What is Woke? Navigating the Polarization of Social Justice

In the “culture wars” being waged in the United States these days, one of the rhetorical weapons is the term “woke.” Many of the left are proudly woke. Many on the right decry wokeness. Many others—perhaps the majority—may not be sure what the term means. 

So, let’s start with definitions.

Does “woke” mean staying aware of social injustices such as racism, remaining vigilant and attentive to the need for constant struggle? Huddie William Ledbetter, the folk/blues performer better known as Lead Belly, thought so. Discussing his song “Scottsboro Boys,” he advised black people to “stay woke” to the violent realities of white supremacy, especially in places such as Alabama, where those nine boys and young men accused of rape in 1931 escaped a lynching but found themselves railroaded by a racist court system. “I advise everybody to be a little careful when they go down through there,” Lead Belly said of Alabama. “Just stay woke. Keep your eyes open.” That’s widely considered to be the origin of the term, long before it was bandied about in the dominant culture.

Or does “woke” describe the attempt by people on the left to impose their ideology on everyone else, either through public policy or pressure on private institutions and businesses? That’s how conservatives have redefined the term, usually with some contempt and derision toward those they accuse of “virtue signaling,” a public displaying of wokeness to demonstrate one’s presumed moral superiority.

Both definitions can be accurate, depending on the situation.

We can understand wokeness in a positive sense, following Lead Belly. Should people who are at the bottom of various social hierarchies stay woke? That certainly seems sensible, given the way people in power so often work to maintain those hierarchies, even though they may publicly pledge to pursue the goal of equity. Should a black driver who gets stopped by a police officer be awake to patterns of the disproportionate use of force against African Americans? That seems like good advice, not because all cops are abusive in every encounter but because some people are at greater risk. And if vulnerable people should stay woke out of self-interest, it would be appropriate for people in dominant positions in the hierarchies to strive to be woke out of solidarity.

What about wokeness in a negative sense? Do people who consider themselves to be woke ever behave in overly zealous ways when they apply their analysis of hierarchy and oppression to situations in their lives? Almost everyone, especially those of us who have spent time on college campuses over the past decade, can tell a story about such zealousness undermining productive conversations. For example, the phrase “check your privilege”—intended as a reminder to people with unearned advantages to be self-reflective—can be used in ways that shut down engagement rather than open up an exchange. In practice, “check your privilege” can be wielded as a synonym for “shut up.”

Here’s an example of the complexity that will be familiar to many readers. During a meeting, some participants will preface a statement with phrases such as “As an indigenous man” or “As a black woman.” Sometimes, those details help others understand their comment, but some speakers use their identity to suggest that critique from white people or men, or both, is out of bounds and that their analysis is beyond challenge. 

Experience matters in how we understand the world, but it doesn’t guarantee one has the best argument. As I repeatedly told students, their experience may be the starting point for an analysis, but simply recounting their experience isn’t an analysis. If those kinds of identity invocations shut down a conversation, everyone loses. That doesn’t mean that hierarchies don’t exist or that oppression is acceptable. It simply recognizes that some people can derail important conversations by implicitly claiming that some other people cannot challenge their statements.

If this critique seems suspect coming from me, an older white guy, consider the analysis of Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, which describes him as “a nationally recognized social movement strategist, a visionary leader in the Movement for Black Lives, and a community organizer for racial, social, and economic justice.” In an essay widely circulated on the left, Mitchell was blunt: “Identity and position are misused to create a doom loop that can lead to unnecessary ruptures of our political vehicles and the shuttering of vital movement spaces.” On a podcast after the essay was published, he said he has seen identity “being weaponized in ways that were not useful for the work.” He elaborated:

As a black person, it does no favors to me for me to say, “As a black son of immigrants,” and then for white people to sit on their hands and shut up. I need to be sharpened by debate. I might, at the end of the day, think you’re wrong. But I need the back and forth in order to sharpen my position or change my mind.

Where does this leave us? Let’s take the case of race. Some on the right say that racism is no longer a powerful force shaping people’s options. Most on the left argue that racist practices continue, albeit in different forms than in previous eras, and must be addressed in public policy. (I say “most” because some leftists argue that class divisions in capitalism are primary, both in terms of analysis and action.)

Let’s start with potential points of agreement. Everyone should be able to agree that the United States, both in legal and informal ways, has made progress in confronting white supremacy and changing racist practices. Would anyone argue that the United States in 2024 is no different than it was in the pre-civil rights 20th century? I think of this in concrete terms, about the year I was born. Does anyone—anyone who isn’t an overt racist, that is—want to return to the racial dynamics of 1958? 

Yet it’s also true that racialized disparities in measures of wealth and well-being—the statistics that tell us roughly how well people are doing—continue even after changes in law and policy. Given the racist history of the United States and the recent resurgence of openly white supremacist rhetoric, would anyone argue that we have transcended white supremacy in the few decades since the end of legal apartheid? Does anyone want to freeze racial dynamics at this moment in history because it can’t get any better than this? 

How do we sort this out? Too often, too many white people want to deny the lingering racist patterns in virtually every aspect of American life. When those white people are quick to label antiracist activists as overly zealous, that might be part of a denial strategy. It’s fair to ask whether critiques of wokeness might sometimes be a way to divert attention from the enduring nature of white supremacy. 

Yet it’s also reasonable to worry that such zealousness sometimes undermines the difficult work of building coalitions that can advance an antiracist agenda. People with a perceptive critique of white supremacy are people, and people can be arrogant in all sorts of ways. For example, the line between holding someone accountable for a racist comment and berating a well-intentioned person who may not be up-to-date on the latest trends in progressive terminology can be pretty thin. Even the director of a university’s Africana studies program can find himself undermined by a self-righteous student who feels the professor isn’t taking the correct position.

If all these points are reasonable, then the only way forward is to acknowledge these complex social realities and step back from the polarizing platitudes. Reasonable people on the right should be able to acknowledge that white supremacy is a dangerous part of conservative political formations today. Reasonable people on the left should be able to acknowledge that it is better to present arguments based on evidence and logic rather than merely denounce political opponents who don’t share their views on race.

Vincent Lloyd, the Africana studies professor who saw that the seminar he was teaching undermined, offers a perceptive analysis of the situation:

I worry that left political discourse today takes social movements, or even just an individual who has suffered, as conversation stoppers rather than conversation starters. That frustrates me because I firmly believe these movements are the key to our collective liberation. Justice struggles always involve a back-and-forth between movement participants making demands for radical transformation and those in power trying to manage those demands so that they can keep their grip on power. … Those of us who care about justice have to be willing to ask critical questions about these dynamics rather than blindly deferring to the activist language.

I’ll conclude by making the question personal: Am I woke? 

Because I’ve written critically about white supremacy, I have been described as part of the woke mob on racial justice, one of those people who allegedly is ashamed to be white. But I’ve also been shunned in left spaces for my writing on patriarchy, especially my challenges to transgender ideology. 

I have spent my adult life working in journalism and university teaching, endeavors that have provided me a fair amount of freedom to explore a complex world without worrying (for the most part) about who might attack me. I don’t have to worry about how I am labeled.

My concern is that framing intellectual debates as a culture war has been politically corrosive, limiting people’s capacity for democratic engagement. In war, the goal is victory, not deeper understanding. And given how complex the modern world is, we all need to deepen our understanding.

I’m not naïve. I’m not asking, “Can’t we all just get along?” I am suggesting we have an obligation to work at understanding why we don’t always get along.