Erykah Badu wasn’t the first artist to use the concept of wokeness in a song (although this one was written by Georgia Anne Muldrow who got it from Harlem-based author William Melvin Kelley included it in his 1962 New York Times essay "If You're Woke You Dig It" as part of a guide to street slang). Master Teacher gets the idea through pretty clearly:
I am known to stay awake
(A beautiful world I'm trying to find)
A beautiful world I'm trying to find
(A beautiful world, I'm trying to find)
I've been in search of myself
(A beautiful world) a beautiful world
It's just too hard for me to find
(Dreams, dreams)
Said it's just too hard for me to find
(Dreams, dreams)
I am in the search of something new
(A beautiful world I'm trying to find)
Searchin' me
Searching inside of you
And that's fo' real
What if it were no niggas
Only master teachers?
I stay woke (Dreams dreams)
What if there was no niggas
Only master teachers?
I stay woke (Dreams dreams)
What if it was no niggas only master teachers now?
I stay woke (Dreams dreams)
(What if there was no niggas only master teachers now?)
I stay woke (Dreams dreams)
Even if yo baby ain't got no money
To support ya baby, you
(I stay woke)
Even when the preacher tell you some lies
And cheatin' on ya mama, you stay woke
(I stay woke)
Even though you go through struggle and strife
To keep a healthy life, I stay woke
(I stay woke)
Everybody knows a black or white, there's
Creatures in every shape and size
(I stay woke)
Everybody
(I stay woke)
Everybody, stay
(I stay woke)
Sing it everybody
(I stay woke)
Everybody body baby
(A beautiful world, a beautiful world) (Dreams, dreams)
(A beautiful world, a beautiful world) (Dreams, dreams)
(A beautiful world, a beautiful world) I'm trying to find
(A beautiful world, a beautiful world) I'm trying to find
(A beautiful world, a beautiful world) I'm trying to find
I have lone to stay awake
A beautiful world I'm trying to find
(A beautiful world I'm trying to find)
See, I am in search of myself
(A beautiful world, I'm trying to find)
Oh it's just too hard for me to find
(A beautiful world, a beautiful world)
Said it just too hard for me to find
(Dreams, dreams, dreams)
'Cause I'm in the search of something new
(A beautiful world I'm trying to find)
Search inside me
Searching inside you
And that's the trill
What if there was no niggas
Only master teachers?
(I stay woke)
What if there was no niggas
Only master teacher?
(I stay woke)
What if there was no niggas
Only master teachers now?
(I stay woke)
What if there was no niggas
Only master teacher?
(I stay woke)
No, what if there was no niggas
Only master teachers?
What if there was no niggas
Only master teachers now
Teach us, teach us teach us
What if there was niggas only master teachers now
I stay woke
I stay woke
Mmmm, hey, I stay woke
One, two
One, two, three, four
Baby sleepy time
To put her down now
I'll be standin' round
Till the sun down
I stay woke
I stay woke
I stay woke
I stay woke
Congregation nod they head
And say amen
The deacon fell asleep again and
I stay woke
But I stay woke
I stay woke
I stay woke
Lovers holding hands
And falling deep in love
And sleeping and
Passing conversation
Ooh, I stay woke
I stay woke
I stay woke
I stay woke
Pretty rings and pretty thieves
With shiny lights and little
Pieces of tomorrow
I stay woke
I stay woke
I stay woke
I stay woke
Oh ah, oh ah
I stay woke
Oh ah, oh ah
I stay woke
Oh ah, oh ah
I stay
Oh ah, oh ah
Oh I stay
Oh ah, oh ah
Oh ah, oh ah
Baby sleepy time
To put her down and
I'll be hangin' round
Until sun down, hey
Oh ah, oh ah
Oh ah, oh ah
Oh, oh, oh
(Oh ah, oh ah)
I stay woke
(Oh ah, oh ah)
Mmmm stay woke
(Oh ah, oh ah)
I stay
(Oh ah, oh ah)
I stay woke, I
(Oh ah, oh ah)
I stay woke, yes I do
(Oh ah, oh ah)
I stay woke
(Oh ah, oh ah)
Mmmm, mmm yea
(Oh ah, oh ah)
Stay woke
(Oh ah, oh ah)
I stay woke
Even earlier, the word was used as a metaphor for political engagement and activism and one early example was the paramilitary youth organization the Wide Awake, formed in Hartford in 1860 two support the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln. Local chapters of the group spread rapidly across northern cities in the ensuing months and "triggered massive popular enthusiasm" around the election. The political militancy of the group also alarmed many southerners, who saw in the Wide Awakes confirmation of their fears of northern, Republican political aggression. The fact that the Wide Awakes—a mixed race organization that supported abolition, flipped out reactionary southerners.
So… the word woke as a politically charged word didn’t start with Ramaswamy, let alone Meatball Ron. It was reintroduced in African American vernacular in the 20th century, where it was used as a colloquial term to mean being aware, informed, or socially conscious, particularly regarding issues of racial injustice and systemic oppression— again, something that reactionary southerners abhorred. The term "stay woke" gained prominence in the 2000s within African American communities, particularly in response to police brutality and racial profiling. It became a rallying cry for social activism and awareness of racial inequality.
