🕷️ Crawler Inspector

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Raw Queries and Responses

1. Shard Calculation

Query:

Response:

Calculated Shard: 117 (from laksa188)

2. Crawled Status Check

Query:

curl -X POST \
  'http://laksa117.int.ahrefs:8124/' \
  -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
  -H 'X-ClickHouse-Database: crawler3' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic YXBpOg==' \
  -d 'SELECT getAhrefsURLFromUnparsed(src_unparsed) AS found_url, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(download_stamp), 0) AS crawl_time, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(props_url_first_seen), 0) AS first_indexed_time, download_http_code AS http_code, src_unparsed AS src_unparsed, src_root_hash AS src_root_hash, history_drop_reason AS history_drop_reason, meta_title AS meta_title, meta_descriptions AS meta_descriptions, attrs_boilerpipe_text AS attrs_boilerpipe_text, attrs_markdown AS attrs_markdown, attrs_readable_markdown AS attrs_readable_markdown, meta_canonical AS meta_canonical FROM crawler3.page_info_local FINAL PREWHERE (src_root_hash, src_unparsed) IN ((getAhrefsRootHashFromUnparsed(getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://aftermath.site/woke-2-wokeness-black-lives-matter-activism/\')), getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://aftermath.site/woke-2-wokeness-black-lives-matter-activism/\'))) FORMAT JSONEachRow'

Response:

{"found_url":"https:\/\/aftermath.site\/woke-2-wokeness-black-lives-matter-activism\/","crawl_time":1776556248,"first_indexed_time":1774272825,"http_code":200,"src_unparsed":"site,aftermath!\/woke-2-wokeness-black-lives-matter-activism\/ s443","src_root_hash":"1869541283958592317","history_drop_reason":null,"meta_title":"Notes Towards A 'Woke 2'","meta_descriptions":["Stay woke, and carry a big stick."],"attrs_boilerpipe_text":"When I think about the successes and failures of wokeness as an ideological lens, I think about the music video for Childish Gambino’s song “This Is America.”\nWhen the music video dropped in 2018, I remember feeling like it was genius. Police brutality against Black Americans had been a central focus of my political activation since 2014, when the murders of Eric Garner and Tamir Rice lit the country on fire. This was the beginnings of the Black Lives Matter movement. I was living in Chicago when a group of activists\nshut down\nthe Dan Ryan Expressway, spanning across it in a human chain. Four years later, watching “This Is America” was an affirmation of the things I already believed and could see to be true just by being politically aware: America is a death cult where it's wholly permissible to use state sanctioned violence against Black people, and in particular they are being killed by police.\nFor the second round of Black Lives Matter in 2020, I lived in New York. As the COVID-19 pandemic shut the city down, it was also writhing with life in the form of protest. This was life-giving fire—I remember being handed a bouquet from a woman in a march going by, then later watching a bus driver film us as I marched past her, tears in her eyes—but by the end of the summer I also understood its limitations. I went to a rally with the man who is now my husband, and on our walk home I told him how annoying it was to hear everyone’s Instagram handles after every speech.\nThe idea of wokeness comes from Black culture. It’s not a complicated idea—to be “woke” means that you are not sleepwalking through life. You are awake and aware of the political realities around you. Notably, wokeness does not instruct you how to use this knowledge. If there is to be a sequel to wokeness, a “woke 2,” what I want to see is a better understanding of what to do once you have woken up.\nBeing so for real: woke 2 is an idea that started as a joke. Erin Vanderhoof from Vanity Fair\ndescribes its origins\nas coming from “progressive retribution fantasies after Donald Trump’s 2024 victory.” The idea was about bringing back wokeness as it was during Obama's presidency, when many people thought having a Black president meant racial progress was inevitable so our work was done—a political movement as defined by a desire to get back to brunch.\nBut the wheels fell off that brand of neoliberal thought a long time ago. “Woke” as a term joined ideas like “political correctness,” “DEI,” or “social justice” in its popular meaning becoming “things liberals do or say that’s annoying.” Calling something woke became more about being able to signal an in-group and out-group—a polite way of calling something tainted by its association with certain kinds of liberal-coded ways of being “anti-racist,” like mandatory unconscious bias training at work. The idea of flipping things back on their head—no, we\nare\nwoke again, and you are too\nor else\n!—really cracks me up. Wokeness full cultural victory! Put those pronouns back in your bio, do a land acknowledgement—the wokeness struggle session begins now!  But if I were to ask myself what I want out of the idea of being woke in this political era, there are failures of woke 1 that I think are useful to dissect.