Hello Interactors,

Language shapes power, but it can also obscure and manipulate. Words like woke and decolonize, rooted in justice, are now tools for distortion by figures like Trump and Modi. In this essay, we’ll explore how these terms connect to economic and political geography, tracing their co-opting, parallels to colonialism, and the need to reclaim their transformative potential. Let’s dig in — and stay woke.

STAY WOKE, START TALKING

Are you woke? It’s a provocative question these days. Especially since this term was co-opted by the right as a pejorative since the Black Lives Matter uprising of 2020. Even last June Trump said regarding so-called woke military generals, “I would fire them. You can’t have woke military.”

And then there’s Elon Musk. He’s been increasingly waging a war on what he calls the ‘woke mind virus’. It seems he started abusing the term in 2021, along with other political rhetoric he’s been ramping up in recently. The Economist reports a “leap in 2023 and 2024 in talk of immigration, border control, the integrity of elections and the ‘woke mind virus’.”

Folks more on the left are also starting to distance themselves from the term or use it as a pejorative. Including some of my friends. Even self-described leftist and socialist, Susan Neiman criticized "wokeness," in her 2023 book Left Is Not Woke. She argues, as do many, that it has become antithetical to traditional leftist values — especially as it becomes a weapon by the right.

According to the definition in the Cambridge dictionary, I am decidedly woke. That means I’m “aware, especially of social problems such as racism and inequality.” It worries me that people are eagerly running from this word. I’d rather they interrogate it. Understand it. Find it’s meanings and question the intent behind its use. We should be discussing these nuances, not shushing them.

Using the word in a sentence (in an approving manner), Cambridge offers hints at one of the original meanings: “She urged young black people to stay woke.” In 1938 the great blues legend Lead Belly also urged “everybody, be a little careful when they go along through there (Scottsboro, Alabama) – best stay woke, keep their eyes open." Those are spoken words in his song "Scottsboro Boys", about nine young Black men falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama seven years earlier in 1931.

Not a decade before, the Jamaican philosopher and social activist Marcus Garvey wrote in 1923, "Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!" Fifty years later that inspired playwright and novelist Barry Beckham to write “Garvey Lives!”, a 1972 play that included this line, “I been sleeping all my life. And now that Mr. Garvey done woke me up, I’m gon stay woke.” #StayWoke was trending on Twitter the summer of 2020.

In 1962, ten years before Beckham’s play, novelist William Melvin Kelley wrote this headline for a piece in the New York Times Magazine: “If You're Woke You Dig It; No mickey mouse can be expected to follow today's Negro idiom without a hip assist. If You're Woke You Dig It.” The article, which is an uneasy glimpse of how mainstream media regarded Black people in 1962, is about how white people co-opt terms from the Black community. His target was white woke Beatniks of the 1960s.

Awakening others to injustice in the United States may have originated with white folks inspired by Abraham Lincoln. In the lead up to the his 1860 election, the, then woke, Republican Party helped organize a paramilitary youth movement in the Northern states called the ‘Wide Awakes’. These activists, which included some Black people, were inspired by Lincoln’s fight to abolish slavery and promote workers’ rights.

They took up arms to defend Republican politicians who brazenly awakened others to injustices in America in their campaign speeches. This armed aggression — especially armed Black men — in part is what woke the South to the dawning wokeness across the North. Frightened as they were, they organize their own paramilitary and soon a civil war broke out.

RECLAIM, RESIST, REVIVE

Words can have unusual lifecycles. The term "queer" evolved from a pejorative label for homosexuals to a term of empowerment. Particularly after the activism of the 1960s and 1970s, including the Stonewall Riots. Its reclamation was reinforced by academic queer theory, which critiques societal norms around sexuality and gender. Today, "queer" is widely embraced as a self-identifier that reflects pride and resistance against stigma.

Christopher Hobson, of the Substack Imperfect Notes, suggested in a post about the word polycrisis, this progression of terminology:

Proposed — A new word or meaning is introduced through individuals, cultural interactions, academia, or mass media.

Adopted — A word or meaning is embraced by a community, shaped by social relevance and media influence.

Spread — Diffusion occurs through social networks and media exposure, leading to wider acceptance.

Critiqued — As words gain popularity, they face scrutiny from linguistic purists and cultural commentators. The appropriateness of a term can be questioned, highlighting the intent behind its dissemination.

Institutionalized — Widely used words become institutionalized, appearing in dictionaries and everyday language as standards.

Hobson adds one other stage that is particularly relevant today, ‘pipiked.’ It’s a term he ‘adopted’ as ‘proposed’ and I’m now ‘spreading’. It comes from Naomi Klein’s book, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World. Hobson writes:

"A useful concept she introduces is ‘pipikism’, which she takes from Philip Roth’s, Operation Shylock, one of the texts about doppelgangers that Klein engages with. She quote’s Roth’s description of ‘pipikism’ as ‘the antitragic force that inconsequencializes everything—farcicalizes everything, trivializes everything, superficializes everything.’ This captures the way in which the concepts and frames we use to help understand our world are rendered useless by bad actors and bad faith, caught in ‘a knot of seriousness and ridiculousness that would never be untangled.’" (3)

This lifecycle certainly applies to the word woke, but let’s turn to a term more closely related to economic geography that’s also in the cross-hairs of being ‘pipiked’ — decolonize.

Like woke, the term decolonize began as a call to dismantle injustice, exposing the deep roots of exploitation in European colonial systems. It symbolized hope for liberation and justice for the oppressed. Over time, like many critical terms, its meaning shifted. Once radical, decolonize risks becoming performative as its potency weakens through co-optation, especially by bad faith actors.

Narendra Modi exemplifies this, using decolonization rhetoric to promote Hindutva, a Hindu nationalist agenda. His government renames cities, revises textbooks to erase Muslim rulers like the Mughals, and marginalizes minorities, particularly Muslims, under the guise of rejecting British colonial legacies. This parallels America’s own rewriting of history to reinforce a white Christian narrative. Protestant colonizers replaced Indigenous names and erased Native perspectives, reframing days like Thanksgiving, a time of mourning for many, into celebratory myths.

DOCTRINES, DISSENT, AND DOMINION

Early colonial educational curricula framed colonization as a divine mission to civilize the so-called savages. Native Americans were often depicted as obstacles to progress rather than as sovereign peoples with rich cultures and governance systems. Systems, like the Iroquois League, impressed and inspired the early framers of American government, like Benjamin Franklin.

But it was Christian dogma like the Doctrine of Discovery, a theological justification for seizing Indigenous land, that was integrated into educational and legal frameworks. Slavery was sanitized in textbooks to diminish its horrors, portraying it as a benign or even benevolent system. Early 20th-century textbooks referred to enslaved people as “workers” and omitted the violence of chattel slavery.

Early colonizers established theological institutions like Harvard University, originally intended to train ministers and propagate Christian doctrine. My own family lineage is culpable. I’ve already written about Jonas Weed (circa 1610–1676), a Puritan minister who helped colonize Weathersfield, Connecticut. But there’s also the brother of my ninth Mother, Jonathan Mitchell (1624–1668). He was a Harvard graduate and Puritan minister who played a pivotal role in shaping the Protestant-oriented writing of American history.

He promoted a Christian God-given view of history, framing events as manifestations of God’s will. He emphasized covenant theology that cast Puritans as a chosen people. As a fellow at Harvard, he sh...