You will never be woke

No, you will never be “woke.” No matter how hard you try and no matter how diverse your experiences may seem, you will simply never achieve a supreme level of understanding on some of the world’s most contentious issues.

The myth of being “woke” is both counter-intuitive and destructive on many levels. For one, the ambiguous word, a modern popular culture phenomenon, implies that all individuals have the potential of being aware. This is the debacle I have been grappling with, primarily as our Duke Engage group gathers around week after week to discuss topics from adjusting to our new surroundings, to privilege, gentrification, socio-economic class, race as a social construct, what it means to be an ‘ally,’ and the issues of police brutality that have once again reached the American mainstream media.

From my assessment, people accept the term “woke” to mean a consciousness on racism and social injustice. However, I find that to conclude that one is suddenly aware of such abstract terminology (i.e. “injustice”) is to create a self-assuredness that inhibits the desire to learn more about the infinite perspectives and instances of injustice.

In fact, believing that black lives matter and acknowledging systemic attempts to undermine their value, is an elementary observation. Awareness on inequality in the face of police should not merit the title of being “woke” when the chains of injustice are tethered to so many other things. For example, as I finally became aware this past week (I say finally because during my time as a competitive debater I did notice these trends but was never able to label them), American high school and university debate has evolved to ostracize  primarily non-white students seeking to enter these academic spaces. “Inequality” has so many more faces than what meets the eye; South Africa has taught me this through its unique history with refugees, ‘public’ university system that is catered to affluent white students, hate crimes, and a law system tailored to the wealthy, amongst others.

As Kelsey, our site coordinator, explained it, individuals are inherently incapable of free will or free thought. In a literal world of possibilities, when you are asked to name a city, you can only ever name the cities you have some kind of prior knowledge or experience with. Extrapolating that to all possible knowledge, in the same way, we are forever unable to understand (and hence even claim to be conscious of) topics that we have not yet been exposed to.

Within our Duke Engage group, we have been talking a lot about coming to terms with formerly abstract ideas. But ‘understanding’ the complexities of racial constructs, the gentrified spaces we subscribe to, the ups and downs of student activism amongst other issues and topics, is not a spectrum. These are all spectrums— ones that span to beyond our existing limits. We can never be aware of all that we are unaware of and hence cannot even attempt to assess the current state of our consciousness.

My relationship with the word “woke” has varied a lot upon coming here. Aware of the Black Lives Matter movement, police brutality that hinders my own ability to remain at complete ease with law enforcement especially since I have two black brothers, I have considered myself “woke.” Especially since coming to college and having access to spaces, speakers and seminars, I have become without a doubt aware of a lot more but I am realizing that the story only begins there.

This program has given me a lot to think about with respect to how strong a grasp I have on these subjective terms and issues that are amongst the most difficult of all modern-day societal debacles. For example, I always had a superficial understanding of race as divisions between humankind that are based on cultural aspects more so than physical attributes. While I’ve heard a lot, though not necessarily internalized, the idea of race as a social construct, it was only till I read “Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America” by Barbara Jeanne Fields that this idea truly came to life for me. Now I am more aware of how illogical the lexicon of race truly is and how it should only be used in the context of breaking down barriers created by “race” and tackling prejudice within both communities and large institutions. 

Seeing how limitless the conversations I’ve had here have been, the reality to me is that there is no supreme level of understanding. The language of “woke” implies a misleading binary that suggests people are capable of reaching a highest point; you are either aware, or unaware.

My opinion however is just the opposite: individuals should focus on learning more and more before imposing and preaching the products of our limited understandings. Given the ongoing journey towards more and more knowledge that this trip to South Africa has provided me, I cannot imagine a highest point or ultimate summit of “woke-ness.” Rather, the process of exploration and learning should only continue and this summer experience has been a perfect leg of that journey.