In Defense of "Woke"

The first time I heard the term “woke”, it was in a very specific context. I have to set the scene a little bit here.

—

It was about 2005, I was in college at the University of North Texas. Like many other broke music majors, I had to take a lot of random gigs on the weekends to pay my bills. Most of the time in Denton it meant subbing in for a bass player at a church. Maybe driving down to Terlingua to play upright bass for a singer songwriter. In very rare instances, a last-minute scheduling conflict for a bass player friend allowed me to sit in with a really good jazz group. 

In this case, it was in a very small club in Deep Ellum, a neighborhood of Dallas that’s a lot more gentrified now than it was then (though what places aren’t these days?).

I was playing bass with three other musicians: a drummer, a guitarist, and a sax player. All three of them were black. I was, as often happened in those days, the one white dude in the group. I was also the youngest and probably least experienced musician. I usually took this as a great opportunity to learn, so I shut my mouth and just listened as much as possible. When we were finishing up the gig, the drummer went up to the guitarist and with a complex handshake I couldn’t replicate today, said “you heard about that thing over on Dawson right? Stay woke.” The guitarist confirmed he would and headed out. I was friendly with the drummer (I was subbing for his friend, so we kinda knew each other) and asked what that meant. 

He seemed suspicious, as though I were pranking him. “What, stay woke?” he asked. I put on my most earnest goofy white guy face (which most people know as my normal expression) and said “yeah I’ve heard it once or twice but… the context is always way different.” He nodded in understanding. 

“Ah, well in this case, there was a shooting on Dawson street, which is on the other side of 35. Steve [not his real name] lives over there so I was telling him to be careful because cops are looking for anyone who “matches the description.””

I was pretty naive back then, but I got it pretty quick. “Oh. So in other words ‘don’t get arrested for being black.’”

He laughed, and said “yeah you catch on quick, country boy.” He wasn’t wrong, my high school class was 42 people. Denton was basically a metropolis to me, so being in this part of Dallas was a new experience for the most part.

“Look though,” he explained as I helped him break down his drum set. “It doesn’t just mean that. It’s kind of about everything.” I nodded, pretending I understood. “You could say it to remind someone that they might not get into a program at the school because their name is “too black.” Or that you can get pulled over for a ticket and spend a night in jail just because a tail light was out. All of it is to remind you that this system doesn’t like you.” I was a bit surprised: to my very lily white country boy upbringing, this sort of talk was deemed “militant” and this drummer didn’t seem the type. But I realized pretty quickly I was wrong on two counts.

“See, every black kid gets a talk from their parents. They have to learn that it’s not going to be easy, and it’s not going to be fair. But sometimes you’ll just forget it for a while. Things go well, your friends support you, you don’t even have to think about it. Then bam! Your girlfriend’s dad sits you down and explains he doesn’t want his daughter dating someone with your “background.”” My jaw dropped. 

“That happened here?” I asked, taking down his last cymbal stand. In retrospect, I’m not sure if I meant Texas or America. Present me would be surprised by neither.

“It’s happened to me four times. Three of the dads were white. One was a Latino dude. My girlfriend’s family was from Puerto Rico.” He offered to buy me a beer so we could keep chatting now that his gear was out of the way. 

“So, stay woke means don’t forget everything sucks?” I asked him. He took a drink of his beer and then nodded. 

“I guess. But I mean, more like be ready for it. And don’t forget where you stand.” That hit me pretty hard. 

“You think folks will always see you as less than?” I asked. He laughed. 

“I don’t have to guess, they’ve said it to me. But that’s their problem. My job is to remember how things are and keep going.” I would never have admitted my neediness at the time, but I was really hoping to hear him say “you’re one of the good ones though.” But no, he just stayed quiet and looked at me. And I realized something. 

“So, if things are ever going to get better, other people have to get woke. Like me.” He nodded.

“Like you. And I’ll let you know if you fuck it up.” 

—

From that day forward, this was the first meaning that popped into my head any time someone said woke. People use it today as a pejorative: they blame the “woke mob” for cultural excesses. They say “wokeness” is a disease, a mental illness. 

I get the argument: groupthink is never good. You don’t want to just adopt the morals and ideas of a cultural movement because it seems to generally agree with you. I was struggling to make ends meet when the occupy protests started. I was primed to be a big proponent of their causes. I went to some protests, and realized pretty quickly that I wasn’t welcome there. If I questioned anything, I was a “fed.” If I suggested that maybe there was some direct action that could be taken rather than just chants, I was drowned out by someone with a bullhorn leading a chant. I still support the ideas of that movement but it never went anywhere for exactly that reason. It became a sort of value merit badge you could display for social points.

There’s this belief that wokeness is a way for elite people to claim they care about the little people, and then not do anything to help them. That’s a valid criticism: but it’s also exactly the kind of criticism you’d hear from other elites who want to devalue any kind of resistance that threatens the legitimacy of their various privileges. 

That’s the thing. Wokeness, the way I see it, is not about cashing in on some kind of social status and being seen as good or better than others. It’s actually about seeing how shitty things are, and how likely it is that you’re complicit in that system and have to do something about it. 

It’s why I still to this day donate large chunks of my income to local and international charities. I do it anonymously anywhere they let me: because I’m seeing it as a way to pay back some of the advantages that I’ve had, usually unfair ones. If anything you could accuse me of doing it out of guilt. Maybe white guilt is a part of it. I don’t know. But honestly I don’t care if my family benefitted from the system while others didn’t. I just care about making it fair and equitable now. And for that, you gotta pay attention. 

You gotta stay woke.