Archived Tweets / Research Data
Codes & Themes w/wo Theoretical Memos
(derived through a process of inductive, qualitative, data analysis)
@MckaylaMccullough [name pseudonymized] [ontology] : The phrase “stay #woke” has been used for decades. It is spoken in the afterword of 1938 song “Scottsboro Boys,” by Lead Belly. The song tells of 9 Black teenagers in Alabama accused of raping two white women in 1931. #BlackHistory #StayWoke
[URL redacted]
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@CeciliaCholula [name pseudonymized] [ontology] : Right-Wingers SPEECHLESS Over Agonizing #Woke Blow, So here’s where the term comes from. [URL redacted] via @YouTube Like all lives don’t matter until #BlackLivesMatter ! #BLM . #Sunday #Brooklyn #Africa #BlackTwitter #Jamaica #Toronto #LosAngeles #NYC #London [URL redacted]
"The term 'woke' was created by Black people referring to being alert to systemic racial injustices. The first documented use of the phrase 'stay woke' happened in the 1930s when Lead Belly ended his song by advising Blacks traveling through Alabama to 'stay woke.'"
#IRLMusicianHuddieLedbetterAKALeadBelly
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@TayaCafferty [name pseudonymized] [ontology] : #StayWoke #Woke ("remain vigilant") [URL redacted]
[20]
@DantePangallo [name pseudonymized] [ontology] : @KrisTechConsult @razzli_ @NoLieWithBTC @vanguard_pod Umm actually the term 'woke' is an African American term hijacked by white supremacists much like the OK sign. #woke [URL redacted]
[13]
@EdwinSkeith [name pseudonymized] [ontology] : Jesus Christ was #Woke
MLK was #Woke
George Carlin was #Woke
Frank Sinatra was #Woke
Harry Belafonte is #Woke
Rosa Parks was #Woke
John Lennon was #Woke
Barack Obama is #Woke
Mandela was #Woke
Harriet Tubman was #Woke
The term “Stay Woke” was coined by Blues musician Lead Belly. [URL redacted]
#BeliefTheismDeityGodAllahYHWHJesusChristMessiah
#IRLActivistMartinLutherKingMLK
#IRLComedianGeorgeCarlin
#IRLEntertainerFrankSinatra
#IRLSingerHarryBelafonte
#IRLHistoricalFigureRosaParks
#OrgSyndicateMusicUKTheBeatlesJohnLennon
#OrgClassifPPUSDemocraticPartyPOTUSBarackObama
#IRLHistoricalFigureNelsonMandela
#IRLActivistHarrietTubman
#PleaStayWoke
#IRLMusicianHuddieLedbetterAKALeadBelly
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@LeahWillenburg [name pseudonymized] [ontology] : Looks an interesting listen ( @BBCSounds after broadcast thankfully 👍🏼) @TeamEnglishFE @Team_English1 Thinking about #Woke #Language #Words #LanguageChange with @matthewsyed this Monday ⬇️ [URL redacted]
"Woke: The Journey of a Word Mon, 1.45pm, Radio 4
Once used to summarise injustice, the word 'woke' has more recently been linked to zealotry, extremism and angry online debate. But how did the past tense of awake become a generational term tied to fraught division? Matthew Syed investigates using five key stories: from it being a watchword for African Americans in the early 1900s, to how musician Lead Belly cemented its link to inequity and the US civil rights movement.
Danielle De Wolfe"
#NMUKBBCRadio4
#PhenomnWatchwordWoke
#IRLMusicianHuddieLedbetterAKALeadBelly
#CauseCivilRightsMovement
#TalkbackRadioLBCDanielleDeWolfe [Muckrack]
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@SawyerMuratov [name pseudonymized] [ontology] : @elonmusk @getpaidwrite The #whitenationalist mind is the virus. #Woke or #StayWoke is being alert or aware of social injustice. Sadly #amerikkkafirst #republikkkans have been trying to change the meaning because they don't like being called out for being aganist social justice, especially their racism. [URL redacted]
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@TamiaSych [name pseudonymized] [ontology] : @BlueNextWaves @sarahelhairy @LEXPRESS @EmmanuelMacron Attention, j'ai bien parlé de ses propos à elle ("discours woke"), en aucun cas je ne valide cette expression. Sarah El-Haïry mène un combat idéologique d'invisibilisation des minorités, dénie le droit de celles-ci à être fières de leur héritage.
I stay #woke
#BlackLivesMatter [URL redacted]
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@BrandyCadle [name pseudonymized] [ontology] : @BBCJournalism @BBCBreaking check out from 3.23 to hear #LeadBelly explain the usage of #Woke in his own words from 1938.