\nWokeness, being so wrapped up in the Black Lives Matter movement which itself was reliant on the ecosystem of Twitter, was sometimes more about watching than taking action. I remember watching the protests in Ferguson, Missouri after the death of Mike Brown on Periscope, a Twitter product, trying to use the internet to get a sense of what was happening on the ground. I don’t know that watching all that footage did me much good; sure, I was pretty aware of what was going on in Ferguson, but there wasn’t much I could\ndo\n. Mostly, it gave me a panic attack. \nIn 2026, talk is cheap.\nAs a movement, Black Lives Matter was intended to be decentralized and leaderless, but of course, that didn’t mean that figureheads did not emerge. The negative space in the idea of wokeness—who are you watching, who is bringing you to awareness?—can easily be occupied by grifters and other bad actors. In 2025,\nthe executive director of the Oklahoma City branch of the Black Lives Matter organization\nwas indicted on embezzlement charges. Shaun King, an organizer who would go on to work on Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, has had enough accusations of pocketing donations meant for families of Black people killed by police violence that\nthere’s a section on it in his Wikipedia page\n. Because the Black Lives Matter movement used Twitter to signal boost news and organize events, apparently\nformer Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson became friends\n. I think we all know how that one turned out—as soon as\nTwitter execs found a buyer\nto take their company, they\npassed it off to a white supremacist\nand washed their hands of the whole thing.\nIn this first version of wokeness, I wasn’t nearly as skeptical of figureheads and corporations co-signing social movements as I needed to be. I had this unshakeable belief that justice would emerge in the end, that people would do the right thing just because it was the right thing to do. I trusted companies, I put my faith in people who posted about the right things online. \nNow in 2026, that talk is cheap. People—and corporations—who loudly demonstrate how much they are aware of the right things, how woke they are, are not always behaving in alignment with those values. In 2021, Target made a commitment to invest $2 billion\ninto Black-owned businesses\nby stocking their products in its stores. By 2025, after America elected Donald Trump president\nagain\n, Target had\nrolled back its DEI initiatives\n, including scaling back its investment in stocking products from Black-owned businesses. A long time ago, that might have felt like a betrayal, but I don’t put much faith in publicly-traded corporations to do the right thing anymore.\nWokeness as an ideology became about showing people how much you are aware of things happening around you, rather than a cogent plan about what to do with your newfound awareness. Being aware is really easy to do, and if just being aware becomes in itself a virtue, then there’s the potential for an ecosystem that is centered around showing other people how much you know.\nOh, you’re fighting for Black Lives? I bet you don’t even know about these other marginalized groups of people that also need help!\nI have watched the brightest minds of my generation, starving hysterical naked, arguing about whether or not the finale of\nStephen Universe\nwas sufficiently righteous on the internet.\nKnowing and being able to see the firmament that upholds injustice is useful, but you also have to know what to do with that knowledge. I felt proud of seeing different celebrities extol the virtues of the “This Is America” music video, but at the end of the day, it’s just a music video. What did I think people sharing it a lot was going to do? “Stay woke,” raising awareness, cannot be where one’s desire to do good terminates. When all you ask of a person is that they stay aware, attention and consumption takes the place of action. Getting out into the street to march was wonderful, but not when the marches are aimless and without goals, or when they become a platform for people to gain new Instagram followers (\nfollow me to know where the next action is!\n). Wokeness can be instead about small, interpersonal actions, a way of linking humans together in a chain of community.\nI think the\nmostly grassroots effort to boycott Target\nis an example of this in action. There is only one goal for this boycott: show Target that it has lost the loyalty of the Black shoppers it used to enjoy, unless the company is willing to reinstate the policies it dropped after Trump was elected president again. As far as I know, there’s no leader to this movement, and it is mostly a spontaneous action born out of Target deciding to roll back its DEI initiatives. It’s not going to change the world, sure, but it’s making a dent in Target’s finances. When\na Black pastor attempted to call off the boycott\nafter a year,\nBlack people en masse refused\n. Former Ohio state Senator Nina Turner told USA Today that in meetings with Target executives, they were still hostile to the idea of diversity, equity and inclusion,\nand she intended to escalate her efforts in organizing against the brand.