PRO AND CON

Is “Wokeness” Is “Wokeness”

Helping or Helping or Hurting? Hurting?

By Lorraine Jones

Throughout the history of the American language, black people have used rhetoric as a tool to adapt and survive the harsh reality of this country. The words we use are often reflective of our current culture and political situation. We have used language to combat injustice, establish respect for our community, and push for social and political equality. The recent heightened political division and racial tensions in America have brought immense media criticism and struggle for power through our choice of language. Identifying systems of oppression or words that perpetuate hate led to subverting and dismantling them. Many are reevaluating the rhetoric they use and the racial and discriminatory implications. A word that was once used freely and in mundane conversation is now seen for its harmful implications. The racialized language of American history stretches as far back as the 1500s. One label referring to people of African descent first appeared in English literature in 1577 in The Nigers of Aethiop. Descending from the Latin word for black,

“niger”—which was commonly used to refer to Africans—began as a neutral descriptor when it was first introduced to the English language. During the 1700s, the word appeared in what the dictionary describes as “dignified argumentation.” The term “negro” was originally used without derogatory intention in reference to free blacks in the South.

The word “colored” was commonly used and preferred by blacks in the U.S. until W.E.B. Du Bois advocated to transition to “negro” in the 1920s. After they fought in World War I, there was a social shift in blacks’ self-identification. As black empowerment began to reveal itself and prominent black figures demanded to be regarded with dignity and respect, the word “nigger” began its transition from a neutral term to a derogation that was deliberately demeaning and intended to put black Americans in their place. The term “nigger” wasn’t uttered in 1960s films, despite having been written in books they were adapted from, such as Gone With the Wind.

Up until the 1960s when the slow decline of this colloquialism started, “negro” was simply how blacks referred to themselves and others. At a civil rights rally in 1966, Stokely Carmichael first coined the phrase “Black Power.” In 1967, Carmichael publicly argued that the term “negro” implied black inferiority.

In efforts by blacks to redefine their identity and take back control, “nigger” became a term of comradery by descendants of those who endured the depth of its origin. In The Jeffersons, a television sitcom in the 1970s portraying an upper-class black family in Manhattan, businessman George Jefferson would use “nigger” to refer to other black people both with and without endearment.

In the 1970s, as “black” became the majority racial indicator, organizations such as The Associated Press and The New York Times abandoned the word “negro” altogether. It took a while for lifestyles and institutions to adapt to these language switches. Although the NAACP, first established in 1909, rejected Du Bois’ advocacy for the name switch, the organization did however stop using the term in all contexts. What was once Negro History Week in 1926 switched to Black History Month in 1976.

There is ultimately no killing this word because it takes on a life of its own in various environments. Despite being sprinkled in rap and R&B lyrics or used to appropriate black culture, the word is still inextricably linked with violence and brutality in the black psyche. No amount of appropriation can remove the generational pain and blood-soaked history behind the racial slur. The venom behind this word is so powerful that it is referred to as the “n-word” instead of using the actual term in most modern conversations. In the right context, this term can be the ultimate insult or dagger to the generations of African Americans that have suffered its wrath.

Unlike the n-word, the concept of blackface was always considered offensive by the black community. Civil rights organizations have always condemned blackface because of how it dehumanizes African Americans. Frederick Douglass denounced blackface performers as “the filthy scum of white society, who have stolen from us a complexion denied to them by nature, in which to make money

African Americans’ imagery has transitioned through the centuries, from Little Black Sambo, to colored, to negro and, since the late 1960s, black.

and pander to the corrupt taste of their white fellow citizens.”

In the United States, blackface may have first appeared on stages in the 18th century. Worn by white men, women and even children, blackface was used to mock the appearance of blacks for profit and to introduce and reinforce racial stereotypes. Performers would darken their faces with burnt cork to create caricatures of black people that exaggerated large lips and eyes with skin as black as coal. Blackface entertainers would sing songs, dance and act out skits portraying black men and women as hypersexual, superstitious, lazy, cowards and thieves.

The popularity of blackface made it one of the most successful genres of public entertainment. White viewers saw it as a fun and harmless representation of African Americans, and these foolish and animalistic portrayals of blackness melted into national culture. Shows included characters such as the clownish slave Jim Crow; the maternal Mammy; the hypersexualized wench Lucy Long; the lazy, childish Sambo; and many others. White working-class audiences enjoyed this form of cheap entertainment because of how it escalated a sense of racial superiority.

The more cognizant people are of their role in the social context, the greater the need people, predominantly younger liberals, find to rectify injustices and the systems that perpetuate them. Terms such as political correctness, wokeness and cancel culture have thus entered our language, revealing polarized sides of our society based on a spectrum of progressive thinking and the use of language.

