June 8, 2026

If someone judgmentally accuses you of being “woke “...as if that is a negative thing, borrow an expression  from classic Southern Belles and say, “Bless your heart! THANK you!”  And then go on about your business. You don't have to take possession of their disparagement.

You will want to do this because, first of all, you can be sure that the judgment has political roots and is meant to be mocking. Secondly, you have to understand where the term originally comes from. Then you also have to understand that by dictionary definition, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being woke ...also known as awakened, aroused, fully alive and/or aware. In fact, it’s those of us who are essentially asleep that are the problem. Life’s deck is stacked in favor of the privileged few, so of course, many of them don’t want the general populace to recognize this.  The reason is because our wakefulness focuses more light in the shadows where they operate, and calls for change by folks with their eyes open will be too loud for them to ignore.

For the record, the term "woke" originates in African American  culture in the early 20th century and has long been a slang term for being attentive to racial prejudice and systemic discrimination. In particular, the concept of staying awake to social realities has been ascribed to activist Marcus Garvey and can also be found in the music of blues artist Huddie Ledbetter (a.k.a. "Lead Belly"), who advised listeners to "stay woke" in terms of racial injustice in a 1938 song he recorded about the Scottsboro Boys.  But let me not digress.

If your accuser knows this history, that immediately tells you a lot about their motives in terms of the racial component. If they DON’T know this (which is very likely), then they've just borrowed a bastardization of the term from some opinion leader, which is currently taken by certain segments of society to mean the same thing as “liberal,” or “progressive” or any number of other terms that reflect a view that everybody matters and everybody should be included. 

In America, that means living up to our ideals... which you will recall from your civics class (assuming you had one) are something along the lines of the self-evident truths that all are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights including unencumbered access to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” That's putting it simply.

Of course, these ideals are not just for Americans. But in some of our country’s original documentation, we have done a very good job of expressing the ideals that we should be living up to. I also took the liberty of paraphrasing, here, because the original language (though it was never explicitly said) was really for ONLY men ...and only certain (quite privileged) men at that. Everybody else was second class or lower. This includes every woman that may be reading this right now. And believe me, these same men want to take us back there post haste.

The powers-that-be are desperately working on constructing or reconstructing society to expand on the disparity between “haves” and “have nots” and they are succeeding mightily ... because not enough of us are AWAKENED and making collective choices (like voting) to take back the progress we were making for a while in shaping a world that works for everyone.

I always say, “Life is choices.”  And I promise you one of MY primary choices is to not let those determined to pull the wool over our eyes succeed without opposition.

I hope you will join me in being woke enough to do what you can in the same direction.  Oh ... and if you are a member of the formal or informal, conscious or subconscious “Woke ID” Police force, “Bless your heart! THANK you!”