\nAll in all, not shopping somewhere isn’t a big ask, but if a lot of people do it together, then you can demonstrate power in a way that these corporations understand:\nlosing them money\n.\nI don’t really want to change the world anymore.\nRecently, I also joined the Democratic Socialists of America. It was the campaign for Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a campaign he handily won, that tipped me over. At least in New York, the DSA is an organization that offers me a lot of opportunities to use my knowledge of what needs fixing in this city and put it into action. I don’t think electoralism is the answer, per se, but I know this group will give me resources to put pressure on my local government if and when I need to.\nAnother part of this is that I have stopped trying to demonstrate my wokeness to other people. I want to lead with actions rather than words. And besides, trying to argue people into submission is quicksand you’ll never get out of—a lot of the time,\nthe person I’m yelling at on the internet knows their argument doesn’t make sense\n, and by responding to it with anything other than “fuck off” I’m just amplifying it.\nTwo weeks ago, a friend reached out to me to help with a fundraiser for my friend Stella. We talked about her situation on the\nAftermath podcast\n– she had been scammed out of a lot of money from a game developer who decided just to never pay her for services rendered. We didn’t end up fundraising the entire amount of the money Stella was owed, but we raised nearly $13,000. I was happy to raise awareness of what Stella went through on the channels I have available to me. It is good that people knew that the studio she worked for scammed her. But more than that, I made a material difference in my friend’s life.\nIt doesn’t have to be a national movement. Stella’s live stream was only a few hours, and most of the people participating were just her friends and neighbors. Still, we managed to do a little good just by pooling our resources and working together. \nIn 2014, 2018, and 2020, I thought that it was possible to be so woke, so aware, that liberty would emerge. I don’t know what the end goal of a woke 2 could or should be—I think of it more of a chance to give back to people and communities that have helped me, to create spaces of love for the people I love in a world that can be uncaring. I think I don’t really want to change the world anymore. I am just happy to be able to do a little good.\nThis week on Aftermath, we’re celebrating Woke 2\n. What does that mean? Pieces that dig into the origins of woke—not the empty, sanitized version peddled by companies, but actual culture created by people—as well as communities that are already charting a course to a bolder, better future where we can all just be chill to one another.\nRead More","attrs_markdown":"{socials = window.socials})\" data-dropcap \\> [Skip to content](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/woke-2-wokeness-black-lives-matter-activism\/#main)\n\n[Bluesky]() [Discord]() [Github]() [Instagram]() [Linkedin]() [Mastodon]() [Pinterest]() [Reddit]() [Telegram]() [Threads]() [Tiktok]() [Whatsapp]() [Youtube]() [RSS]()\n\n[![Aftermath](https:\/\/storage.ghost.io\/c\/30\/f5\/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994\/content\/images\/size\/w30\/2025\/08\/ghostop.png)](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/)\n\n[Sign in](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/signin\/)   [Subscribe](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/signup\/)\n\nMenu\n\n- [About Us](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/about-us-contact-us\/)\n- [Video Games](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/video-games\/)\n- [Features](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/feature\/)\n- [Labor](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/labor\/)\n- [Internet](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/internet-culture\/)\n- [Anime](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/anime\/)\n\nSearch\n\nSearch\n\nClose\n\n- [About Us](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/about-us-contact-us\/)\n- [Video Games](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/video-games\/)\n- [Features](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/feature\/)\n- [Labor](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/labor\/)\n- [Internet](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/internet-culture\/)\n- [Anime](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/anime\/)\n\n- [Sign up](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/woke-2-wokeness-black-lives-matter-activism\/#\/portal\/)\n- [Podcasts](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/podcasts\/)\n- [Merch](https:\/\/aftermath-shop.fourthwall.com\/)\n- [Tip Jar (Donations)](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tip-jar\/)\n- [Buy a gift subscription](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/gift-subscription\/)\n- [Pitch Us Freelance](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/aftermath-freelance-pitch-guide\/)\n- [Got some news? Know something? 