Contrary to popular belief, white liberal arts students protesting President Trump through interpretive dance isn’t “woke” — that’s just what The Man wants you to think.
The phrase “stay woke” first entered the public lexicon through the recordings of influential folk and blues singer Lead Belly with his 1938 song “The Scottsboro Boys.” Later, in the current century, the genre-spanning Erykah Badu brought the phrase back into pop culture’s consciousness through her own music, and when the Black Lives Matter movement emerged in the mid-2010s, “stay woke” became a popular warning among BLM supporters that reminded them to be vigilant in spotting racial discrimination.
Then, Childish Gambino released his hit single “Redbone” in 2016, and white college students everywhere stole the word “woke,” over-used it in Tumblr rants and Twitter fights, and turned it into a punchline on the left and curse word on the right that now pejoratively describes anything from rainbow-colored Solo Cups to a video game where the main character is a female.
