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The Gray Area with Sean Illing

The contradictions of wokeness

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Politics, News, News Commentary, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.511.1K Ratings

🗓️ 13 April 2026

⏱️ 55 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What does it mean to be “woke”? It's become a catch-all term to smear or dismiss anything that has any vague association with progressive politics. So anytime you venture into an argument about “wokeness,” it becomes hopelessly entangled in a broader cultural battle. Today’s guest, journalist and professor Musa al-Gharbi, helps us untangle “wokeness” from its fraught political context. The author of the book, We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite, al-Gharbi discusses what effects the movement is and isn’t having on our society. This episode originally aired in November 2024. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling)  Guest: Musa al-Gharbi (@Musa_alGharbi) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show.  And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:55.8

Hey, it's Sean. Today we're running one of my favorite episodes. It's with Musa Al Garby. He's a professor at Stony Brook University and the author of We Have Never Been Woke. The book, Like the Convers conversation, isn't really about the ideology of

1:13.2

wokeness, whatever that is. It's more about the language and the symbols around the movement

1:19.1

and how elites have co-opted them, which, as you say, this is much more than a superficial

1:25.7

critique of woke politics. Anyway, it's terrific, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

1:31.3

There are several terms in our political vocabulary that have been stretched to the point of incoherence.

1:40.3

Marxist and Orwellian spring immediately to mind. But at this moment, I'm not sure any term can

1:48.9

compete with woke. Whether you're on the left or the right, whether you're pro or anti-woke,

1:58.7

or even if you're not especially political and don't follow this stuff.

2:02.7

Woke is a word you simply cannot escape. The problem is that woke has become a catch-all term,

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