There are plenty of articles out there about the origins of “woke” and how it went from a call-to-action to a pejorative label. This article is good, short, and cites several of the other sources that I looked at when researching the history as well: https://foreignfocus.substack.com/p/woke-origins-of-the-term-and-how

Yawn 🥱

Woke is short for being awoke, or awake. So those that aren’t awake on the issues, are asleep. Ironic that a movement that branded their public enemy #1 as Sleepy Joe, is “anti-woke” – sleeping themselves – both figuratively and literally.

Being anti-woke is actually an admission of ignorance. It means you don’t have all of the facts on an issue.

It’s not binary ☯️

I don’t think there are woke and un-woke people in this world. Someone can be woke to a subject while being completely ignorant of another. Not everyone can be woke about everything, the world is just too complex. But I like that there are people out there that are woke about civil rights, while others are woke about animal cruelty. Someone can be woke about climate change, and someone else can be woke about urban design.

Be woke about your thing

So can we stop with weaponization of the word? Go ahead and be woke on the thing you hold dear. If you’re given a chance to educate someone else, go for it, but remember that it’s impossible to know everything about everything. You can evangelize a little, but it must be based in fact, and backed with science. If they’re just beliefs, you’re just evangelizing yet another religion. There are way too many goddamn opinions floating around today masquerading as facts.