I hate the word “woke.” Not the idea behind it. Not the belief that people should care about each other. Not the conversations about fairness, representation, or basic human decency. No. I hate the word.
Because the moment someone spits it out like an insult, something in me recoils. A tiny internal gag. Like my brain is trying to reject the sheer laziness of it.
The way it gets tossed around, like it’s some devastating rhetorical uppercut, is absurd. At first, I genuinely thought it was just a made‑up term. A catch‑all for “things that make me uncomfortable but I don’t want to examine why.”
Because what is “woke,” really?
Nothing.
It’s not a category.
It’s not a personality trait.
It’s not a political ideology.
It’s a vibe. A shrug. A placeholder for thoughts someone doesn’t want to say out loud.
And then it hit me.
There is one group that is truly, undeniably “woke.”
Ironically, it’s the very people who use the word like a slur.
They’re the ones tiptoeing around what they actually mean. They’re the ones choosing a vague, coded word so they don’t have to own their discomfort.
When a Black actor gets cast and someone mutters, “Ugh, that’s so woke,” they’re not critiquing the film. They’re dodging the truth of their own bias.
When a same‑sex couple appears in a TV show and someone groans, “Here we go, woke again,” they’re not analysing storytelling. They’re avoiding admitting that equality unsettles them.
This isn’t bold.
This isn’t rebellious.
This isn’t “telling it like it is.”
It’s the opposite.
It’s careful.
Coded.
Indirect.
It’s the rhetorical equivalent of whispering behind your hand.
The irony is a poetic twist. The people who rail against “wokeness” with the loudest fury are often the ones clinging hardest to the tactics of authoritarian thinking, fear‑mongering, scapegoating, flattening nuance, turning empathy into a threat.
They’re not fighting for freedom.
They’re policing it.
They’re not resisting some imaginary cultural takeover.
They’re enforcing their own.
They’re not calling out a movement.
They’re hiding behind a buzzword.
And that’s the real irony.
The people screaming “woke” like it’s a curse word aren’t exposing anyone else. They’re exposing themselves.