Woke () as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression "stay woke", whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues. By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term and has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement. History Early 20th century Oxford Dictionaries record early politically conscious usage in 1962 in the article "If You're Woke You Dig It" by William Melvin Kelley in The New York Times and in the 1971 play Garvey Lives! by Barry Beckham ("I been sleeping all my life. And now that Mr. Garvey done woke me up, I'm gon' stay woke. And I’m gon help him wake up other black folk."), Garvey had himself exhorted his early 20th century audiences, "Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!"Earlier, J. Saunders Redding recorded...

Get Woke, Go Broke is a phrase coined by the internationally bestselling author John Ringo to express the opinion that when organizations "get woke" to politically correct actions, those same actions usually result in a massive loss of income. This is usually because the Twatter instigators calling for the company to "get woke" doesn't actually spend any money with the company.