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25 Woke This
Article
Examples: What was

Counts As Woke? Last

Expert
By Chris Drew (PhD) / June 30, 2023
Reviewe

d on
June 30,

2023 by
Chris

Drew,

PhD

A woke person is someone who is alert

to racial or gendered prejudice in We cite peer

reviewed
society.
academic
:
 For example, a white person who speaks articles
wherever
up against white privilege might be
possible and
considered woke. reference our
sources at the

end of our
On the political left, it is a positive term. A
articles. All
person who is “awake” (or aware) of systemic
articles are
identity-based hierarchies is seen as a good edited by a PhD
level academic.
ally for the oppressed.
Learn more

about our
On the political right, it is a pejorative term. It academic and

is used to criticize people for seeing injustice editorial

standards.
where it doesn’t exist.

Cite this
Article in

your Essay

(APA Style)

Drew,
C.
(June
30,
2023).
:
 25
Contents Woke
Exampl
Woke Examples – Left vs Right es:
What
Perspectives Counts
as
1. The Left’s Perspective Woke?.
Helpful
Profess
2. The Right’s Perspective or.
https://
Woke Capitalism Examples helpfulp
rofesso
Nike and Colin Kaepernick r.com/w
oke-
Pepsi and Kylie Jenner exampl
es/
Pinterest

History of Wokeism

Arguments For and Against Wokeism

Conclusion
Search for a

Study Guide
Woke Examples – Search
Left Vs Right
Perspectives
Ready to
1. The Left’s Perspective
Write your
Black Lives Matter – Supporting the
:
 Black Lives Matter movement Essay? I'll
because you believe that it’s important Help you

to highlight the fact that black people get

continue to be mistreated in society. Started:
Women in Power – A man who

believes that more women in positions My 5

of power can help create a better Paragraph

society for everyone. Intro

Pride Flags – A coffee shop that has Method

a rebooted pride flag on the front door How to Start

to show that LGBTQI people are your Essay

welcome in their shop. How to

Safe Spaces – Companies with Paraphrase
designated safe spaces for vulnerable Like a Pro
populations where they can feel My 5 C's
comfortable and discuss issues Conclusions
affecting them. Method
Gender Neutral Bathrooms –
How to Edit
Libraries that have gender-neutral
your Essay
bathrooms so people who are gender
for 13%
non-conforming can use the bathroom
Higher
:
 comfortably. Grades

Pronoun Badges – A company that How to

forces its employees to wear pronoun Overcome
badges (he/him, they/them, she/her) in Study
order to be inclusive of trans people. Procrastinat
Affirmative Action – A company that ion
chooses to promote upcoming job
openings to people of color and

women in order to make sure their

workforce more accurately reflects

broader society.
Me Too Movement – Women take a
stand against poor behaviors of men

in workplaces by sharing their stories

of intimidation.

Taking a Knee (By Choice) – A

person who chooses to take a knee

during the anthem to protest against

racial injustice.

Acknowledging Privilege – A person

who acknowledges that they’re in a
:
 position in privilege and therefore
chooses to listen carefully to the

stories of the less privileged who don’t

have as much of a voice.

2. The Right’s Perspective

Race-Based Silencing – Telling a

white person they don’t have the right

to speak because they’re an

oppressor.
Cancel Culture – Canceling a college
speaker because they have

controversial views on power and

race.

Affirmative Action – An under-

qualified woman gets a job ahead of

an over-qualified man because a

company wants to meet a 50% female

employee quota.
Digging up Old Tweets – A company
digs up tweets and photos from 1995
:
 to play “gotcha” and sink a political

candidate’s campaign.
Critical Race Theory – A school’s
history curriculum teaches a ‘white
oppressor’ narrative in their

classrooms, which makes young white

children feel like they’ve done
something wrong.
Canada’s Bill C-16 – A bill that forces

people to use trans people’s preferred

pronouns, and if they don’t, then
they’re in violation of the human rights
code.
Banning Comedians – TV networks

and entertainment venues blacklist a

comedian for making edgy jokes that
would have been perfectly fine 10
years ago.

