Had been Black People Ever Woke, Answered

There’s a query haunting Black folks within the Trump period like a soulless apparition in a low lease horror film. Had been we each actually woke? Or did we merely suppose we had been as a result of just a few white folks had been being attentive to us?

You could be stunned to study this, however the time period ‘woke’ have been round for a minute. Marcus Garvey, the founding father of the Common Negro Enchancment Affiliation, was one of many first to make use of a spinoff of the time period when he wrote “Get up Ethiopia! Get up Africa!” Bluesman Lead Stomach was the primary to place it on wax when he mentioned, “keep woke” on his Nineteen Thirties track “Scottsboro Boys, ” that talks about 9 black youngsters who had been falsely accused of raping two white ladies. He says on the finish of the track, “I counsel all people, be a bit of cautious after they go alongside by [Scottsboro] greatest keep woke, preserve their eyes open.”

So, the phrase has been round some time, but it surely exploded in use after the Ferguson police killed Michael Brown in 2014. The phrase was utilized by activists to encourage Black folks to concentrate to how the police had been treating us. Then, not lengthy after that, the that means of the phrases had been expanded to imply a basic political and social consciousness…and that is the place the query requested earlier than comes into view. Had been we each actually conscious? The present state of the world says no.

As I acknowledged earlier than, President Donald Trump is solely the results of a a long time lengthy plan of the far proper. The pollical polarization we now see has  been a very long time coming.  And the reducing of the federal workforce? Republicans have all the time mentioned they wished that…this administration was simply the primary to attempt to do it. However the place Black people have failed probably the most has been ignoring the clear indicators that there are a lot of white individuals who simply need to damage us in each means doable

The race baiting we see President Trump and his followers partaking in goes again to no less than 1981.In that yr, one among President Ronald Reagon’s political strategists was caught saying the quiet half out loud when he explicitly acknowledged he was attempting to create a political local weather the place “blacks get damage worse than whites.”

Then, proper beneath our noses, white nationalists had been ditching their KKK robes and neo-Nazi buzzcuts for fits and levels from one of the best faculties within the nation. We as soon as thought we might spot a racist as a result of they’d discuss with a rustic accent and have a accomplice flag on the entrance of their Ford F150. We weren’t prepared when extra articulate and higher dressed racists began exhibiting up on Fox Information and Breitbart.

The police had been all the time killing or abusing us. Each heard of Phillip Pannell? What about Arthur McDuffie? And even Annette Inexperienced? No? These are all names we must always have recognized. However most didn’t. Why? As a result of we weren’t paying consideration. We weren’t woke.

What we’re seeing now isn’t a shocking growth. There have been warning indicators that there could be a whitelash to President Barack Obama. There have been a large number of students and activists imploring Black folks to concentrate to issues taking place to our group.

We might have ready for what we’re seeing immediately. As an alternative, we weren’t paying consideration. We had been so centered on our particular person upward mobility that we did not see what was taking place throughout us.

Had been we ever actually woke? The reply is straightforward. No.