The label for being socially aware of marginalized groups, coined as “woke,” stems from a collection of aphorisms going as far back as 1923 when Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican philosopher and activist, called black people to be more socially and politically aware when he said, “Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!” This concept resurfaced in 1938 in the song “Scottsboro Boys,” by Huddie Ledbetter. The ballad was the singer’s form of protest as it describes nine black teenagers who were accused of raping two white women in Scottsboro, Ala., in 1931. The musician advises black Americans to “stay woke” to the reality of white racism.

In 1962, William Melvin Kelley, a black novelist, wrote a New York Times essay titled “If You’re Woke You Dig It.” In this opinion piece, Kelley discussed how white Americans continuously appropriated the black vernacular, referencing language such as “cool” and “dig” that originated with black jazz musicians.

This term has been historically associated with black consciousness and awareness of racial dynamics; it evolved to become a survival tactic in 2014 after the death of Michael Brown at the hands of Ferguson, Mo., police. “Stay woke” became a common cautionary term used by activists who kept watch for police brutality during the Black Lives Matter movement. The hashtag #StayWoke has furthered a sense of community by uniting black Americans with a shared experience of discrimination, perspective and persistence while enduring the long fight for racial equity.

Now shortened to just “woke,” the word refers to attempts to indict the status quo. With the hope and intention of waking Americans from the slumber of passive acceptance and comfortable ignorance, wokeness calls attention to the systemic and pervasive systems that marginalized groups suffer from in America. The concept of wokeness appeals to people with legitimate complaints against social norms or institutional discrimination.

The evolution of language and ideology has moved in a progressive direction as we become more aware and conscious of many groups within

“I want us to cancel the idea of feeling that we don’t want anyone to laugh because if we don’t laugh, we cry. And I don’t believe that was God’s intention—ever.”

—Stevie Wonder

Corporate America finds out what time it is by repackaging old stereotypes.

this country, but there is debate whether society has taken this to an extreme. Often considered a leftist political ideology, wokeness focuses on social justice issues and rectifying discriminatory policies. Many liberals have pushed for issues such as affirmative action, the use of correct pronouns, equal opportunities for minority groups, etc.

“Woke” has undergone massive shifts in meaning and function as people attempt to prove their woke status. At times, this creates performative and ingenuine attempts at wokeness. The 2017 Pepsi commercial featuring model and reality star Kendall Jenner, the 2018 Nike social justice ad, and the Gillette “toxic masculinity” ad were all considered insulting to blacks or others. People began to commodify a social injustice issue in efforts to fit a popularized narrative. In the American R&B singer H.E.R.’s 2020 song “I Can’t Breathe,” she sings

“Because you think your socalled ‘black friend’ / Validates your wokeness and erases your racism,” highlighting this newfound phony appearance of activism, which reduces legitimate political arguments to something trivial.

Wokeness soon evolved to become interchangeable with “cancel culture.” During social justice movements and social media campaigns such as #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo, cancel culture helped to enable prosecutions for Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein.

Cancel culture, another concept that isn’t new, only newly resurfaced, first attracted media attention in 1981 in Nile Rodgers’ single “Your Love Is Cancelled.” In 1991, the concept of canceling a person arose in the movie New Jack City when the character Nino Brown told his girlfriend she was canceled after they broke up. Multiple references to this term circulated in the media in years to follow, such as Lil Wayne’s 2010 song “I’m Single” in which he stated “Yeah, I’m single / n***a had to cancel that bitch like Nino” and in 2014 in an episode of VH1’s reality show Love & Hip Hop New York when Cisco Rosado yelled to Diamond Strawberry during an altercation, “You’re canceled.” Rosado admitted to quoting the film in this pivotal episode that ignited Black Twitter.

Many companies have been canceled or forced to rebrand because of public pressure.

False but profitable narratives that inspired the mascots of Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben’s and Mrs. Butterworth’s survived over a century until now. These stereotypical myths depicted happy and loyal black servitude, allowing white consumers to perpetuate the fantasy that black Americans are submissive, selfeffacing and ready to serve.

The character of Aunt Jemima was first depicted by a formerly enslaved woman named Nancy Green, who was born in Kentucky in 1834. Green modeled and embodied Aunt Jemima until her death in 1923. When the creator of the pancake company, Chris Rutt, saw a blackface performer wearing a bandana and an apron sing a slave song, “Old Aunt Jemima,” at a vaudeville show in 1889, he was inspired to create the real-life advertisement. After 130 years of the Aunt Jemima character perpetuating the mammy trope, the brand changed its name to the Pearl Milling Company in 2021. The company chose this new name to “future-proof” the trademark, eliminating the potential of creating another controversy.

