According to author Bijan C. Bayne, the word “woke” finds its roots in Black nationalism, and it originally meant “recognizing racial subjugation committed by Whites.” But the right has distorted the original meaning of the word, transforming it into an anti-Black dog-whistle and catch-all term for progressive ideas and, more recently, corporations that they don’t like. In contemporary right-wing media logic, nearly everything can be traced back to “wokeness.” If a corporation fails, like the recent Silicon Valley Bank collapse, it’s because it was a “woke” company. On the other hand, if a project succeeds, like Top Gun Maverick, it’s because “they didn’t wokeify it.”Despite reflexively returning to “wokeness” and “anti-wokeness” as the organizing principle of all aspects of modern culture, right-wing media seemingly can’t agree on what the word even means. From a “catch-all term” that describes “the most insane things,” to “racism in and of itself,” here are just a few of the many disparate attempts by right-wing media at defining the word “woke” as they use it:

Source: Fox News March 17, 2023 02:39 UTC