@dougendersbeeJul 27, 2023
Mike McHargue

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.

Jul 26, 2023 at 8:40pmWeb
Show threadMike McHargueJul 26, 2023
No matter how much white progressives or conservatives around the world co-opt or otherwise abuse the term, it's organs like with Black people, and its original context is quite wise.
Show threadDaniel RoseJul 26, 2023
@mike thank you for this helpful context. I didn’t know the historical context for the term.
Show threadMike McHargueJul 26, 2023
@dan It seems that very few do!
Show threadDaniel RoseJul 28, 2023
@mike absolutely.
Show thread✨buff dog himbo✨Jul 26, 2023
@mike yesssss i get so mad about this all the time. "Woke" got really widely known about during the Ferguson riots (which themselves came after several other important riots caused by police brutality against black people), and it was part of a really important message that radicalized a lot of people at that time and just before Trump got elected. Now people act like it's just some cute way to say "progressive" and it gets bastardized to hell. 😡
Show threadMike McHargueJul 26, 2023
@itsmeholland 💯
Show threadDan LKAug 1, 2023
@itsmeholland @mike This is one of several reasons I don't use it as a term to describe myself. It's neither my word to use nor on me to determine whether I am or not.
Show threadEinAstonJul 27, 2023
^^^
Daily reminder.
Show threadfnordJul 27, 2023
My first experience hearing the term was in this context. I think it might have been one of Michael Harriot's articles in The Root many years ago. When it started getting co-opted by right-wing bobbleheads as an insult, I was very confused.
Show threadפְּרִיJul 28, 2023
@mike I really like that meaning
Show threadJerameeJul 28, 2023

@mike

I knew that it originated during Jim Crow, but didn't know the specifics.

Thank you for helping us be better allies.

Show threadShannon CurtisJul 26, 2023
@mike I hadn't heard this specific history before now — thank you!
Show threadCharlesWRobinson_2023Jul 27, 2023
@mike I thought it traced back to the Wide Awake movement. http://archive.oah.org/special-issues/lincoln/contents/grinspan.html
Journal of American History - The Wide Awakes and Lincoln’s 1860 Campaign

Show threadLarry GarfieldJul 27, 2023
@mike It continued to mean that until Fox News decided it was the new "politically correct".
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.
Show threadSteve LindsayJul 27, 2023
@mike Thanks. Not to disagree—I know little of socio-political parlance—but I have been thinking of “woke” as referring to a dawning appreciation of the myriad ways in which centuries of racism have unfairly advantaged me personally (and people who look like me). Maybe that is just a different angle on woke.
Show threadDerick RethansJul 27, 2023

@mike I listened to a great podcast episode about the history of the term, ridiculously in depth.

Origin Story: https://pod.link/1624704966/episode/0b0e2c363a94280fe0ae576bbefbc526

Origin Story

What are the real stories behind the most misunderstood and abused ideas in politics? From Conspiracy Theory to Woke to Centrism and beyond, Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey dig into the astonishing secret histories of concepts you thought you knew. Want to support us in making future seasons? There are now two ways you can help out: Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/originstorypod . Get early episodes, live zooms and more from just £5 per month. Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/origin-story/id1624704966 . Want everything in one place with easy payment? Subscribe to our premium feed on Apple Podcasts for ad-free shows early and more. From Podmasters, the makers of Oh God, What Now? and The Bunker.

Show threadKara GoldfinchJul 27, 2023
@mike Awesome. I didn't know it was old as that, I knew it didn't start on Twitter though.

Anyway I found the song on YouTube. He says it right at the end.
https://youtu.be/VrXfkPViFIE
Lead Belly - "Scottsboro Boys"

This video features Lead Belly's "Scottsboro Boys" from the 2015 box set 'Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection'. For more information about this...