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Police brutality against Black Americans had been a central focus of my political activation since 2014, when the murders of Eric Garner and Tamir Rice lit the country on fire. This was the beginnings of the Black Lives Matter movement. I was living in Chicago when a group of activists [shut down](https:\/\/www.nbcchicago.com\/video\/news\/local\/protesters-shut-down-sb-dan-ryan_chicago\/1990577\/?ref=aftermath.site) the Dan Ryan Expressway, spanning across it in a human chain. Four years later, watching “This Is America” was an affirmation of the things I already believed and could see to be true just by being politically aware: America is a death cult where it's wholly permissible to use state sanctioned violence against Black people, and in particular they are being killed by police.\n\nFor the second round of Black Lives Matter in 2020, I lived in New York. As the COVID-19 pandemic shut the city down, it was also writhing with life in the form of protest. This was life-giving fire—I remember being handed a bouquet from a woman in a march going by, then later watching a bus driver film us as I marched past her, tears in her eyes—but by the end of the summer I also understood its limitations. I went to a rally with the man who is now my husband, and on our walk home I told him how annoying it was to hear everyone’s Instagram handles after every speech.\n\nThe idea of wokeness comes from Black culture. It’s not a complicated idea—to be “woke” means that you are not sleepwalking through life. You are awake and aware of the political realities around you. Notably, wokeness does not instruct you how to use this knowledge. If there is to be a sequel to wokeness, a “woke 2,” what I want to see is a better understanding of what to do once you have woken up.\n\nBeing so for real: woke 2 is an idea that started as a joke. Erin Vanderhoof from Vanity Fair [describes its origins](https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/culture\/story\/can-woke-2-go-irl-protests-online-culture?srsltid=AfmBOooiak8DdN5sWR4SVJtWS06ExCzB9q59ySQ2lEtskIowgzukB1eL&ref=aftermath.site) as coming from “progressive retribution fantasies after Donald Trump’s 2024 victory.” The idea was about bringing back wokeness as it was during Obama's presidency, when many people thought having a Black president meant racial progress was inevitable so our work was done—a political movement as defined by a desire to get back to brunch.\n\nBut the wheels fell off that brand of neoliberal thought a long time ago. “Woke” as a term joined ideas like “political correctness,” “DEI,” or “social justice” in its popular meaning becoming “things liberals do or say that’s annoying.” Calling something woke became more about being able to signal an in-group and out-group—a polite way of calling something tainted by its association with certain kinds of liberal-coded ways of being “anti-racist,” like mandatory unconscious bias training at work. The idea of flipping things back on their head—no, we *are* woke again, and you are too *or else*!—really cracks me up. Wokeness full cultural victory! Put those pronouns back in your bio, do a land acknowledgement—the wokeness struggle session begins now! But if I were to ask myself what I want out of the idea of being woke in this political era, there are failures of woke 1 that I think are useful to dissect.\n\nWokeness, being so wrapped up in the Black Lives Matter movement which itself was reliant on the ecosystem of Twitter, was sometimes more about watching than taking action. I remember watching the protests in Ferguson, Missouri after the death of Mike Brown on Periscope, a Twitter product, trying to use the internet to get a sense of what was happening on the ground. I don’t know that watching all that footage did me much good; sure, I was pretty aware of what was going on in Ferguson, but there wasn’t much I could *do*. Mostly, it gave me a panic attack.\n\n> In 2026, talk is cheap.\n\nAs a movement, Black Lives Matter was intended to be decentralized and leaderless, but of course, that didn’t mean that figureheads did not emerge. The negative space in the idea of wokeness—who are you watching, who is bringing you to awareness?—can easily be occupied by grifters and other bad actors. In 2025, [the executive director of the Oklahoma City branch of the Black Lives Matter organization](https:\/\/oklahomavoice.com\/2025\/12\/12\/oklahoma-city-black-lives-matter-leader-indicted-on-embezzlement-money-laundering-charges\/?ref=aftermath.site) was indicted on embezzlement charges. Shaun King, an organizer who would go on to work on Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, has had enough accusations of pocketing donations meant for families of Black people killed by police violence that [there’s a section on it in his Wikipedia page](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Shaun_King?ref=aftermath.site#Fundraising_activities_and_disputes). Because the Black Lives Matter movement used Twitter to signal boost news and organize events, apparently [former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson became friends](https:\/\/mashable.com\/article\/twitter-dorsey-deray-ferguson?ref=aftermath.site). I think we all know how that one turned out—as soon as [Twitter execs found a buyer](https:\/\/abcnews.com\/Business\/timeline-elon-musks-tumultuous-twitter-acquisition-attempt\/story?id=86611191&ref=aftermath.site) to take their company, they [passed it off to a white supremacist](https:\/\/mashable.com\/article\/elon-musk-stay-woke-twitter-shirts-black-lives-matter?ref=aftermath.site) and washed their hands of the whole thing.