Today the far right has distorted the meaning and uses it pejoratively to criticize and mock progressive ideas, particularly those related to identity politics, social justice and advocacy for marginalized groups.
The opposite of the term "woke" in the context of its modern usage is "unwoke" or "not woke" and while "woke" implies being socially conscious and aware of social injustices, "unwoke" or "not woke" suggests a lack of awareness or understanding of such issues. Think back to the phrase “Know Nothings,” which isn’t identical but also implies being proudly ignorant and disdainful of education and knowledge.
Yesterday, the NY Times published an essay by Jonathan Weisman that explores the idea that even Republicans are tiring of the War on Wokeness and that candidates who were basing their campaigns on it— namely DeSantis and Ramswamy— probably need to back off. Last year, he wrote DeSantis “used the word five times in 19 seconds, substituting ‘woke’ for Nazis as he cribbed from Winston Churchill’s famous vow to battle a threatened German invasion in 1940. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, speaks of a ‘woke self-loathing’ that has swept the nation. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina found himself backpedaling furiously after declaring that “‘woke supremacy’ is as bad as white supremacy. The term has become a quick way for candidates to flash their conservative credentials, but battling ‘woke’ may have less political potency than they think. Though conservative voters might be irked at modern liberalism, successive New York Times/Siena College polls of Republican voters nationally and then in Iowa found that candidates were unlikely to win votes by narrowly focusing on rooting out left-wing ideology in schools, media, culture and business.”
Instead, Republican voters are showing a “hands off” libertarian streak in economics, and a clear preference for messages about “law and order” in the nation’s cities and at its borders. The findings hint why DeSantis, who has made his battles with “woke” schools and corporations central to his campaign, is struggling and again show off Trump’s keen understanding of part of the Republican electorate. Campaigning in Iowa in June, Trump was blunt: “I don’t like the term ‘woke,’” he said, adding, “It’s just a term they use— half the people can’t even define it, they don’t know what it is.”
It was clearly a jab at DeSantis, but the Times’ polls suggest Trump may be right. Social issues like gay rights and once-obscure jargon like “woke” may not be having the effect many Republicans had hoped “Your idea of ‘wokeism’ might be different from mine,” explained Christopher Boyer, a 63-year-old Republican actor in Hagerstown, Md., who retired from a successful career in Hollywood where he said he saw his share of political correctness and liberal group think. Boyer said he didn’t like holding his tongue about his views on transgender athletes, but, he added, he does not want politicians to intervene. “I am a laissez-faire capitalist: Let the pocketbook decide,” he said.
When presented with the choice between two hypothetical Republican candidates, only 24 percent of national Republican voters opted for “a candidate who focuses on defeating radical ‘woke’ ideology in our schools, media and culture” over “a candidate who focuses on restoring law and order in our streets and at the border.”
Around 65 percent said they would choose the law and order candidate.
Among those 65 and older, often the most likely age bracket to vote, only 17 percent signed on to the “anti-woke” crusade. Those numbers were nearly identical in Iowa, where the first ballots for the Republican nominee will be cast on Jan. 15.
DeSantis’ famous fight against the Walt Disney Company over what he saw as the corporation’s liberal agenda exemplified the kind of economic warfare that seems to fare only modestly better. About 38 percent of Republican voters said they would back a candidate who promised to fight corporations that promote “woke” left ideology, versus the 52 percent who preferred “a candidate who says that the government should stay out of deciding what corporations should support.”
…[S]ome Republican voters seemed to feel pandered to by candidates like DeSantis and the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, whose book Woke Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam launched his political career.
…In an interview, Ramaswamy said the evolving views of the electorate were important, and he had adapted to them. “Woke” corporate governance and school systems are a symptom of what he calls “a deeper void” in a society that needs a religious and nationalist renewal. The stickers that read “Stop Wokeism. Vote Vivek” are gone from his campaign stops, he said, replaced by hats that read “Truth.”
“At the time I came to be focused on this issue, no one knew what the word was,” he said. “Now that they have caught up, the puck has moved. It’s in my rearview mirror as well.”
Law and order and border security have become stand-ins for “fortitude,” he said, and that is clearly what Republican voters are craving.
(The day after the interview, the Ramaswamy campaign blasted out a fund-raising appeal entitled “Wokeness killing the American Dream.”)
DeSantis campaign officials emphasized that the governor in recent days had laid out policies on border security, the military and the economy. Foreign policy is coming, they say. But they also pointed to an interview on Fox News in which DeSantis did not back away from his social-policy focus.
Along with several other Republican-led states, Florida passed a string of laws restricting what GOP lawmakers considered evidence of “wokeness,” such as gender transition care for minors and diversity initiatives. DeSantis handily won re-election in November.
“I totally reject, being in Iowa, New Hampshire, that people don’t think those are important,” he said of his social policy fights. “These families with children are thanking me for taking stands in Florida.”