James Haywood Rolling Jr
1 min readJun 10, 2023

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I do appreciate you stopping by to engage and leave a comment. You are correct that "stay woke" has always been a warning of imminent threat. That makes sense because the term was born within a community that was imminently being threatened at any given time. Black lives that mattered were being lost every day in some part of the United States, typically without any recourse or protection--sometimes at the hands of local sheriffs and law enforcement. Sometimes because one's neighbors decided local Blacks needed to be put "in their place." So I would caution you that the meaning of the word "woke" is the same as it has always been. Moreover, it's a term that has always been inward-directed, shared with others who NEEDED to be on alert and to stay crystal clear aware for the sake of their own safety and of those they love. Both historically and contextually, "woke" has never been an epithet hurled at others. It doesn't make sense used that way. The only thing that's changed in the last several years is that politicians on the right needed a new bogeyman for their latest culture war to try to turn out the vote. President Obama isn't around anymore, so "woke" was emptied of its actual meaning and deliberately, desperately misinterpreted by some very unoriginal thinkers. Whoever told you that "stay woke" = "Hate Whitey" deserves never to be listened to ever again for perpetrating a mistranslation so egregious that I actually laughed out loud.

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James Haywood Rolling Jr
James Haywood Rolling Jr

Written by James Haywood Rolling Jr

Creativity Educator | Artist | Antiracist | Counter-narrative Crusader | Rebel with a Cause | Author, “Growing Up Ugly” available @ https://tinyurl.com/4zs6de28

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