The label Uncle Ben’s originated from a black Texas farmer known for his high-quality rice. Frank Brown, a waiter for a

Chicago restaurant, posed for the logo on the company’s package in 1946. Similar to Uncle Ben’s original branding, the brand Cream of Wheat featured the image of a smiling black man in chef’s attire—in this case, Frank L. White, a Barbados-born chef— on its merchandise. During this time, referring to a black man as “Uncle” was done deliberately to avoid giving him the respect of using the title “Mister.” Despite being inaccurate, such terms served as acceptable forms of representation for decades, shaping how we see other races and cultures.

There is a constant cycle of labeling ideas and opinions as too woke or not woke enough spilling over into politics and mainstream media. Cancel culture was originally intended to hold society accountable, but many conservatives have argued that the rise of social justice movements have created a slippery slope leading to cancel culture. Cancel culture is an attempt to cancel or take away someone’s status or platform over openly expressing opinions that create controversy.

Often used in a sarcastic or a mocking manner, cancel culture refers to what some view as a false sense of accountability. Rightwing critics (seemingly without irony) believe that by publicly shaming those who oppose their views, often resulting in loss of jobs or career opportunities, liberals have too much power. They argue that cancel culture is being weaponized by some leftists.

These sorts of collectivized demands are thought of as “mob rule.” Cancel culture has essentially become “political correctness” gone awry. The phrase “politically correct” emerged in the 1930s when it was used to mock American Communist publications. (It was also used by Joseph Stalin against his enemies in the USSR.) In the 1960s and 70s,it was more commonly used to ridicule those who read too deeply into things. At this time, the phrase would label someone as self-righteous, calling attention to the potential of dogmatism. By strategically framing these progressives as hypersensitive, it delegitimizes leftist ideologies.

Those who are resistant to woke ideology are often labeled as “canceled” or fall victim to what has become “cancel culture.” Critics of cancel culture deem it as a policing of language. Former President Donald Trump, who has been at the enforcing and receiving end of the term, has stated, “The goal of cancel culture is to make decent Americans live in fear of being fired, expelled, shamed, humiliated and driven from society as we know it.”

Wokeness and cancel culture have the potential to weaken comedic freedom and destroy careers. In some circumstances, cancel culture can eliminate the free exchange of ideas.

Dave Chappelle, a black comedian known for a sense of humor that dances with controversial scenarios, was threatened to be canceled after his Netflix documentary The Closer aired in October 2021. After Chappelle made remarks regarding white gays, the #MeToo movement, lesbians and transgender women, the reactions to his jokes and opinionated statements were explosive. Organizations such as LGBT nonprofit groups, GLAAD, and the National Black Justice Coalition, as well as allies of the trans community, have demanded that Netflix cancel the show. NPR said that

Dave Chappelle has sparked controversy for his politically incorrect comments.

transphobia isn’t excused simply because Chappelle is black. However, Stevie Wonder came to Chappelle’s defense, saying what we should really focus on is canceling fear and hate. Said Wonder: “I want us to cancel the idea of feeling that we don’t want anyone to laugh because if we don’t laugh, we cry. And I don’t believe that was God’s intention—ever.”

Another comedian, Kevin Hart, also faced the wrath of cancel culture after homophobic comments he made resurfaced in 2018. Hart believes that cancel culture is censoring comedians. “You’re thinking that things you say will come back and bite you on the ass,” said Hart. He apologized for his offensive remarks and preached that real growth comes from mistakes.

“It’s like jail,” he said. “People get locked up so they can be taught a lesson. When they get out, they are supposed to be better. But if they come out and people go, ‘I’m not giving you a job because you were in jail’— then what the fuck did I go to jail for? That was my punishment— how do you not give those people a shot? They’re saying that all life should be over because of a mistake? Your life should end and there should be no opportunity to change? What are you talking about? And who are you to make that decision?”

On issues of race, gender and other marginalizations, no disagreement is tolerated. American actress and comedian Roseanne Barr was officially “canceled” from the reboot of her sitcom Roseanne after the star posted a racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett, a black senior adviser to former President Barack Obama, that said Jarrett was the baby of the Muslim Brotherhood & Planet of the Apes. ABC Entertainment’s president, Channing Dungey, the first black entertainment president of a major broadcast television network, was influential in the decision to reprimand Barr for her repugnant comment, stating that it was “inconsistent with our values.” The company didn’t want to jeopardize the recent progress in efforts to combat racial stereotypes through representations such as Doc McStuffins, a Disney Channel cartoon about a young black girl who wants to be a doctor; How to Get Away With Murder, a role that allowed Viola Davis to become the first black woman to win a lead-actress Emmy; and Black Panther, which demonstrated that a film with a basis in black culture and a mostly black cast has the potential to become a global blockbuster.

