Jamey explores the origins, evolution, and current usage of the word woke in American culture. He starts with a reflection on a 2021 rally where former President Donald Trump weaponized woke as an insult, signifying a shift in how the term is used in the political mainstream. Jamey traces the word’s roots back to African American vernacular English of the 1930s, where woke originally signified being aware of social injustices, especially those impacting Black communities, and was passed down as a call for vigilance and action during the civil rights era.

He also discusses the appropriation and politicization of woke, especially in the 2010s and 2020s, as it became both a compliment and an insult across different groups. Jamey also highlights the contemporary split in its perception—while some continue to see woke as a positive term linked to awareness and education on social injustices, others have adopted it as a derogatory label for progressive beliefs.

To learn more or connect with Jamey, visit: www.equity-at-work.com.

I'm Jamey Applegate, Senior Director of DEI at EquityAtWork, and this is your DEI minute, your go to podcast for leaders looking to navigate the ever evolving landscape of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. Whether you're just starting out with DEI or looking to sustain your long term successes, each episode will provide you with the actions you can take to move DEI forward at your organization, all in 15 minutes or less. Join us every other week as we break through the noise and help you do DEI right. Let's get to it.

Before we get started. This is Michelle Pfefferman and I'm really excited to let you know that my new book Do DEI Write is now available. This is your guide to the Equity at Work Maturity Model, which shows leaders how to make DEI part of every day and drive great results. You can get your copy through the link in the show notes or wherever books are sold.

Back in 2021, after Joe Biden had defeated Donald Trump and become president, I saw a clip from a rally that Trump held in Alabama and he was going on a tear about things being woke. He said, you know what woke means? It means you're a loser. A few lines later, he said, everything woke turns to shit. Okay, it's true. Look at what's happening. After a little bit of a tangent about the U.S. women's National Soccer team, he veered back to talking about woke. Again.

He said, but it's true about woke. You just take a look. Everything goes bad. It's really, it's a shortcut to losing everything you have. They want to get rid of our great heroes and heroines. They want to get rid of our history, our culture. I had never heard woke be used as an insult before that, or at least I hadn't internalized that it was being used as an insult. I'd always thought of being woke as being progressive and aware of various kinds of injustices, particularly those affecting black people and communities.

At times I thought it was also being used as maybe a little bit of an in group joke among liberals and progressives, a way to rib someone who held the same core beliefs as you, but maybe was a little more dramatic or over the top with the performance of their beliefs. I think of it as, you know, the kind of person who might require a land acknowledgement and ask everyone to introduce themselves with their names and pronouns. A person who would chide people about the term you guys for not being inclusive of people who aren't men. But here it was being used in a derogatory manner, something that has become Increasingly common, especially on the political right. I've seen it used to describe protesters in Minneapolis and across the country, to describe generals in the military, to describe politicians, and to describe all manner of progressive individuals and causes. And also just as a smear about people who are not political in any way, but who the right wants to demonize. In that 2021 rally that Trump was leading, it was being used by a man who stands against anything remotely politically progressive. But I was so curious.

I was like, when did it become a slur? Seeing the term woke used as an insult, it made me curious. Where did woke come from? How did it evolve over time? And is it still being used in a positive way? I don't hear it as much. Or has it been fully co opted by conservatives to insult progressive causes and ideas or just things they don't like? So I did some research and we're gonna dive into the phrase woke and where it comes from and how it's being used now. Woke comes from African American vernacular English and has been around since at least the 1930s, when black communities used it to refer to someone who was aware of social, political, and racial realities in the United States. At that time, the term stay woke was commonly used to remind people to be vigilant in the face of racial injustices and violence. It was meant as an inside reference, a way to communicate a warning in an intimate, in group manner. But woke evolved with the times. During the civil rights era, it was used to describe people who were aware of the racism, police violence, and systemic inequalities affecting black communities.

