Honoring Dr. King: “Remaining Awake” instead of Being Woke
On March 31, 1968, Dr. King addressed the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., in a sermon known as "Remaining Awake in a Great Revolution":
On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right? There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.
These days, it feels as though the call for social awareness is not rooted in questions of right and wrong; rather, it stems from trends of popularity and cool culture, much like leggings, Taylor Swift, or cronuts. When you press "like" on a post about Black Lives Matter, you probably feel like you've accomplished something as though that simple click could change the world. I meet many people that think their actions on social media constitute tangible action, and somehow, that hollow motion equals impact. Clicking the "like" or "sad" emoji on your social media is expedient, politic, and popular, but is it right? What if, instead of just pressing like on the causes you care about, you put your physicality where your finger is.
What if, instead of sitting and judging others from your little screen, you volunteered for the cause? What if you wrote for the cause? What if you host an event to fundraise for the cause? What if you share the cause with others through community organizing? What if you stood up for the person of color when you witness racism, or what if you talked to your boss about equal pay for your female counterpart when you're up for a raise for doing the same exact work? What if you used your voice, and your courage, to do more than just click? We keep clicking in what appears to be a fear of authentic connection.
The truth is that clicking is not action. While clicking may contribute to whether an event or concept is trending in popularity, it does nothing to show the world your commitment to the cause. Practically Freudian, we are all happy to diagnose and critique the problems of the world without contributing real solutions for change. Like Dr. King said, actions based solely on notions of expediency, politics, and popularity miss the essential question of whether the action is right, an inquiry rooted in an examination of one's conscience, their own moral fortitude to stand up, instead of staying seated and complaining in complacency. This act is called being "woke."
Urban Dictionary offers several options for defining the term woke, but the top definition defines "woke" as "the act of being very pretentious about how much you care about a social issue." Another Urban Dictionary definition defines woke as: "A word currently used to describe "consciousness" and being aware of the truth behind things "the man" doesn't want you to know i.e. classism, racism, and any other social injustices. The term comes from a genuine place, but I humbly submit that, as a result of its overuse, the term is beginning to lack meaning. I hear some people saying that they are “woke,” but their words are not reflected in their actions. These people are guilty of ignoring the advantages of their privilege, of becoming complacent when progression is needed, failing to stand up for those without a voice. I’m not saying every self-proclaimed woke citizen is insincere, but I am saying that we need to dig deeper in our actions and not hang onto hollow and trendy words if we want to actually normalize diversity and foster equality and inclusion.
For me, as a woman of color, being "woke" is not a trend. Being woke started when I opened my brown eyes at birth, my dark brown eyes set inside of my brown face and my brown body at birth, and saw America for the first time. For me, and for countless others, woke-ness is not a hobby or a cause for me. It is existence. It is irrevocably a part of who I am. For a person of color, sometimes I feel like I’m keeping my tired eyeballs open to make sure I survive in a world full of misunderstandings, misrepresentations, missed kindnesses. To me, acting purposefully, with an aim toward social justice and promoting the normalization of diversity, is how I stay aware of the ways that American society treats different communities differently, how the external world tears down some while uplifting others, and how society often seeks to minimize the personhood of those termed as “Other.”
President Barack Obama commented at the Obama Foundation Summit on October 30, 2019, on woke culture: “I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media, there is this sense sometimes of: ‘The way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people, and that’s enough. Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself, cause, 'Man, you see how woke I was, I called you out.’ That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far. That’s easy to do.” President Obama's remarks were met with some anger from liberals, likely confused how their meaningful Facebook likes and re-tweets could have no actual consequence, and for them, I feel sorry, and for us in a world with those people, I am terrified, by their shortsightedness, by their superficiality, by their refusal to act instead of click. While I am a liberal, I am not offended by these words. In fact, his words give me hope that there is a camp of ideology that sees woke culture as a very real obstacle to real change.
In his 1963 book Strength to Love, Dr. King writes: “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” So many patrons of social media know just enough to be dangerous. They know just enough to cause pain without a basis. They know just the right words and clicks to make another person feel less, feel other-ed, feel like an outsider. This is not activism or actions designed to right wrongs. This is showmanship, empty actions with empty consequences.
In his 1967 speech "Beyond Vietnam," Dr. King foreshadowed a necessary social transition that has yet to occur: "We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing-oriented' society to a 'person-oriented' society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” Sadly, Dr. King, despite your words of caution over 52 years ago, our society remains dangerously still "thing-oriented," and our commitment to materialism over altruism remains forceful and dangerous.
The time has come for us to break with the trendy notion of woke-ness; instead, we should allow the eternal question of what is right to guide our opinions and, more importantly, our actions to right wrongs. Until this distinction with a difference is both acknowledged and manifested, Dr. King's words from decades ago will continue to ring true. Isn't it time for us to actually honor Dr. King's message every single day of the year, instead of just posting his quotes once a year? We can do better, my friends. Stand up for your neighbor, speak truth to power by showing up, instead of clicking blindly, wistfully, and without consequence, and dare to challenge yourself and others to do better.
Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution.
Until later.
Yours in Power -
Priti
References
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” Sermon delivered Mar. 31, 1968, located at: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/publications/knock-midnight-inspiration-great-sermons-reverend-martin-luther-king-jr-10>
Definition of "Woke," Urban Dictionary, located at: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=woke&utm_source=search-action
"Obama on Call Out Culture: That's Not Activism," authored by Emily S. Rueb and Derrick Bryson Taylor, New York Times (October 31, 2019), located at: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/us/politics/obama-woke-cancel-culture.html>
Strength to Love, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., published 1963, available at: https://www.amazon.com/Strength-Love-Martin-Luther-King/dp/0800697405
"Beyond Vietnam," Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., delivered on April 4, 1967, available at: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/beyond-vietnam
