Woke Is For Life, Not Just For Christmas

I was doom-scrolling one evening, as one often does, and somehow ended up in the trenches of "anti-woke" backlash against Boots' Christmas advert. I clicked on the search bar which said, "Boots advert controversy,'" and my eyes were instantly assaulted by a gaggle of middle-aged men who had nothing better to do than get on TikTok and complain about an advert being "too woke". They said all the expected things: "Ugh, they've done it again, Boots has gone woke." "Can't anything just be traditional?" "Why is everything so political these days?" So, what was the advert which caused so much uproar in this sad corner of the internet? Take a look.

As you can see, this far-left, radically extreme, hyper-woke advert was... a black woman portraying Mrs. Claus, and Mrs. Claus was the one making Christmas happen. She was choosing gifts, wrapping presents, and making the place sparkle with that touch of corporate Christmas magic we had been missing for eleven months (I say sarcastically). Then... Santa gets ready to deliver the gifts after spending all of Christmas Eve snoozing, happily letting Mrs. Claus run the show. Now... this advert touches on another subject I find interesting: the undue burden of domestic labour placed on women and how men benefit from and exploit that labour, which is just seen as a "woman's role". Was it so offensive to suggest that the magic of Christmas does not come from the magical man at the North Pole who rides a flying sleigh drawn by reindeer and delivers presents to the children of the world? Let's acknowledge the women in our lives who make Christmas sparkle. Whether that is buying gifts, preparing food, putting up decorations, or baking cookies. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the women in our lives for making Christmases magical - and that's all the advert was trying to say! Nothing radical, nothing scary, nothing affronting or offensive - just a basic fact of Christmas. Moreover, these anti-woke trolls took exception to the fact that drag queens and non-binary people were featured in the advert. So, of course, it got branded "woke". The worst thing anyone or anything can be these days... So today, let's focus on "woke".

Falling down this reactionary TikTok rabbit hole of anti-woke which was not a fun place to be at all) made me realise that Christmas is the perfect time to discuss the politics of "woke." I would segment the politics of "woke" into three parts: corporate, anti-woke Conservative backlash, and authentic. When you begin digging, what seems like a frivolous, cringey word is more complex than it seems. The word has been brutalised and mutilated beyond recognition. So today, I want to bring "woke" back into the conversation in its truest, richest sense, and demonstrate why woke is not just for Christmas, but for life.

An early source of "woke" is Marcus Garvey, a proto-black consciousness, anti-colonial Jamaican philosopher, who in 1923 exhorted Africans to "work towards the one glorious end of a free, redeemed and mighty nation." Garvey's call to action was encapsulated in the stirring words, "Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!" In this context, "wokeness" concerns being awake to radical socio-political change in pursuit of liberation. Rooted in African American Vernacular English, throughout the 20th Century, "woke" retained the core idea of becoming both alert and aware of systemic racism and injustice. Take a look at this quote from Martin Luther King, which is steeped in the imagery of "woke."

"One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change."

Martin Luther King Jr

Here, King underscores the importance of staying awake when seeking and witnessing major social change. Although a very quick summary covering the inception of the political notion of "wokeness," I want to emphasise how its conceptual roots are found in anti-racist liberation movements. Most recently, this manifestation of "woke" became part of the cultural zeitgeist through the Black Lives Matter movement following the murder of Michael Brown at the hands of the police in 2014. The term became a call to action within the BLM movement, with activists using it to encourage awareness and activism against systemic, institutionalised racism. The phrase "stay woke" became a rallying cry to stay alert and informed about the persistent social injustices facing black people. This is "woke" in its core sense.

The notion of "woke" also surfaces in literature. Take Margaret Atwood's 1985 dystopia, The Handmaid's Tale. The book centres around the life of "Offred", a handmaid within the totalitarian theocracy of "Gilead". The handmaids are women who are deemed to be morally corrupted, such as our protagonist, Offred, who was an adulteress in the "time before". Handmaids are fertile women who are raped by Commanders and their barren wives to then bear children for the regime. In this theocracy, women cannot read, they are beaten, maimed, abused, and separated from their children. Atwood deliberately based the book entirely on situations and oppressions that have occurred at some point in human history. Set in the context of ecological disaster and a fertility crisis, in this passage, Offred reflects on how America was able to be taken over to form the new Republic of Gilead.

"Now I'm awake to the world. I was asleep before. That's how we let it happen. When they slaughtered Congress, we didn't wake up. When they blamed terrorists and suspended the constitution, we didn't wake up then, either. Nothing changes instantaneously. In a gradually heating bathtub, you'd be boiled to death before you knew it."