Day of Absence – A college asks

white students to stay home for one
day per year to discuss and think
:
 about their privilege.
Puberty Blockers – Children who feel
like their gender identity doesn’t match
their sex being given puberty blockers

to prevent them from going through

puberty.
Social Media Shadow Banning –
Social media networks that

(supposedly) ban people for not

having socially progressive
viewpoints.
Taking a Knee (By Social Pressure)
– A school or sports organization

pressuring you to take a knee during

the anthem to send a message about
racial inequality.
Pride Jerseys – Conservative

Christian football players are asked to

wear pink pride jerseys on the football
field in support of LGBT values,
against their religious views.
:
 Virtue Signalling – Brands use pro-
LGBT, pro-BLM imagery to appear

inclusive. But this marginalizes half of

their potential user base.
Gender Pluralism – People saying
there are over 70 genders and that if
you disagree, you’re a horrible person.

Woke Capitalism
Examples
There is also a concept called ‘woke
capitalism’. This term refers to
companies that use wokeness in their
marketing campaigns in order to sell
their products.

It is an example of corporate interest

convergence, meaning they tend to do it
because it’s in both their own best interests
and the interests of the minority group.
:
 Famous Examples are shown below.

Nike And Colin Kaepernick

KAEPERNICK NIKE AD: New ad featurin…

In 2016, Colin Kaepernick started sitting,

then kneeling, during the national anthem at
football games. He did it to protest against
racial injustice. For several years, the football

world turned against Kaepernick. He was not

signed the next year, and lost his job.

But in 2018, as the tide turned and his

protest spread around the world, Nike
jumped on the bandwagon. They released an
advert that read: “Believe in something. Even
if it means sacrificing everything.”
:
 Pepsi And Kylie Jenner

Full Pepsi Commercial Starring Kendal …

Shortly after the Black Lives Matter protests,

Pepsi released an advertisement showing

Kylie Jenner at a protest movement giving a

pepsi to a police officer as an offer of peace.
Pepsi, it seems, is on the side of the
protesters, but wants to make peace.

Pinterest
:
 Pinterest has gone hard at framing their
platform as a space that’s woke and inclusive
of people who are gender non-conforming,

and people of color. This is evident in the

above advert.

History Of
Wokeism
Wokeism can be seen as coming from

multiple sources:

1. African-American Culture – The

term “woke” originated from African
American Vernacular English and has
evolved to encompass a social and
political concept.

2. Youth Culture – Wokeness was part

of a movement of people who
supported protests against racial
inequality. It became a force in 2016
:
 through music videos and twitter
hashtags.
3. Post Structuralism – Many of the
woke values today are informed by the
cultural studies approach called post-

structuralism / post-modernism. This

approach critiques the subtle ways
language (in post-structural jargon,
called ‘discourse’), oppresses
marginalized cultural groups. Thus,
the cultural focus is on changing our
language, messages in advertising,
and so forth.

Arguments For
And Against
Wokeism
Pros Criticisms

It promotes social It actively attempts

:
 justice and equality to silence views that
and is changing are considered by
gender stereotypes the cultural elite to
for the better. be outdated or
inappropriate.

It makes people It sees everyone

who are minorities not as individuals
feel more but simply a sum of
comfortable and their “intersectional
noticed. identities” (primarily:
race and gender).

It can lead to fairer It doesn’t aim for

power distribution equal treatment to
across the races all individuals (e.g.
and genders. in job interviews).
Rather, it focuses
on balanced power
relations on a
society-wide level.

Historically, there The public sphere

:
 has been more should allow right-
cancel culture on wing cultural values

the political right to allow everyone to

than the left (e.g. make up their own
canceling LGBT mind. Wokeness
people in TV for tries to silence the
decades), but the right.
minute the cultural
left speaks up for
themselves, the
right loses their

minds.