\n\nIn this first version of wokeness, I wasn’t nearly as skeptical of figureheads and corporations co-signing social movements as I needed to be. I had this unshakeable belief that justice would emerge in the end, that people would do the right thing just because it was the right thing to do. I trusted companies, I put my faith in people who posted about the right things online.\n\nNow in 2026, that talk is cheap. People—and corporations—who loudly demonstrate how much they are aware of the right things, how woke they are, are not always behaving in alignment with those values. In 2021, Target made a commitment to invest \\$2 billion[into Black-owned businesses](https:\/\/corporate.target.com\/press\/release\/2021\/04\/target-commits-to-spending-more-than-2-billion-wit?ref=aftermath.site) by stocking their products in its stores. By 2025, after America elected Donald Trump president *again*, Target had [rolled back its DEI initiatives](https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/01\/24\/target-rolls-back-major-dei-initiatives.html?ref=aftermath.site), including scaling back its investment in stocking products from Black-owned businesses. A long time ago, that might have felt like a betrayal, but I don’t put much faith in publicly-traded corporations to do the right thing anymore.\n\nWokeness as an ideology became about showing people how much you are aware of things happening around you, rather than a cogent plan about what to do with your newfound awareness. Being aware is really easy to do, and if just being aware becomes in itself a virtue, then there’s the potential for an ecosystem that is centered around showing other people how much you know. *Oh, you’re fighting for Black Lives? I bet you don’t even know about these other marginalized groups of people that also need help\\!* I have watched the brightest minds of my generation, starving hysterical naked, arguing about whether or not the finale of *Stephen Universe* was sufficiently righteous on the internet.\n\nKnowing and being able to see the firmament that upholds injustice is useful, but you also have to know what to do with that knowledge. I felt proud of seeing different celebrities extol the virtues of the “This Is America” music video, but at the end of the day, it’s just a music video. What did I think people sharing it a lot was going to do? “Stay woke,” raising awareness, cannot be where one’s desire to do good terminates. When all you ask of a person is that they stay aware, attention and consumption takes the place of action. Getting out into the street to march was wonderful, but not when the marches are aimless and without goals, or when they become a platform for people to gain new Instagram followers (*follow me to know where the next action is\\!*). Wokeness can be instead about small, interpersonal actions, a way of linking humans together in a chain of community.\n\nI think the [mostly grassroots effort to boycott Target](https:\/\/19thnews.org\/2026\/03\/target-boycott-black-women-protest\/?ref=aftermath.site) is an example of this in action. There is only one goal for this boycott: show Target that it has lost the loyalty of the Black shoppers it used to enjoy, unless the company is willing to reinstate the policies it dropped after Trump was elected president again. As far as I know, there’s no leader to this movement, and it is mostly a spontaneous action born out of Target deciding to roll back its DEI initiatives. It’s not going to change the world, sure, but it’s making a dent in Target’s finances. When [a Black pastor attempted to call off the boycott](https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/business\/retail\/target-shopper-boycott-over-dei-changes-winds-down-f6e0a299?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqcGUn8_6MywVhzyYEf6z0Ao3SudiRSNZ9zIq7BmNSBfcjG_bilmpFud2l-w-hY%3D&gaa_ts=69c02e81&gaa_sig=Ie8rkvD9qQFm34_nK5x0P_Oi5WMVkyQtyV6bwG8epiC1gblIcdR2-9oVptYV2ss2l6FUwBVUmJUENH2amZhLug%3D%3D&ref=aftermath.site) after a year, [Black people en masse refused](https:\/\/19thnews.org\/2026\/03\/target-boycott-black-women-protest\/?ref=aftermath.site). Former Ohio state Senator Nina Turner told USA Today that in meetings with Target executives, they were still hostile to the idea of diversity, equity and inclusion, [and she intended to escalate her efforts in organizing against the brand.](https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/money\/2026\/03\/18\/target-dei-boycott-backlash\/89189046007\/?ref=aftermath.site) All in all, not shopping somewhere isn’t a big ask, but if a lot of people do it together, then you can demonstrate power in a way that these corporations understand: [losing them money](https:\/\/www.mprnews.org\/story\/2026\/03\/03\/target-another-quarter-of-declining-sales-but-signs-of-improvement-start-2026?ref=aftermath.site).