Woke is an adjective derived from African-American English used since the 1930s or earlier to refer to awareness of racial prejudice and discrimination, often in the construction stay woke. The term acquired political connotations by the 1970s and gained further popularity in the 2010s with the hashtag #staywoke. Over time, woke came to be used to refer to a broader awareness of social inequalities such as sexism and denial of LGBTQ rights.
2019: Broadening usage
Policymakers must weigh these trade-offs, as hawkish policies can benefit savers and reduce import prices but also make borrowing more costly and hurt domestic producers and exporters. Federal Reserve adjust interest rates based on economic indicators, switching between hawkish and dovish stances as necessary to balance economic growth and inflation. Cultural scientists Akane Kanai and Rosalind Gill describe “woke capitalism” as the “dramatically intensifying” trend to include historically marginalized groups (currently primarily in terms of race, gender, and religion) as mascots in advertisement with a message of empowerment to signal progressive values. On the one hand, Kanai and Gill argue that this creates an individualized and depoliticized idea of social justice, reducing it to an increase in self-confidence; on the other hand, the omnipresent visibility in advertising can also amplify a backlash against the equality of precisely these minorities.
The term increasingly came to be identified with millennials and members of Generation Z. Les Echos lists woke among several terms adopted by Generation Z that indicate “a societal turning point” in France. In May 2016, MTV News identified woke as being among ten words teenagers “should know in 2016”. By 2019, the term woke was increasingly being used in an ironic sense, as reflected in the books Woke by comedian Andrew Doyle (using the pen name Titania McGrath) and Anti-Woke by columnist Brendan O’Neill. By 2022, usage of the term had spread beyond the United States, attracting criticism by right-wing political figures in Europe. This usage was popularized by soul singer Erykah Badu’s 2008 song “Master Teacher”, via the song’s refrain, “I stay woke”.
- The terms woke-washing and woke capitalism later emerged to criticize businesses and brands who use politically progressive messaging for financial gain.
- The Economist states that as the term came to be used more to describe white people active on social media, black activists “criticised the performatively woke for being more concerned with internet point-scoring than systemic change”.
- If the relative inflation rate in the home country is falling relative to the inflation rate in a trading partner, the exchange rate should adjust to keep prices in line with the dollar appreciating relative to the trading partners.
- Brazilian federal deputy Kim Kataguiri has accused the government under president Lula da Silva of promoting a “woke agenda” with a proposal to tax streaming services and social media networks while requiring a certain amount of content to come from Brazilian companies with 51% of capital and shareholders belonging to “identity groups”.better source needed
Woke
Woke has also been used as shorthand for some ideas of the American Left involving identity politics and social justice, such as white privilege and reparations for slavery in the United States. Inflation hawks focus on controlling inflation through higher interest rates, prioritizing price stability over short-term economic growth and employment. This strategy may deter borrowing and spending, potentially leading to deflation and higher unemployment.
How Are Interest Rates Determined?
Merriam-Webster defines the expression stay woke in Badu’s song as meaning, “self-aware, questioning the dominant paradigm and striving for something better”; and, although within the context of the song, it did not yet have a specific connection to justice issues, Merriam-Webster credits the phrase’s use in the song with its later connection to these issues. Through the late 2000s and early 2010s, woke was used either as a term for literal wakefulness, or as slang for suspicions of infidelity. In the 21st century’s first decade, the use of woke encompassed the earlier meaning with an added sense of being “alert to social and/or racial discrimination and injustice”. It is the Fed’s responsibility to balance economic growth and inflation, and it does this by manipulating interest rates.
Words That Turned 100 in 2025
In the mid-2020s, a number of political commentators also announced the appearance of a “woke right”, meaning supporters of right-wing views using cancel culture and similar tactics used by left-wing activists to enforce conservative beliefs. During the 2014 Ferguson protests, the phrase stay woke was popularized by Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists seeking to raise awareness about police shootings of African Americans. After being used on Black Twitter, the term woke was increasingly adopted by white people to signal their support for progressive causes. The term became popular with millennials and members of Generation Z. As its use spread beyond the United States, woke was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017. The term woke became increasingly common on Black Twitter, the community of African American users of the social media platform Twitter. André Brock, a professor of black digital studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology, suggested that the term proved popular on Twitter because its brevity suited the platform’s 140-character limit.
As in the United States, the term woke is used by those on the political right wing in Canada to discredit individuals and policies they consider to be overly progressive. During a debate in 2023 on the Law Society of Alberta’s 2020 adoption of a rule which made certain Continuing Professional Development (CPD) training courses on Indigenous Canadian history obligatory, a lawyer from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms wrote an op-ed arguing that the course was a form of “wokeness”. In the 2025 Canada federal election, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre weaponized the term in his campaign, characterizing “social justice advocacy as an authoritarian threat”. The term woke capitalism was coined by writer Ross Douthat for brands that used politically progressive messaging as a substitute for genuine reform. According to The Economist, examples of “woke capitalism” include advertising campaigns designed to appeal to millennials, who often hold more socially liberal views than earlier generations.
According to Charles Pulliam-Moore, the term began crossing over into general internet usage as early as 2015. The phrase stay woke became an Internet meme, with searches for woke on Google surging in 2015. By the mid-20th century, woke had come to mean ‘well-informed’ or ‘aware’, especially in a political or cultural sense. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the earliest such usage to a 1962 New York Times Magazine article titled “If You’re Woke You Dig It” by African-American novelist William Melvin Kelley, describing the appropriation of black slang by white beatniks.
