Kenya Hunt - GIRL

10 If you believe BuzzFeed, woke is also the much-needed awakening of the privileged to all manner of societal ills and the willingness to call them out — usually in the form of a white, cisgender, heteronormative man recognising that others who are not white, cisgender, heteronormative and male are often denied equal rights, treatment and pay. See the website’s infamous love letter to Orange is the New Black star Matt McGorry, a self-proclaimed feminist and BLM supporter. Titled, quite literally, ‘Can We Talk About How Woke Matt McGorry Was In 2015?’, it was an article remarkably redolent of and created for Internet culture, and one that birthed the phenomenon, #wokebae. And while the hashtag had an expiration date, the meaning had value. Because privileged allies waking up to inequality, speaking out and working to end it is ultimately a good thing.

11 Woke is also actress Anne Hathaway speaking out against the killing of Black teenager Nia Wilson and challenging white people to check their privilege and recognise that ‘Black people fear for their lives daily in America.’

12 Woke is also Tarana Burke setting the hashtag #MeTooviral and inspiring hundreds of thousands of women to recognise and voice their experiences of sexual assault.

13 Woke is also a punchline. The wink of an ending to an online joke making fun of the perceived worthy righteousness of woke culture. The stuff of satire, usually said aloud with accompanying gestured air quotes.

14 One must always distinguish between woke as an earnest state of mind and woke as satire. The latter almost always pokes fun at the former. The latter is also the most grating due to its smugness and therefore it is usually unsatisfying. Example: Maroon is just navy red. #staywoke

15 Woke often susceptible to cultural appropriation. Tragically ironic, considering this is one of the very things the act of staying woke would be on high alert against. See woke’s journey from Black political circles to white Internet slang via headlines in mainstream media. Also see the Evening Standard ’s ‘woke-ometer’, which measured people on a scale of ‘asleep’ (Theresa May) to ‘woke’ (JK Rowling)… and included no persons of colour.

16 Woke is not limited to righteous political types. In the Twitterverse, woke has become an awareness of not just racial, political and social injustice, but an awareness of just about anything.

17 Woke, a study in three Tweets, from the earnest to the sardonic:

Another reminder that Trump’s campaign is under FBI investigation. Nothing has changed except the media’s attention span.#staywoke @RepMaxineWaters

Wake up, sheeple. Bowling Green was an inside job! (inside Kellyanne Conway’s head). #staywoke @StephenAtHome

Bill Cosby is just a distraction from Arizona Tea being sold for $1.25 now instead of .99 cents. #staywoke @Phil_Lewis_

1 Not only is woke a political state of mind. Woke has also been commodified. There are woke books and woke movies, woke T-shirts and woke clothing brands. Woke songs and woke dating sites. Woke neighbourhoods and woke vacation destinations. Woke has commercial currency. When Nike featured Colin Kaepernick, the NFL star who protested against police brutality by refusing to stand for the National Anthem during his nationally televised games, many accused the brand of woke-washing, the act of cashing in on social justice. But sales increased and socially and politically progressive people began proudly wearing and showing off their Nikes on social media out of solidarity. And other brands quickly realised you can be political and profitable.

2 Woke also became a form of social currency, a virtue signal on Facebook or Twitter by members of the ever-growing tribe of socially and politically conscious. But, woke is at its most powerful, and valuable, when it is lived, and not performed. The likes of Martin Luther King Jr, Steve Biko and Angela Davis didn’t declare themselves activists. They didn’t have to. Their actions did. Woke people know not to and need not describe themselves as woke.

3 A random sampling, in no particular order, of additional people and things that are in the original woke canon:

Ida B Wells

Shirley Chisholm

The writings of Zora Neale Hurston and James Baldwin

Black Lives Matter

Barack and Michelle Obama

Sadiq Khan

Erykah Badu

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Rihanna

Stormzy

The film Queen & Slim

The Childish Gambino video for ‘This Is America’

Gina Miller

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Harry and Meghan

The Guardian

Brixton

Harlem

Lagos

Detroit

Grace Jones

Adwoa Aboah

Bob Marley

Vegetarianism and Veganism

The clothes of British fashion designers Grace Wales Bonner and Duro Olowu

The artwork of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Carrie Mae Weems, Glenn Ligon, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Toyin Ojih Odutola.

1 Woke has also been weaponised, used in conservative media circles as the highest insult, often placed within quotation marks, to mean rigid, uptight and socially and politically puritanical. When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex decided to step away from their roles, the Daily Mail complained that Prince Harry went from ‘fun loving bloke to the Prince of Woke’. Meanwhile, the HBO show host Bill Maher implored Democratic Presidential candidates to ‘get out of woke-ville’ or else lose the election altogether.

2 Woke has been just as weaponised in liberal circles as summed up by the BBC’s Gender and Identity Correspondent Megha Mohan’s Tweet: ‘Note to editor; no-one in diverse circles uses the word “woke” anymore. In fact, it’s the clearest indication of the insular nature of their world if they file copy using it in 2019.’

3 Dropping the word ‘woke’ into conversation among strangers in a social setting is a pretty easy way to determine where someone sits on the political spectrum without having to invest too much time in uncomfortable debates. Just watch for the nods, stiffened smiles or eye rolls.

4 As various feminists have done with the colour pink, asserting it and the idea of femininity as symbols of strength and power, rather than sexist marketing and naff children’s toys, some have attempted to reclaim woke away from Internet misuse, punchlines and clickbait in the spirit of Black consciousness.

5 Wokeness is often twinned with youthful indignation and optimism. See the scores of students who populated the People’s Vote March against Brexit in the UK, the March For Our Lives against gun violence in America, and, in reality, the entire history of student protest. Also see the record number of young people who have entered politics in recent years, from Mhairi Black to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

6 Ultimately, wokeness is rooted in love — of self, family, humanity — just as injustice is rooted in hate.

7 Because despite its inherently pessimistic nature, woke is hopeful. To search for Badu’s beautiful world requires the belief that one is out there — or at least, capable of being made.

Much has been said and written about the fact that social media can make a person feel lonely. But I’d argue it can do the opposite for those who live chunks of their lives in spaces where they are an Only, an experience many Black people are well acquainted with. Anyone who has ever worked or socialised within a setting in which you are The Only One of One, Two, or at most, Three — understands the distinct sense of relief that comes from finally finding a network of people who have lived through similar experiences and understand the particularity of yours. That unique kind of gladness in finding your tribe, people who can be both a mirror and validation of one’s difference, as well as providing a kind of encouragement to embrace and celebrate it.