\n\n> I don’t really want to change the world anymore.\n\nRecently, I also joined the Democratic Socialists of America. It was the campaign for Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a campaign he handily won, that tipped me over. At least in New York, the DSA is an organization that offers me a lot of opportunities to use my knowledge of what needs fixing in this city and put it into action. I don’t think electoralism is the answer, per se, but I know this group will give me resources to put pressure on my local government if and when I need to.\n\nAnother part of this is that I have stopped trying to demonstrate my wokeness to other people. I want to lead with actions rather than words. And besides, trying to argue people into submission is quicksand you’ll never get out of—a lot of the time, [the person I’m yelling at on the internet knows their argument doesn’t make sense](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/assassins-creed-shadows-yasuke-racism\/), and by responding to it with anything other than “fuck off” I’m just amplifying it.\n\nTwo weeks ago, a friend reached out to me to help with a fundraiser for my friend Stella. We talked about her situation on the [Aftermath podcast](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/podcasts\/pokopia-is-a-viva-pinatalike\/)– she had been scammed out of a lot of money from a game developer who decided just to never pay her for services rendered. We didn’t end up fundraising the entire amount of the money Stella was owed, but we raised nearly \\$13,000. I was happy to raise awareness of what Stella went through on the channels I have available to me. It is good that people knew that the studio she worked for scammed her. But more than that, I made a material difference in my friend’s life.\n\nIt doesn’t have to be a national movement. Stella’s live stream was only a few hours, and most of the people participating were just her friends and neighbors. Still, we managed to do a little good just by pooling our resources and working together.\n\nIn 2014, 2018, and 2020, I thought that it was possible to be so woke, so aware, that liberty would emerge. I don’t know what the end goal of a woke 2 could or should be—I think of it more of a chance to give back to people and communities that have helped me, to create spaces of love for the people I love in a world that can be uncaring. I think I don’t really want to change the world anymore. I am just happy to be able to do a little good.\n\n[![CTA Image](https:\/\/storage.ghost.io\/c\/30\/f5\/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994\/content\/images\/2026\/03\/download-1.png)](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/woke-week\/)\n\n****This week on Aftermath, we’re celebrating Woke 2****. What does that mean? Pieces that dig into the origins of woke—not the empty, sanitized version peddled by companies, but actual culture created by people—as well as communities that are already charting a course to a bolder, better future where we can all just be chill to one another.\n\n[Read More](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/woke-week\/)\n\n[![Gita Jackson](https:\/\/storage.ghost.io\/c\/30\/f5\/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994\/content\/images\/size\/w30\/2025\/10\/Gita1-1.png)](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/author\/gitajackson\/)\n\n### [Gita Jackson](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/author\/gitajackson\/)\nCo-owner of the good website Aftermath.\n\n[All articles](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/author\/gitajackson\/)\n\nTags: [Woke Week](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/woke-week\/) [The Best Of Woke Week](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/woke-week-roundup\/) [The Best Of Aftermath](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/bestof\/)\n\n## More in Woke Week\n[See all](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/woke-week\/)\n\n[![The Video Games Of Woke 2 (With Michael Hobbes)](https:\/\/storage.ghost.io\/c\/30\/f5\/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994\/content\/images\/size\/w30\/2026\/03\/vegas.jpg)](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/podcasts\/aftermath-hours-podcast-woke-2-michael-hobbes\/)\n\n- [Podcasts](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/podcasts\/)\n\n\/\n### [The Video Games Of Woke 2 (With Michael Hobbes)](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/podcasts\/aftermath-hours-podcast-woke-2-michael-hobbes\/)\n\"The only real problem with Fallout: New Vegas is that if you play it, it does turn you trans\"\n\nBy [Nathan Grayson](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/author\/nathangrayson7\/)\n\n\/\n\n27 Mar 2026\n\n[![‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ Changed The World. Now What?](https:\/\/storage.ghost.io\/c\/30\/f5\/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994\/content\/images\/size\/w30\/2026\/03\/buffy-top-2-1.png)](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-angel-reboot-sarah-michelle-gellar-chloe-zhao\/)\n\n- [The Best Of Woke Week](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/woke-week-roundup\/)\n\n\/\n### [‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ Changed The World. Now What?](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-angel-reboot-sarah-michelle-gellar-chloe-zhao\/)\nAfter hearing the news of the failed Buffy reboot, Nathan and Gita sat down to talk about what was once the wokest, and best, show of all time.