YouTube
Show threadDan HowellJul 27, 2023
@mike I didn't know it was that old. Thank you.
Show threadalfsonJul 27, 2023
@mike Negro Mororist Green Book and later A Black Travelers Guide
Show threadKatLSJul 27, 2023
@mike hyper vigilance caused by living in a state threatened daily by terrorism. 😓we have got to reckon with our racial crimes.
Show threadJosh JusticeJul 27, 2023
@mike @joshourisman Related, for any readers who might not be aware: Black Americans still face danger traveling through certain cities in the Deep South. My son is Black, and we were warned about danger in Harrison Arkansas. We made sure the gas tank was full, we drove the speed limit, and didn't stop for anything.
Show threadRuby S.Jul 28, 2023
@CodingItWrong @mike @joshourisman Not just in the South! Black people are killed by white people with impunity all over this country.
Show threadFurbyJul 27, 2023
@mike yeah, and this makes it feel super racist when conservatives use it mockingly
Show threadCrazy PonyJul 27, 2023
@mike i do also know a song "When the world has Woken" by Barclay James Harvest 1970
Show threadinvispaceJul 27, 2023

@mike The word has been co-opted by the right to mean whatever they want it to mean. They don't care where it came from, only that it's something they can provide their voters to rally against.

I honestly don't use woke anymore, not because it means something bad, but because it's meaning has been perverted to a good portion of the population. It's difficult to have meaningful conversations with people who hear a word or phrase and immediately go on alert.

Show threadbriJul 27, 2023
@mike see also, leadbelly introducing his recording of ‘jim crow blues’ for smithsonian folkways - https://youtube.com/watch?v=tA1dvEknIqs
Lead Belly - "Jim Crow Blues"

YouTube
Show threadBrandonJul 27, 2023
@mike These days any Racism is woke. It should be delt with. My disability things are not any less or more importnat than these things. I wish people would get that. I always understood that's how the term started. Concepts can evolve, you know.
Show threadLisaJul 28, 2023
@mike the first time i herd it was in an epesode of docters the sope opor in the uk and a doctor had past on his mooslam stepsun said he was woke
Show threadStrypeyJul 28, 2023

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

... and then the term was appropriated by neoliberals and their various camp-followers and Useful Idiots, looking for a way to make common cause between apologists for "end of history" capitalist realism, and the social movements of the marginalized uniting against it. The term is now overloaded to the point of meaninglessness and best avoided.

@alyssa

Show threadHakeiJul 29, 2023
@mike @soatok After recently learning about the Green Book, this certainly adds a lot more context, too — and it’s a fascinating piece of history from a rather dark part of our not-too-distant past. (There was a piece Vice did on Route 66, for those who prefer a visual depiction… and one topic they discussed were the all-too-real difficulties Black motorists felt traveling, and how the Green Book helped change that — and now some of those sites are being lost to time. https://youtu.be/tedJdhb6QJI)
Why Did America Abandon Route 66? | Abandoned (Full Episode)

Once touted as the Mother Road, Route 66 is a shadow of its former self. Rick & co-pilot Frank Gerwer take the journey to find out what remains along this no...

YouTube
Show threadJob DestroyerJul 29, 2023
@mike for a time it was 'socially conscious' like malcolm x, black people also were using it ironically before white people caught on like 'wow you're so woke' to mock people who have a superficial or muddled political understanding
Show threadEsslar2Aug 1, 2023
@mike Erykah Badu used it in a lyric back in the early 2000s. She said in an interview it meant to be alert, be aware of what's going on around you. But it does seem to have been around a while.
Show threaddebbshockAug 1, 2023
@mike @LibertyForward1 I heard it for the first time right after Ferguson happened. People were saying it everywhere, for good reason.
Show threadideaPDishAug 1, 2023
@mike
Hold da phone there, sunny. Your avatar pic right there says that you are a white man, how do you jnow?
Show threadJenniferDec 4, 2023
@mike I didn't know this! I live near Scottsboro and have been to the Scottsboro Boys museum.