Lead Belly, a blues musician from Mooringsport, Louisiana, recorded a song called the “Scottsboro Boys,” dedicated to nine Black teenagers wrongfully accused of raping two White women on an Alabama freight train in the spring of 1931. All-white juries found each of them guilty, and when counted together, they served over 100 years in prison. The four youngest had their charges dropped after hard-fought appeals in 1937, and the other five served sentences ranging from 12 to 19 years. This case highlights why Black people needed to “stay woke,” as racial injustices during Jim Crow were commonplace.

“I advise everybody, be a little careful when you go along through there — best stay woke, keep your eyes open,” Lead Belly said in his 1938 song, encouraging his listeners to be aware of racial injustices that took place in the South. A few years earlier, in 1936, Victor Hugo Green, a Black postal worker, published “The Negro Motorist Green Book,” which provided guidance to Black travelers on which gas stations, rest stops, restaurants, hotels, and other places they could safely visit. So, while Lead Belly’s song urged Black people to “stay woke,” one could argue the Green Book offered practical instructions on how to do so.

Despite the term dating back to the 1930s, some mistakenly believe “woke” is new-age lingo. Before the rise of social media, few outside of the black community understood the nuances of African American Vernacular English. As a result, while many Black people recognize “woke” as it’s been used for nearly a century within the black community, it’s common for others to mistakenly believe it recently sprouted, perhaps from an expansion of left-leaning politics following the racial reckoning of 2020. The latter seem to hold more negative views of “woke,” typically detaching its meaning from its origins.

By my estimate, many non-Black people have misused the term “woke.” While those on the far right are more likely to use it as a slur to mock Black people for raising awareness of racism, those on the left are more likely to strip the term of its racial context. For instance, some frame “woke” as a general awareness of social injustice and support for policies designed to address inequality. While this expansion may be useful in finding common ground with others, this description allows some to frame their resistance to “woke” as opposition to so-called extremist policies across the board, overlooking the ways in which Black people have used the term to promote sustained awareness of racial injustice. Those attempting to redefine the term are colonizing the language, laying claim to it without considering harm.

During an interview with Johnathan Karl this week, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a prominent progressive congresswoman whose name is often floated in conversations about future presidential candidates, seemed to distance herself, along with a politician she supported, New York City Council Member Chi Ossé, from the negative connotations of “woke.” When asked about previous statements on social media about support for policy proposals such as defunding the police and abolishing prisons, she classified those statements as “woke 1,” dismissing that movement as “crazy” in its scope. Rather than clarifying that she doesn’t personally support these policies, as they fall outside her political comfort zone, she used “woke” as a derogatory catch-all phrase, despite its roots within the black community. Also, the backlash to “defund the police” is ironic since many law enforcement agencies received additional funding during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite national protests following the police killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others sparking rigorous policy debates.

Referring to “woke” as something outlandish, rather than a reasonable strategy for those enduring discrimination, overlooks the origins of the terminology. And based on Ocasio-Cortez’s description of “Woke 1,” Woke 2, if it exists at all, must stand as a shadow of its former self. It seems to be an ideology that allows politicians to acknowledge the injustices that saturate our system while distancing themselves from those designed to bring about structural change. Such rhetoric clips the wings of a potentially powerful movement before it can fly above the fray and be seen in its full glory. If those living in America are conditioned to see only incremental change as viable, they will dismiss any structural change as absurd. But they’re forgetting that gradual abolition of slavery in some Northern states failed to inspire national change, and that systemic solutions are best suited to address systemic problems.

Colin Kaepernick, the former professional football player blackballed after kneeling during the National Anthem to protest racial injustices, described the consequences of a piecemeal response to racism in a 2021 Literary Hub article, saying, “It is only logical that systemic problems demand systemic solutions.” Furthermore, he explained that “modes of reformist and reactionary ‘justice’ fail to remedy the uninterrupted deaths caused by policing and prisons and frequently leave us disheartened, disjoined, and disillusioned.” It may be easier to gain support for surface-level changes, but when you’re dealing with a foundational problem like racism in America, you have to pull from the root. Yet, many Black people who confess to wanting structural changes are scoffed at. Reframing “woke” as something “crazy” is in alignment with that tradition of mockery.

In 2016, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal Supreme Court Justice, called Kaepernick’s protest “really dumb” and “disrespectful.” Never mind that some historians argue that the third stanza of the original Star-Spangled Banner mocked or taunted people for trying to escape, or that in the modern era Black people endure police brutality at a disproportionate rate. Her criticism illustrated how even some well-meaning White folks didn’t understand this protest. It’s reminiscent of the argument made in 1851 by Dr. Samuel Cartwright, who claimed that enslaved Black people who tried to escape had “drapetomania,” a mental illness that positioned resistance as pathological. Resistance is a natural response to oppression, but those who won’t acknowledge the harm caused by racism will never see their awareness as necessary. They won’t understand why Neo-Soul singer Erykah Badu included the words “stay woke” in her 2008 song “Master Teacher.” Or why we’re still talking about this concept years after it re-entered mainstream discussions in America.

There’s thinly veiled racism in the way White people and some others talk about “woke.” From legislators passing laws against including the ideology in schools, even though for generations it only existed in music and casual conversations that rarely left the black community, to politicians trying to build a thick wall between themselves and revolutionary policy proposals that stray from the mainstream. Non-Black people have been striking “woke” like a piñata, beating it so many times and from so many directions that its original shape is skewed and deformed, nearly unrecognizable in the way the blues singer Lead Belly once described. Some are trying to redefine the term “woke,” and in doing so, openly disregarding the linguistic proprietorship of Black people.