Mohamed Amer Meziane reported that then-education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer, organized a conference at which he argued “woke” ideology “plots against the greatness of a white European civilization” and is therefore an “anti-Republican political religion”. Blanquer established an “anti-woke think tank” in opposition to what is perceived as an export from the English-speaking world. This view also includes a conspiracy theory connecting “wokism” with pre-existing right-wing conspiracy theories of “Islamo-leftism”, suggesting that leftists are manipulated by Islamists to replace European white-Christian civilization with Islam. In this context, “woke” is used pejoratively to describe progressive, anti-colonial, and anti-racist positions that are seen as incompatible with traditional French values. This pejorative sense of woke means “following an intolerant and moralising ideology” according to The Economist.
Doves typically believe that lower rates will stimulate the economy, leading to an increase in employment. While these policies can reduce inflation, they might also slow the economy and raise unemployment, sometimes even causing deflation. Scholars Michael B. McCormack and Althea Legal-Miller argue that the phrase stay woke echoes Martin Luther King Jr.’s exhortation “to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change”.page needed In the 2025 Australian federal election campaign opposition leader Dutton stated that he wanted to rid the schooling and university system of “woke” policies.
While this can be a short-term positive, deflation can often be worse than moderate inflation in the long run. Persistent deflation means that a dollar tomorrow will be worth more than one today, and worth even more in a week or a month. This encourages people to save money and delay big purchases, expecting prices to drop as the dollar’s value increases. A hawk generally favors relatively higher interest rates if they are needed to keep inflation in check. In other words, hawks are less concerned with economic growth and more focused on the potential of recessionary pressure brought to bear by high inflation rates.
Political commentator Jonathan Chait has described paleoconservative commentator Pat Buchanan, who criticized the liberalism of the Obama era in a way that prefigured Trumpism, as the “godfather” of the “woke right”. Linguist John McWhorter writes that semantic broadening of the term “woke” resulted in a shift in its meaning to “a conspiracy-focused and punitive orientation to social change”, regardless of left–right orientation. The term “woke right” has also been used by pro-Israel sources to describe American conservatives who became increasingly critical of Israel during the Gaza war. Beginning in the first presidency of Donald Trump, commentators from the alt-right, religious right, moderate liberals, and libertarians have attacked “woke” ideas and the “woke mind virus”, a phrase popularized by Elon Musk, as existential threats to American society. Trump stated in 2021 that the Biden administration was “destroying” the country “with woke”, and Republican Missouri senator Josh Hawley used the term to promote his upcoming book by saying the “woke mob” was trying to suppress it. Following the shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, the phrase stay woke was used by activists of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement to urge awareness of police abuses.
- For the economically weak, the equality of these minorities would thus become indispensable to the maintenance of this economic system; the minorities would be seen responsible for the losses of this system.
- Florida governor and former presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has frequently used the term, referring to his state as a place “where woke goes to die”.
- The phenomenon le wokisme (sometimes translated ‘wokeism’) has also been used in French politics to criticize anti-racist movements and leftist scholarship, particularly since the 2022 French presidential election.
- During a debate in 2023 on the Law Society of Alberta’s 2020 adoption of a rule which made certain Continuing Professional Development (CPD) training courses on Indigenous Canadian history obligatory, a lawyer from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms wrote an op-ed arguing that the course was a form of “wokeness”.
Are you a words master?
In Switzerland, members of the youth wing of the right-wing populist Swiss People’s Party have criticized Swiss bank UBS for its diversity policies, calling them “woke”. Brazilian federal deputy Kim Kataguiri has accused the government under president Lula da Silva of promoting a “woke agenda” with a proposal to tax streaming services and social media networks while requiring a certain amount of content to come from Brazilian companies with 51% of capital and shareholders belonging to “identity groups”.better source needed In homage, Muldrow wrote stay woke in marker on a T-shirt, which over time became suggestive of engaging in the process of the search for herself (as distinct from, for example, merely personal productivity). While it is not known when being awake was first used as a metaphor for political engagement and activism, one early example in the United States was the paramilitary youth organization the Wide Awakes, which formed in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1860 to support the Republican candidate in the 1860 presidential election, Abraham Lincoln. Local chapters of the group spread rapidly across northern cities in the ensuing months and “triggered massive popular enthusiasm” around the election. The political militancy of the group also alarmed many southerners, who saw in the Wide Awakes confirmation of their fears of northern, Republican political aggression.
Schools
In the United Kingdom, anti-wokeness discourse is driven primarily by Conservative Party politicians and right-wing media outlets. Conservative papers such as The Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail commonly publish articles critical of what they deem to be woke.citation needed The Mail on Sunday publishes an annual “Woke List” criticising public figures for perceived “virtue signalling”.better source needed The right-wing television channel GB News was proclaimed at its founding to be explicitly anti-woke. Its onetime chairman Andrew Neil has presented a regular segment on the channel entitled “Wokewatch”, which aims to be a counter-voice to “woke what does hawkish mean warriors”.
Word History
These would become mascots not only of the companies using them, but of the unchallenged neoliberal economic system with its socially unjust order itself. For the economically weak, the equality of these minorities would thus become indispensable to the maintenance of this economic system; the minorities would be seen responsible for the losses of this system. By 2025, conservative commentators such as Rod Dreher and James A. Lindsay had begun using the term “woke right” to characterize far-right beliefs as a mirror of the far left.
The support among the Wide Awakes for abolition, as well as the participation of a number of black men in a Wide Awakes parade in Massachusetts, likely contributed to such anxiety. And since the somewhat pacifist Komeito Party refused to serve under her in a coalition government, she’s been able to bring a hawkish smaller party into the governing coalition. In contrast, low interest rates entice consumers into taking out loans for cars, houses, and other goods.