[URL redacted]
[20]
@TerranceSciarrotta [name pseudonymized] [ontology] : Is it just me? Or is the word #Woke being yet again #reappropriated by not just by #whitepeople in general, but NOW the #politicians are using it in their #ideological phrasing! I'm #whiteish hehe I'm an 8th #boricua so not totally hehe but getting off topic... I'm #offended [URL redacted]
"Black American folk singer-songwriter Huddie Ledbetter, a.k.a. Lead Belly, uses the phrase near the end of the recording of his 1938 song 'Scottsboro Boys', which tells the story of nine black teenagers accused of raping two white women, saying: 'I advise everybody, be a little careful when they go along through there-best stay woke, keep their eyes open'. [14][15] Aja Romano writes in Vox that this represents 'Black Americans' need to be aware of racially motivated threats and the potential dangers of white America.'[16] J, Saunders Redding recorded a comment from an African American United Mine Workers official in 1940, stating: 'Let me tell you buddy. Waking up is a damn sight harder than going to sleep, but we'll stay woke up longer.'[17]
By the mid-20th century, woke had come to mean 'well-informed' or 'aware', [18] especially in a political or cultural sense. [9] The Oxford English Dictionary traces the earliest such usage to a 1962 New York Times Magazine article titled 'If You're Woke You Dig It' [19] by African-American novelist William Melvin Kelley, describing the appropriation of African American slang by white beatniks. [9]
Woke had gained more political connotations by..."
#IRLMusicianHuddieLedbetterAKALeadBelly
#1938_ScottsboroBoys
#WebsiteVoxAjaRomano
#TheoryLinguisticsSemanticShift
Context #WebsiteSnopes "The word 'woke' is broadly used to describe a state of being 'aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues especially of racial and social injustice' according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. While it originated from African American Vernacular English (AAVE) in the early part of the 20th century, the term has become a common part of American slang. Its usage has evolved and grown so much that conservatives now use it as a pejorative to refer to progressives or left-leaning liberals." [fact-checked]
Context #WebsiteSnopes "The word 'woke' is broadly used to describe a state of being 'aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues especially of racial and social injustice' according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. While it originated from African American Vernacular English (AAVE) in the early part of the 20th century, the term has become a common part of American slang. Its usage has evolved and grown so much that conservatives now use it as a pejorative to refer to progressives or left-leaning liberals." [fact-checked]
[academic source]
#TauntWokeMob used by
#NewspaperUSBrdshtTheWashingtonPost
#CaricaturistMichaelDeAdder https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/06/grand-old-cancel-culture/ to foreground the irony of
#PoliticsConservatismSocialSoCon.s protesting a supposed
#CatchcryCancelCulture, which is
#PhenomnCensorship.ing (seemingly) much-loved characters, including:
#BrandDrSeuss
#1957_TheCatInTheHat
#FictionalCharacterMrPotatoHead
#FictionalCharacterPepeLePew
While at the same time advocating
#PleaBoycott.s of these barands:
#BrandDeltaAirlines
#BrandCokeCocaCola
#OrgUSMajorLeagueBaseballMLB
#BrandTheHomeDepot
In their protest over the
#OrgClassifPPUSRepublicanPartyGOP passing the contentious
#LegislationUS2021GeorgiaElectionIntegrityAct (Election Integrity Act of 202). The boycott
#OrgClassifPPUSRepublicanPartyGOPPOTUSDonaldTrump https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/georgia-voting-laws-trump-republicans-urge-boycott-of-woke-companies-7zzhjkhn2
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@JohnnieEwings [name pseudonymized] [ontology] : Why is the word ‘Woke’ used as an insult?? It literally means alert to social discrimination and injustice #Woke
‘Wide awake’ was used in this context in ads by Lincoln in 1860 #WideAwakes and Leadbelly was telling folk to “stay woke” in 1938 🎵 [URL redacted] [URL redacted]
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@ChantelleCrouther [name pseudonymized] [ontology] : @RitaPanahi #woke is one of the most misused words. Ppl say it when they mean someone who they class as cultist.
In 1940’s #LeadBelly used “stay woke” in explicit association with Black Americans' need to be aware of racially motivated threats & the potential dangers of white America. #BLM [URL redacted]
#IRLMusicianHuddieLedbetterAKALeadBelly #PleaStayWoke #CharacterisationWokeAsCompliment #IdentityAmericanBlackAndAfricanPOC #TheoryLinguisticsSemanticShift #CauseBlackLivesMatterBLM
Supplementary #TheoryLinguisticsSocioAfricanAmericanVernacularEnglishAAVE i.e. "African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the variety formerly known as Black English Vernacular or Vernacular Black English among sociolinguists, and commonly called Ebonics outside the academic community. While some features of AAVE are apparently unique to this variety, in its structure it also shows many commonalties with other varieties including a number of standard and nonstandard English varieties spoken in the US and the Caribbean. AAVE has been at the heart of several public debates and the analysis of this variety has also sparked and sustained debates among sociolinguists." https://www.hawaii.edu/satocenter/langnet/definitions/aave.html
Supplementary #TheoryLinguisticsSocioAfricanAmericanVernacularEnglishAAVE i.e. "African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the variety formerly known as Black English Vernacular or Vernacular Black English among sociolinguists, and commonly called Ebonics outside the academic community. While some features of AAVE are apparently unique to this variety, in its structure it also shows many commonalties with other varieties including a number of standard and nonstandard English varieties spoken in the US and the Caribbean. AAVE has been at the heart of several public debates and the analysis of this variety has also sparked and sustained debates among sociolinguists." https://www.hawaii.edu/satocenter/langnet/definitions/aave.html
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