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Every time I revisit The Handmaid's Tale (whether the book or the TV adaptation), I always find this line chilling. The prescience of this quote cannot be understated. Look at what is happening in America right now. Right-wing extremists attempted a coup at the Capitol building, which resulted in fatalities and left congresspeople fearing for their lives. Governments are blaming "terrorists", immigrants, trans people, gay people, and Communists for the social ills afflicting America. Most recently, Trump threatened to temporarily suspend the Constitution to bring a level of "calm" amid chaos. Wake up. Atwood's words should be ringing more true than ever before. If this wasn't frightening enough, The Handmaid's Tale is now one of the most banned books in the USA. For example, in 2023, the Madison Country School board in Virginia banned the novel for containing "sexually explicit" material. Those who wish to see the book removed from shelves argue that it must be banned because it contains violence, profanity, depictions of hanging bodies of dissidents, and mentions of suicide. This is, of course, grim content matter, but it is reflective of our collective human history. If you ask me, these are all excuses for the actual truth, which is that Conservatives don't want teens to read this book because it is so prescient and on-the-nose. Banning Atwood is an act of censorship that we must awaken to.

That was a very brief overview of the core principles of "woke" and how fundamentally the theory is about being aware of the injustices in the world and being stirred to change them. These are the roots, so how have we arrived at the point where the term "woke" is used so pejoratively, levied with such vitriol? Let's now examine what I would term "corporate woke".

Here are shirts produced by fast fashion companies: Amazon and Shein. To me, this is the epitome of a phenomenon known as "purplewashing." Purplewashing is a marketing tactic deployed by companies which involves using feminist issues to promote themselves. Meanwhile, these companies ignore or undermine these same feminist issues in other contexts. It is an image-promoting technique, a cynical way to appeal to people's progressive political beliefs and use them to boost their profits. So, take in the absurdity of these t-shirts being created and promoted by Amazon and Shein.Shein profits off the cheap labour of predominantly poor women in developing countries, and Amazon is widely known for mistreating their employees, 43.2% of which are female. It is not feminist or "woke" to plaster an empowering slogan across your chest which only exists because of the exploitation of poor women whose lives are nightmarish. This phenomenon is what I would term "corporate woke", and it is not limited to feminist issues. Every June, numerous companies will happily cover their products in rainbows in support of Pride month. Yet, these same companies do not do anything to help the LGBTQ+ community. This version of "woke" is nothing but a hollowed-out, cold-hearted marketing scheme devised to boost profits for companies which are exploiting these marginalised groups for their selfish interests. This version of "woke" is not substantive because it cannot challenge systemic oppression and has a diminished connection to a political agenda commensurate with its original meaning. As an illustration of "woke" in the 21st Century, it demonstrates how far this manifestation has diverged from the original concept.

Right-wingers froth at the mouth with rage at this corporate manifestation of "woke." They subsequently turn the term "woke" into a toxic pejorative. "Woke" is now a catch-all euphemism for all reactionaries against any vaguely progressive ideas. In this way, the Right has found a mechanism for dismissing anything progressive without actually engaging with the principles at the core of these social movements. For example, Ron de Santis (the Republican Governor of Florida) simplistically states, "We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die." Similarly, he is absurdly able to present his "Stop Woke Act" as preventing students from feeling "guilt, anguish, or any form of psychological distress" due to their gender, race or national origin. The real intent of the bill is to block the work of effective social movements, such as the 1619 Project, teaching a critically evaluative approach to slavery. This constitutes distraction and obfuscation.

If it weren't so terrifying, the extreme "anti-woke" positions of these right-wing ghouls would be hilarious. They don't want to engage with the true versions of woke because, ultimately, they are opposed to fundamental societal changes. If MLK argued that the moral arc of the universe always bends towards justice, you best believe there will inevitably be those who plant their feet firmly in the past and pull that arc with all their might back towards injustice, back towards a time where they can hold onto all their privileges and supremacies. This is what "anti-woke" backlash essentially is. These are people deeply afraid of what the future could be. Instead of facing up to their fears and leaning into the social revolutions we are witnessing, they bury their heads in the sand and cry "woke" to any vaguely progressive ideas whilst being hellbent on re-establishing the past. They are living in a reality that no longer exists and are too scared and bitter to adapt to the reality being formed. This is not new. Martin Luther King was assassinated for being too radical, his anti-imperial stance on the Vietnam War ensured his murder. Even if these people are absurd, they are dangerous and cause material harm to many groups of people: women, trans people, LGBTQ people, and anti-racists.

Christmas is a time that means different things to different people. To some, it is a time for family, love, and comfort. For others, it means loneliness, loss, and longing. So, do not capitulate to what Conservatives would have you believe "woke" is. Nor to the corporate, co-opted, hollowed-out "woke" of rainbow packaging, purplewashing, and greenwashing. I implore you to ditch the New Year's resolutions of fad diets, habit stacking, and life hacks to maximise productivity. Instead, be truly and proudly "woke". Woke to the genocide in Gaza. Woke to systemic and systematic violence against women. Woke to the skyrocketing trans suicide rate. Woke to persistent racial injustices. Woke to the world's wealth being hoarded by a handful of people. Woke to the climate crisis. Woke to the poverty and suffering of millions. Because to be woke is to be aware, and to be aware is to be empowered to transform the world for the better. And who knows, maybe when the lights go up next year, the carolers start singing and the [presumably "woke"] adverts are rolled out, we will be living in a renewed, more just, more fair reality where everyone can feel the calm and comfort of Christmas and a sense of hope and optimism for the year ahead.