Like most reforms of manners, there are always those who perceive this course of action as taking things too far. Many conservatives—not without hypocrisy or irony—frame wokeness as progressive politics run amok. They believe that the idea of wokeness injures American exceptionalism, the concept that embraces the image of Americans as inherently good, and that its hyperbolic language ideology makes it akin to a religious cult. It is perhaps partly this view that drives many red states to pass laws to outlaw talk of critical race theory and sex.

In 2017, the satirical show Saturday Night Live mocked the term woke, labeling the progressive movement as being label-driven and superficial. In 2018, an NPR commentator begged leftists to retire the word, claiming it was a false show of progressive activism that had taken hold on the right. The word is now criticized for being a performative pandering used by liberals that has become a pejorative for hypersensitivity.

Roseanne Barr’s racists remarks got her “canceled” from Roseanne.

Two Contrasting Views

CON: Excerpts from an open letter by Africa Brooke, a Zimbabwean-born, London-based writer, on why she “left the cult of wokeness”:

What I’m truly afraid of is existing in a world that forces me to submit to an ideology without question, otherwise I’m to be shamed (or pressured to shame myself) and cast out of the community.

A world that tells me that because I inhabit a black body; I will forever be oppressed and at the mercy of some omnipresent monster called “whiteness.” That because of the color of my skin; I am a victim of an inherently racist system by default – and me rejecting the narrative of oppression means that I am in fact, in denial. How empowering!

As someone who comes from Zimbabwe, a country where the general population is truly oppressed, it perplexes me that oppression is now being worn as an identity piece in most parts of the West, especially by those who claim to be “progressive.”

What I’m truly afraid of is existing in a world that forces me to consider the color of my skin and my gender (and that of others) at every f***ing turn, instead of living by Martin Luther King’s teachings and prioritizing the content of mine and other people’s character.

I dread the prospect of a world where context, nuance, critical thinking, meritocracy, mathematics, science, and rationality are considered tools of “white supremacy,” and the rule is that you’re not allowed to question or argue this senseless statement – especially if you’re white. A world that is conditioning you and I to believe that we will always be trapped in some weird hierarchy because of our race, our genitals, our physical abilities, our neurodiversity, our sexuality, and our politics.

And that if we do not agree on every single thing, it’s a sign that we are interacting with an enemy – or at the very least, someone to be wildly suspicious and judgmental of…instead of another complex human being worthy of being seen and heard. I wish this world I’m speaking of was just a figment of my imagination, but we are already inside it. Our suitcases have been unpacked here for quite some time.

This absolutist, authoritarian world is being fiercely crafted under the guise of “social justice,” and I want no parts in this. I AM OUT.

……

I can no longer be an active participant in any culture or movement that encourages groupthink, outrage on demand, fear and violence, revamped segregation, fabricating history, cancellations masked as accountability, self-centredness…. normalization of racism towards white people, the disempowerment of black people masked as social justice, the constant redefining of existing language, ignoring self-responsibility, constant pathologizing, oppressed vs. oppressor mentality, and the pressure to conform and comply…

It’s exhausting. And honestly, I have better things to do with my time. Not to mention, it’s killing us. …….

This is also why I do not identify as a feminist. Just like everything else I’ve spoken about so far; the current wave of commodified feminism is so far removed from my core values; honesty, respect, interconnection, equality, individuality, etc. There’s a lot of self-righteousness, virtue signalling, self-centeredness, and a lack of empathy in most of what I see being presented today as feminism – and again; it seems to be about revenge, superiority, and personal branding. ….

IT’S TIRING, and I wish more people knew that you can still believe in and advocate for equality and fairness without wearing a label like a badge of honour. My mission isn’t to be superior to anyone, nor do I want to see the demise of any gender.

I believe that we should all have equal rights and opportunities, and I’m also realistic about the differences we have as human beings – I celebrate those differences. In a world obsessed with labels and titles, I would rather let my values and actions speak for themselves. I was raised to not judge people based on the color of their skin, gender, class etc – no matter what. And that’s what I’ll continue to do.

