The curse of the 21st century is that people appropriate words and give them a different meaning. "Woke" is now associated with the people you speak of. In its early use it was spot on. The origin best as I can tell:
It turns out that woke is simple enough. From the liner notes of "Lead Belly the Folkway Years":
“When I come in a train, I stop in Las Vegas.
This white fellow was with me. He sat down and
I thought it was all right. Man taps me on the
shoulder and says, ‘I’m sorry, we don’t serve
colored.’ And I says ‘Oh, no you don’t?’ and he
says, ‘No.’ And that white fellow got up too. We
ain’t got to eat in Las Vegas. So many places like
that. I just feel sorry for them people. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐚𝐢𝐧’𝐭
𝐰𝐨𝐤𝐞 𝐮𝐩 𝐲𝐞𝐭.”
Lead Belly's woke, as the article points out, has morphed into something else.
I wish my reading queue wasn't so stacked. That looks like it might be an interesting read.
As for meaning being fluid, that is a curse. A quote from a worthwhile Medium author:
If you can simply appropriate a term and claim you have identified into a group, while inventing your own parameters as you go — there is no group." -Alison Tennent, the Celtic Chameleon
The curse of the 21st century is that people appropriate words and give them a different meaning. "Woke" is now associated with the people you speak of. In its early use it was spot on. The origin best as I can tell:
It turns out that woke is simple enough. From the liner notes of "Lead Belly the Folkway Years":
“When I come in a train, I stop in Las Vegas.
This white fellow was with me. He sat down and
I thought it was all right. Man taps me on the
shoulder and says, ‘I’m sorry, we don’t serve
colored.’ And I says ‘Oh, no you don’t?’ and he
says, ‘No.’ And that white fellow got up too. We
ain’t got to eat in Las Vegas. So many places like
that. I just feel sorry for them people. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐚𝐢𝐧’𝐭
𝐰𝐨𝐤𝐞 𝐮𝐩 𝐲𝐞𝐭.”
Lead Belly's woke, as the article points out, has morphed into something else.
I wish my reading queue wasn't so stacked. That looks like it might be an interesting read.
As for meaning being fluid, that is a curse. A quote from a worthwhile Medium author:
If you can simply appropriate a term and claim you have identified into a group, while inventing your own parameters as you go — there is no group." -Alison Tennent, the Celtic Chameleon