Woke Culture
Woke Culture
After the sudden explosion of the word ‘woke’ into the English vocabulary, I decided to do a little bit of research about this word, it’s history and what people think about ‘woke-ness.’
The word woke has a fairly varied and long history. It stems from African American Vernacular English and came into use in the 1940’s. It’s original meaning was ‘to be woken up to issues of injustice.’
Woke has been an important word at key moments that denote justice, fairness and change. In the black community, woke could be used to demonstrate an awareness and fight against racism. In more recent times, woke encompasses more areas, to raise awareness against different types of social injustice.
I trawled social media to find 2 different opinions about the word woke. To be honest it wasn’t hard to find these opinions! These are some snippets of what I found:
1. “Lack of sound values, lack of responsibility to obey laws.”
So, criminals are woke? Are they not playing to old-fashioned values?
2. “Inability to function independently from others.”
Dependent on others, but for what? Physical or emotional dependence? Or both?
3. “Lack of motivation to achieve success.”
What does success mean in this context? Educational, spiritual or otherwise?
4. “The woke generation has forgotten who created them.”
Do people create others? Maybe biologically but, as adults, are we a product of what created us?
5. “Awakened to the needs of others.”
Is this actually an empath?
6. “To be thoughtful, compassionate and humble.”
Perhaps these just refer to basic values that most of us have, away from narcissists!
7. “Eager to make the world a better place for others.”
Make better in what way? What would specifically need to change?
No wonder this word has become so confusing!
I suppose what we are really talking about here is change. New words are created and old words go out of use. Some words change their meaning over time. The word woke has clearly meant positive and negative things to so many different people, depending on how they cope with change and how they perceive their own personal external world.
Do we need to label ourselves as woke? Or anything at all for that matter? Counselling helps clients to realise, understand and eventually ‘meet’ their authentic selves. We are all different, on macro and micro scales. So maybe then being ‘woke’ doesn’t really matter at all. Maybe being ‘myself’ is the most important word of all.