Mike McHargueJul 26, 2023

I don't know who needs to hear this, but the term "woke" didn't start with kids on Twitter.

The was first recorded by Lead Belly in the 1930s in a song called "The Scottsboro Boys," about the dangers Black Americans faced traveling through states in the Deep South. The original line was "best stay woke," as in, "remain aware of the dangers of racism."

Black communities shortened the term to "stay woke," over time, and eventually added "woke" as a state of being--or constant awareness.

Show threadLarry Garfield
@mike It continued to mean that until Fox News decided it was the new "politically correct".
Jul 27, 2023 at 3:44amWeb
Show threadSpammy Snarker L.J.Jul 27, 2023
@Crell @mike Yup, I remember seeing it in that sense on Black Tumblr well into mid-late 2010s, so it was just surreal to me when I saw white people using it in a derogatory sense. Imagine hating Black people so much as to make a mockery and caricature of their community warning and survival watchwords.
Show threadJust JenEJul 27, 2023
@Crell @mike
Thanks to #Fox and others, it's a scapegoat term now for anything that they don't understand, disagree with, or are threatened by ....
So, really, the definition hasn't changed. They just sneer enough when they say it that it sounds bad.