Stay woke was a supportive warning. It continued to be used and then became more prominent in the 2000 and tens, especially as our society as a whole began to understand how widespread the epidemic of police killings of black Americans was. The 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin and the 2013 acquittal of his killer, George Zimmerman sparked the Black Lives matter movement. The 2014 police killings of Michael Brown and the photo of his body lying in the street for hours and of Eric Garner and the video where you can hear him saying, I can't breathe, raised our social awareness of police violence against black communities. And it continued through 2020. In the black Lives Matter protest that erupted after the police killings of so many individuals, including Breonna Taylor in Louisville and George Floyd in Minneapolis, throughout the 2010s and early 2020s, while the primary focus of woke was was awareness of the harm being done to black people in communities, its definition broadened to focus on larger issues of systemic racism, not just against black communities but against any minority group and structural inequities that have harmed marginalized communities. At the same time, backlash to WOKE and what it was perceived to represent was growing, especially among more conservative communities. Thus the 2021 speech where I watched Trump say that WOKE meant everything going badly.

I do not think Trump originated the movement against woke, but I do think he recognized the undercurrents of anger that coalesced around the underlying goals of folks who were WOKE and who supported the Black Lives Matter movement, and that Trump understood the power that woke had to be a galvanizing force for his movement. By 2023, use of the word woke was pretty evenly split as a complementary and as an insult. According to an IPSIS poll From that year, 40% of all Americans saw WOKE as an Insult, while only 32% of Americans saw it as a compliment and politically, 60% of Republicans viewed it as an insult, only 25% of Democrats viewed it negatively and 46% of Democrats viewed it as a compliment versus only 14% of Republicans who viewed it positively. It makes it seem like the effort to co opt the phrase woke and make it something negative is working, but it's actually not so simple. That same poll found that 56% of all respondents viewed woke as meaning informed, educated on and aware of social injustices. And it was more pronounced by different age groups. 64% of young people aged 18 to 34 and 58% of people aged 35 to 49 believed that it meant informed, educated on and aware of social injustices. For folks 50 to 64 dips to 47%, but then it rebounds among people age 65 plus to 52%.

So what this shows is that the effort to make WOKE an insult is working, has worked, but it hasn't completely ended its use as a compliment. To sum up and close out, WOKE was born out of African American vernacular English and was focused on being aware of social inequities, particularly those impacting the black community. While it has retained that meaning, it has expanded to focus on larger racial, political and social inequities that negatively impact marginalized communities. And as of right now in 2026, it is currently being used in two ways. The original use still exists, and it is affirming and positive. It is all about paying attention to the perspectives of and experiences of marginalized people and communities. It's about being aware of social injustices and recognizing systemic issues related to race, gender, class, sexuality and power dynamics. And it's about committing to taking action to address social inequities but it is also being used as an insult.

It can be a very generalized complaint to identify anything as just bad, much like how President Trump uses it. It can also be used as a catch all for concerns about progressive or liberal ideologies, including that it is performative, excessive overreaching and moralizing. And it can be used as a general stand in for conservative taboos like gender, ideology, the concept of racial disparities, and socialism. One thing I think about with that Ipsos poll is that while 56% of all respondents viewed WOKE as meaning informed, educated on and aware of social injustices, it didn't dive into whether people think that we should be informed, educated on and aware of social injustices, or if that's even a good thing. I think that there is a lot more to to be done to understand how people are thinking about social injustices and whether or not they are something that we should actually be concerned about. But as you go into the workplace now, you know, be aware of how this word is being used both as a compliment and as an insult. I would caution anyone using it as an insult to be aware that it has a long and positive history for so many marginalized groups in this country, and even a well intentioned joke could have a significant negative impact on folks who find comfort in connecting with others who are aware of and committed to addressing the myriad social injustices that exist in our society. So if you want to use woke, I would just be very aware of what it means and the impact it can have.

And if you're using it as an insult, think about that history before you use it. Thanks so much. That's a wrap. I'm Jamie Applegate and that's your DEI minute for today. Thank you for listening. Please be sure to follow us wherever you listen to podcasts and don't forget to leave us a review. If you ever have questions, please visit our website or send us an email. You can also sign up for our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram.

Links to everything can be found in the episode Notes this this episode was edited and produced by podcro with podcast art by me, Jamie AP.