ARTICLE: Notable tweets on the term ‘woke’

By Esau McCaulley and Jesse Eubanks | Twitter
Published in October of 2021 and July of 2022

SUMMARY: Two notable tweet threads from author Dr. Esau McCaulley and Love Thy Neighborhood founder Jesse Eubanks on why we need to be need to be thoughtful with the words we use and not parrot partisan lexicon.

McCaulley’s tweet thread.

Let’s talk about “woke”.

A 🧵:

“Woke” was a positive term that came from black communities to denote that someone has become aware of hardships that the majority culture often ignored or remained blissfully unaware of.

— Jesse Eubanks (@jesseeubanks) July 7, 2022

KEY QUOTES: “What did woke originally mean? It meant a black person who learned more about our history and culture and then committed themselves to working to uplift our people and fight for justice. To get ‘woke’ meant to care.: ‘Wokeness’ rhetoric is different. It is rooted in a basic cynicism about black concerns. It is not a critique from within our community; it is a mocking by those outside it. If you are non-black and you start talking about ‘wokenes’ I usually assume that you don’t care about us.” – Esau McCaulley

“Choose language that is more thoughtful. Taking a minority group’s historically positive term and using it as mockery makes things worse, not better. We’re capable of better. So, the next time you want to call someone ‘woke’ as a way to dismissively categorize them, consider alternative words instead. There are plenty of more thoughtful options.” – Jesse Eubanks

DID YOU KNOW?: We have a learning capsule about woke with resources to help you faithfully learn about the term.

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