Woke: Aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of race and social justice). — Definition courtesy Mirian-Webster Dictionary online.

by Lynn Mandaville

I’d like to offer a quick little lesson on the etymology of the term “woke,” as it is being bandied about in the political arena these days.

Merriam-Webster indicates that woke first became used as an adjective as part of the African-American Vernacular Dialect (AAVD), more familiarly known and Ebonics, in the 1970s. At that time, within black culture, awake was :often rendered as woke, as in “I was sleeping, but now I’m woke.”

“Woke,” however, at that time was becoming a slang term that meant more than not being asleep. It was coming to mean that someone was aware of something or things around them, being awake to a condition, concept or a trend,

As slang terminology of certain ethnic groups often is co-opted by white culture, woke has been co-opted as a political war cry.

Woke initially had a far more favorable connotation, a positive meaning, but politicians such as Ron DeSantis and Marjorie Taylor Greene have deliberately placed a negative spin on the word in an effort to make compassion and understanding dirty words.

It pains me to see language so perverted for political purposes.

As I have mentioned before in pieces I’ve written for Townbroadcast, words, when used skilfully, can have immense power. I’m certainly not the first person to figure this out.

As many successful comedians have shown us — George Carlin comes to mind — a carefully selected word can tickle our funny bone or chill us to that bone.

I’m not saying that the word “woke” has been chosen cleverly by these Republican blowhards for its particular power. I am saying they have perverted the African-American Vernacular dialect slang use of this word to weaponize the concepts of understanding, compassion and justice for political purposes.

Most Americans who watch the nightly broadcast news — whether it be the on the dubious Fox News or the more left-leaning MSNBC — have heard DeSantis declare, “Florida is where WOKE comes to die!”

But if listeners are paying attention to DeSantis with an ear toward the original meaning of the term, they should be alarmed that what he’s really saying is that Florida is the place where people take refuge from human kindness and understanding.

Why, in God’s name, are people cheering such a horrible sentiment?

In the interest of my own understanding of this perversion of language, I’ve been trying to read between the lines of comments being made by these “new” Republicans, and I think I may have divined an answer.

Because the Republican Party has come to be the party of white Christian males of means, white Christian men have come to fear that their days of dominating social economic policies may soon be over.

Since the 1970s, women and blacks have been gaining footholds against old policies that had “kept them in their places.” In more recent years, Native Americans and members of the LGBTQ+ community also have been making waves with high court decisions that disallow the oppression of their members.

For traditional white culture, there is a palpable sense of losing ground, particularly if we look at each decade’s census data that indicates white Americans may eventually become a minority group.

So where do these fearful Republicans choose to draw the line in the sand as the basis for their 2024 campaign platforms?

They draw that line at the original definition of “woke.”

In its name they choose to tilt at public school curricula and the books found in public and school libraries. They opt for willful public deception about such such things as critical race theory (CRT) being taught throughout America’s public schools (it is not) and the laughable idea that library books are a subversive plot to “groom” our children to become so-called-by-them sexual deviants.

In so doing, these Republicans are coming perilously close to violating the civil rights of all citizens who value their rights to free speech, freedom of the press, freedom from censorship and free access to information.

By perverting the meaning of “woke” they are waging war on human enlightenment. On societal harmony, and on healing a nation so badly divided as to be on the verge of a new civil war.

In an earlier draft of this column, I found myself wandering into Biblical territory as I strove to vilify DeSantis, Greene and others of their ilk as un-Christian, but I realized that to do so would mean to place judgment on their personal interpretations of the Scriptures.

Perhaps my point might be more fairly served if I merely state my personal interpretation  of the words of Jesus Christ as I have read and studied them over my many years.

In the gospel of John 13:34-36, these words are attributed to Christ: “I give you  a new law. You are to love each other. You must love each other as I have loved you. If you love each other, all men will know you are My followers.”

Knowing that Jesus kept company with the marginalized people of his time and place — prostitutes, tax collectors and people afflicted with crippling or disfiguring diseases — and knowing that he chided those of his disciples who tried to dissuade him from showing these people friendship, compassion and understanding, I can’t help but come to the obvious conclusion that Christ was speaking of an unconditional love that transcends our baser natures in which we build ourselves up by breaking others down.

And that, in my opinion, is proof that Jesus Christ Himself was “woke,” not just for His time, but for ours as well, especially if we believe ours is a Christian nation (which it is not, but that’s an argument for another column).

I am deeply dismayed that these new Republicans are getting away with waging war on love itself. Love is the all-encompassing concept for such ideals as compassion, kindness, tolerance and understanding.

When they attack love, they are unwittingly striking at the core of America’s foundation — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — on which the U.S. Constitutionand Bill of Rights are written.

Yes, it is scary for some in American society to face a loss of majority, loss of economic status, loss of power. Not all change, however, has to be scary if it is approached unemotionally, with intelligence and patience.

DeSantis and his Republican acolytes are in a white man’s panic instead of engaging in rational thought and dialogue. As a result, they are deliberately perverting the original definition of “woke” to their own selfish purposes.

It is my opinion t hat there is absolutely no shame in being “woke.”

And I would prefer that DeSantis and his kind would quit pretending that there were.