Africa Brooke

Photo credit: Ste Marques

PRO: Excerpts from In Defense of Wokeness, an essay by Tomiwa Owolade, a UK-based writer and critic and contributing editor to UnHerd.com, first published on that website:

Tomiwa Owolade

Many people, like Oliver Dowden, the chairman of the Conservative Party, think that the culture wars in Britain are between the woke Left and the conservative Right. This is only partially correct. They are also between the liberal-Left and the woke Left; they are also civil wars.

Dowden made a speech a couple of weeks ago at an American think-tank called the Heritage Foundation. It wasn’t exactly Churchill in Fulton, Missouri, but it made a splash. Dowden denounced woke ideology as a terrifying force: “a social media mob,” he said, “can cancel you merely because you have dared to challenge one of the Left’s fashionable nostrums.”

Dowden’s analysis of woke politics is slightly misplaced. …It is now fashionable among a certain type of Left-liberal or centrist to say ‘woke’ is a meaningless term. It is certainly true that it is much abused. Some newspaper columnists relish going after ‘woke snowflakes’ with the zeal of indiscriminate big-game hunters. I can see why one would want to remove themselves from that. It’s all so vulgar, and disavowing the term ‘woke’ thus seems like a cleaner choice.

But there is no point denying that there are conflicts around the issues of gender, free speech, race and culture. And that these conflicts are not only waged by the Right-wing press, but are in fact found within many institutions largely staffed by liberal-Left people. The culture wars, which are often derided as fake and drummed up by the Right, are real. They are an extension of politics — and politics is by its very nature oppositional.

Woke also has a sharp AngloSaxon sting; it’s a name that sticks. “Social Justice Warriors” is too long and its acronymic version SJW is dull. Progressive is too loose and airy. Woke gets straight to the point, and is useful in conveying, in its aggressive consonantal force, the internecine nature of this conflict. …

Claiming that certain figures from the past who were racist were not in fact racist is an extreme view; but so is denying that some of these racist people should not be considered heroic or virtuous or praiseworthy in other respects.

In English departments, many academics do not want to be labelled as racists, so they publicly acquiesce to calls to decolonise the curriculum, but many of them are, again, quietly sceptical. They value the principle of diversity; they also subscribe to a humanist approach to literature that affirms great books can’t be wholly reduced to politics. They love equality. But they also love pluralism and honest intellectual discussion.

They know these things should not conflict with each other — we can consider the politics of a text without viewing that text entirely through the lens of politics; we can value both diversity and frank intellectual debate. But they live in an atmosphere in which they are in conflict. And so they do nothing about it because they don’t want to face a backlash.

This is why saying and using ‘woke’ is important. It brings what is obscure into the open. It allows the debate to be had within the liberal-Left, where it needs to be had. It is clarifying.

But many argue that cancel culture doesn’t really exist. It’s just a Right-wing talking point. To which I would respond: how do you know? There is so much selfcensorship going on that people are not being honest about what they believe about certain sensitive issues. They don’t have the wealth or power of J.K. Rowling; they are scared of losing their jobs. That is cancel culture. … Of course, people have complex views. One might support taking the knee, believe statues of certain slave traders like Edward Colston should be taken down, and believe that we should learn more about slavery and colonialism at school, but such people might still be critical of other aspects of woke ideology. This is why they would be reluctant to describe themselves as anti-woke. To do so might imply opposition to all those things. But they could also describe themselves as nonwoke or woke-sceptical; the fact that wokeness can be ambiguous does not mean it is a meaningless term. It just means it can be ambiguous.

Wokeness has a family

resemblance to other progressive ideologies — but it is also distinct. Many socialists are non-woke; their analysis is rooted in class politics rather than identity. I also think it’s lazy to simply describe wokeness as liberalism. It is often profoundly illiberal. If woke-deniers think the Right is often misusing the term, they should take ownership of it. Simply saying ‘woke’ is a meaningless term, without offering a more attractive alternative, is a form of evasion.

One reason why this matters on the liberal-Left is because the vast majority of 18-24 year olds now back liberal-Left parties. There is an old adage that people become more conservative as they get older. But if the changes in people’s lives which lead them to become conservative, such as owning property and having kids, are becoming increasingly rare, then that transition to conservatism might not come to pass for many young people. This is why the battle between the woke Left and the non-woke or woke-sceptical Left is especially salient. It has repercussions for all of us.

Questions such as: what is a woman, how should we examine our past, how we should think about race in an increasingly diverse society, and how we should think about free speech and tolerance are all absolutely key for trying to make sense of the nature of public discourse today and in the future. They ultimately boil down to the question of who we are, and what we should do about it.

This conflict will not disappear. Woke is here to stay; even if you flinch at using the word. We have to adjust ourselves to this reality.

#MeToo, the current rallying cry for the woke movement