What Exactly Does “Woke” Mean, and How Did It Become so Powerful?

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, David, Books, Arts, Storytelling, Wnyc, New, Remnick, News Commentary, Yorker, Politics

4.2 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Many on the right blame “wokeness” for all of America’s ills—everything from deadly mass shootings to lower military recruitment. Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, recently signed a so-called Stop WOKE Act into law, and made the issue the center of his midterm victory speech. In Washington, there has been talk in the House of forming an “anti-woke caucus.” “I think ‘woke’ is a very interesting term right now, because I think it’s an unusable word—although it is used all the time—because it doesn’t actually mean anything,” the linguist and lexicographer Tony Thorne, the author of “Dictionary of Contemporary Slang,” tells David Remnick.

Plus, the poet Robin Coste Lewis talks with the staff writer Hilton Als about how suffering a traumatic brian injury led her to a career in poetry. Her most recent book, “To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness,” was published last month.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNWC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:10.1	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remnick.
0:12.9	For years, many on the right have been lambasting a certain kind of progressive sensibility.
0:19.3	Think about the ubiquity of political correctness in the 1990s, endless fodder for Russia Limbaugh
0:24.8	and talk radio.
0:26.5	But the fewer over PC was nothing compared to the political battle over woke.
0:32.8	You know what woke means?
0:33.8	It means you're a loser.
0:35.6	Everything woke.
0:38.8	Everything woke.
0:42.0	It's true.
0:43.9	Everything woke turns to shit, okay?
0:48.7	There's Donald Trump in 2021 and the next year, Ron DeSantis signed into law a controversial
0:54.4	stop woke act in the state of Florida.
0:57.6	It was absolutely the centerpiece of his recent re-election victory speech.
1:02.7	We fight the woke in the legislature.
1:05.2	We fight the woke in the schools.
1:07.4	We fight the woke in the corporations.
1:09.5	We will never ever surrender to the woke mob.
1:13.3	Florida is where woke goes to die.
1:17.7	In Washington and the House of Representatives, there's talk of forming an anti-woke caucus.
1:23.1	Where do you start on an anti-woke caucus?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WNYC Studios and The New Yorker, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.