Words by Kelvin Anim
Art by Saana Kujala John
Woke. The quintessential word that gave characters to the world as I saw it. The world I experienced and the world I read about. The world that kept revealing itself over and over again. Woke was part description, part warning. A lesson that during long periods in history people with a supremacist psyche have ruled and infected the law and society with their poison. Remember! some people believe, and some cannot help but believe that ‘non-whites’ are inferior. When you’re commanded to stay woke it’s meant to be a slap in the face saying ‘Yes, we have done well to have come such a long way but keep your head on a swivel!’
And it was going so well! Social media and student activism (sometimes in concert) powered Woke; pushed it over the edge into general circulation. Woke was all around us, whether we liked and understood it or not. For many people, the word was reassurance that the many instances of racism they experienced were real. It repeats itself in other schools, in other workplaces, and in other countries. A new way for those that felt under it, in this one way, to tell each other that they were seen. It was going so well.
Jokes and hotep kufis have to run. Woke’s rapid ascendancy into popular culture predestined its downfall. When well-formed ideas, representing real things outside the internet, are thrown into the maelstrom of memes, RTs, and Youtube comments they lose their form; just one more section of the internet highlight reel. Woke became vague, leaving it open to abuse by the proud islanders you suspect know exactly who their audience are. There are some that just know better but still attack the strawman version of the word because it gets clicks or accrues them a sad amount of power. Depressingly, they have been successful enough to influence politics. We now have to question if it’s even important that we fight for the word to be used properly. Have we lost it to Piers Morgan nation and their cause? Does it even matter if we have?