The enemy is now "awake"

How being aware of social issues became a source of jokes

The conservative newspaper The Daily Mail told its readers on June 19 that "British workers are becoming woke" because a study showed that at least three-quarters of the workforce was talking to each other about how they felt and no longer ate fried breakfasts (two-quarters).

It shows how flexible this Englishism has become. In the past, it just meant being aware of inequality and other forms of social injustice, especially those related to racism.

So, it came to Spain between 2016 and 2017, after the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States brought it back to life in 2011.

It was a word for the awareness of social issues that would come to define our era.

But it also had the flaw of expressing a feeling rather than an ideology. It didn't give a clear definition, so it could be made fun of.

If anyone on the Spanish left ever used that word, it must have been for a short time.

Right-wingers use the word "woke" to lump all of their enemies into one group, which they call "the tyranny of the woke"

That is, a mix of Instagram activists and Twitter mobs going crazy.

Little people, the glass generation, were hurt.

A worker with feelings or a prince with feelings.

Like "politically correct" or "progre," "woke" has become an insult.

"The argument goes like this: "Because the left cares about identities and minorities, but not about workers, workers vote for the right because the left doesn't care about them."

First of all, it's based on a false conflict.

Also, identity movements and social fights have always gone hand in hand.

Just think back to suffrage and abolition ".

Also, the way that "woke culture" has changed over time may have made the term less meaningful.

"Someone who is woke now is someone who uses the idea of progressive politics to their own advantage," says Luca Lijtmaer, author of the book Ofendiditos: On the Criminalization of Protest (Anagrama).

"Woke brands are those that use the slogans of movements and demands, like LGTBI or Pride, for their own gain."

Does being awake today really mean anything?

According to how the word is usually used today, nothing.

It might not matter.

In 1961, the African-American author James Baldwin said, "To be a Negro in this country and to have a modicum of consciousness is to feel anger almost all the time."

You could have been "woke" before the phrase even came into existence, and barring any surprises, you probably still have the potential to be "woke" when it does.