AOC and James Carville just got into a spat over the word. But what does it actually mean?
It’s mostly people who don’t understand the original connotation of “woke” who still say woke. They can have it. Whether we’re talking about “critical race theory” from Black scholars, “identity politics” from Black feminists, or “woke” from Black slang, terms indigenous to our way of thinking or advocating get co-opted and distorted beyond recognition in mainstream society.
Malaika Jabali is the senior news and politics editor at Essence Magazine
Laura Kipnis is a writer. Her new book, Love in the Time of Contagion: A Diagnosis, will be out in February
Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. Her most recent books are Recollections of My Nonexistence and Orwell’s Roses
Bhaskar Sunkara is the editor of Jacobin and a Guardian US columnist
