Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Some Republicans are demonizing and redefining a word popularized in the Black community: “woke.” They’ve turned the word into a slur, using it to attack diversity, equity and inclusion, along with additional policies that benefit Black Americans and other oppressed and marginalized people.
The reaction by many Republicans — chief among them Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — to “wokeness” resembles the hysterical response of Chicken Little in an old children’s story. When an acorn falls on her head, Chicken Little panics, yelling “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”
DeSantis and other Republicans now screaming about “wokeness” make as much sense as a frightened chicken. But the governor, who is expected to announce his Republican presidential candidacy in the spring, clearly hopes his anti-wokeness obsession will get him the nomination in pursuit of moving into the White House.
Meanwhile, DeSantis is not alone. Some Congressional Republicans have even laughably said the recent failure of Silicon Valley Bank in California was caused by the bank devoting too much attention to pursuing “woke” policies. In fact, Republican-backed banking deregulation legislation signed into law by then-President Donald Trump may have played a far greater role in the bank’s collapse.
The word “woke” used to just mean awake, as when we say: I woke up at 7 this morning.
But beginning in 1923 with Black nationalist and civil rights pioneer Marcus Garvey, Black people began urging each other to stay awake — or stay woke — to the dangers posed by Jim Crow-styled racism and social injustice and to work against these evils. The expression gained circulation over…
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