Conclusion
Examples of being woke include supporting

affirmative action, gender-neutral bathrooms,

and taking a knee during the national
anthem. While on the left it’s seen as a virtue
(where you are able to see how power
oppresses), on the right it’s criticized as
:
 being a dangerous attempt at cultural
engineering and a denial of reality. Hopefully,
this outline has been balanced and looked at
it from both sides. If you can’t tell which side
I’m on, then I’ve done my job of trying to be
objective and give everyone a voice in this

article.

Chris Drew (PhD)

Website | + posts

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He

holds a PhD in education and has published over 20

articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the

Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education.

[Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

:
 10 Thoughts On “25
Woke Examples: What
Counts As Woke?”
:
 JASON
JANUARY 5, 2023 AT 6:41 PM

If woke means caring about other

people and the injustice in America

then I’m woke!!

Reply

WOOGER JOHNS
JUNE 13, 2023 AT 12:40 PM

What would be more interesting

(to me at least) would be show the

left and right views on each of the
above topics…to see how they
are different.

Reply
:
 BILL HARRISON
JANUARY 20, 2023 AT 2:38 PM

Chris – Thanks for your list and

examples. However, I expand the
concept of “woke” to encompass
being aware and concerned about
anything in our society that is amiss.
This list would include global
warming, lack of health care for

many, and to the danger of

dishonest populist rhetoric.
For me being “woke” encompasses
more than just injustice regarding
race or gender since there is much
in this country that needs fixing.
Best regards, Bill

Reply
:
 MISTY
MARCH 13, 2023 AT 12:50 AM

I would agree with your definition!

Much more inclusive to all the
issues.

Reply

MARK
MARCH 15, 2023 AT 1:06 PM

Nice balanced article. However, you

missed an important detail about
Colin Kaepernick. You write: “He
was not signed the next year, and
lost his job.”
:
 He was under contract with the
49ers but chose to opt out of his
contract, becoming a free agent. Not
being hired is a very different thing

from “losing a job”. He HAD a job

and chose to test the waters of free
agency for a bigger paycheck.

Reply

BRUCE HURLEY
MARCH 15, 2023 AT 6:29 PM

Not only was this balanced, it was,

in fact, the ONLY explanation I’ve
seen that fairly represents both
sides. “Woke” has been co-opted to
mean just about anything certain
:
 people disagree with, but even when
it was better understood to be
simply caring about people’s rights
and experiences, I never used the
term to describe myself (the best I
could hope for was “awakening”).
For the same reason, I also wouldn’t
call myself “enlightened” and I rarely

claim to speak “truth,” since that’s

often a relative term and certainly
not a binary determination.

Reply

CHRIS DREW (PHD)

MARCH 26, 2023 AT 4:50 AM

Thanks for everyone’s comments –

:
 I’ve not been able to approve them
all as there have been hundreds but

I’ve read them and worked on

improving the balance of this article
based on the well-intentioned
feedback I’ve received from people
across the political spectrum.

Reply

OLGA
MARCH 30, 2023 AT 11:57 AM

Thank you very much for your good

examples and clear and unbiased
explanation!

Reply
:
 SANDY
JULY 6, 2023 AT 12:06 AM

Thank you for the explanation of an

extremely misunderstood word and
concept. While the idea of becoming
awakened to, thus WOKE, or
seeking more knowledge and
understanding of very serious issues

is completely repugnant to some,

others of us are pleased to have an
answer we can recall should the
subject of WOKE come up.

Reply
:
 JOHN
JULY 23, 2023 AT 2:33 PM

Rather intriguing to be be quite

honest. To someone who has
actually ‘awakened’ themselves to
all of the defined concepts depicted
therein..I find myself deeply
saddened albeit disheartened that
life in and of itself has become so
complex; socially detractive where
common ground is lost..no longer

provides for amicable mitigation nor

conciliation.
An ultimate social patheticism that
will be our undoing..

Reply
:
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