\n\nBy [Gita Jackson](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/author\/gitajackson\/) and [Nathan Grayson](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/author\/nathangrayson7\/)\n\n\/\n\n27 Mar 2026\n\n[![Life (And Death) In Warframe](https:\/\/storage.ghost.io\/c\/30\/f5\/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994\/content\/images\/size\/w30\/2026\/03\/warf14.jpeg)](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/warframe-digital-extremes-community-tennocon-wedding-funeral\/)\n\n- [The Best Of Woke Week](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/woke-week-roundup\/)\n\n\/\n### [Life (And Death) In Warframe](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/warframe-digital-extremes-community-tennocon-wedding-funeral\/)\nThe stratospheric highs and craterous lows of 13 years of births, graduations, weddings, and funerals\n\nBy [Nathan Grayson](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/author\/nathangrayson7\/)\n\n\/\n\n27 Mar 2026\n\n[![Three monsterous people, one with snakelike quills, another with tendrils, and a man with a distorted face.](https:\/\/storage.ghost.io\/c\/30\/f5\/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994\/content\/images\/size\/w30\/2026\/03\/nightbreed-cover_midup.jpg)](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/nightbreed-masterpiece-review-clive-barker\/)\n\n- [Woke Week](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/woke-week\/)\n\n\/\n### [Nightbreed Is An Impossible, Anti-Assimilationist Masterpiece](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/nightbreed-masterpiece-review-clive-barker\/)\nClive Barker’s Nightbreed was butchered on release, but through a miracle it was restored back to its daring vision.\n\nBy [Chris Person](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/author\/chrisperson\/)\n\n\/\n\n27 Mar 2026\n\n## More from Gita Jackson\n[See all](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/author\/gitajackson\/)\n\n[![That's Not What Unc Means](https:\/\/storage.ghost.io\/c\/30\/f5\/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994\/content\/images\/size\/w30\/2026\/04\/7bab9923a5b6509bfb95e250d055a647.jpeg)](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/unc-aave-african-american-vernacular-english-slang-gen-z\/)\n\n- [Internet Culture](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/internet-culture\/)\n\n\/\n### [That's Not What Unc Means](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/unc-aave-african-american-vernacular-english-slang-gen-z\/)\nYou’d never know the meaning of unc or its origins in black culture if you looked to mainstream media.\n\nBy [Gita Jackson](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/author\/gitajackson\/)\n\n\/\n\n16 Apr 2026\n\n[![Dosa Divas Makes Me Hungry](https:\/\/storage.ghost.io\/c\/30\/f5\/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994\/content\/images\/size\/w30\/2026\/04\/ss_1d5ca668f0c2dfcb2844bb8b487edff96899d1e6.1920x1080.jpg)](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/dosa-divas-outerloop-outersloth-indian-food-capitalism\/)\n\n- [Impressions](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/impressions\/)\n\n\/\n### [Dosa Divas Makes Me Hungry](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/dosa-divas-outerloop-outersloth-indian-food-capitalism\/)\nHungry for stories about how culture can be commodified, for more perspectives on the diaspora, and yes, for dosa too.\n\nBy [Gita Jackson](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/author\/gitajackson\/)\n\n\/\n\n15 Apr 2026\n\n[![The Free Press Announces Pop Culture Podcast No One Asked For](https:\/\/storage.ghost.io\/c\/30\/f5\/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994\/content\/images\/size\/w30\/2026\/04\/free-press-top.png)](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/the-free-press-suzy-bari-weiss-dan-ahdoot-pop-culture-bullshit\/)\n\n- [Stupid Things](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/stupid-things\/)\n\n\/\n### [The Free Press Announces Pop Culture Podcast No One Asked For](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/the-free-press-suzy-bari-weiss-dan-ahdoot-pop-culture-bullshit\/)\nI have a feeling that this \"no-BS\" podcast might contain some BS.\n\nBy [Gita Jackson](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/author\/gitajackson\/)\n\n\/\n\n14 Apr 2026\n\n[![Tell Me A Story: Blue Prince Edition](https:\/\/storage.ghost.io\/c\/30\/f5\/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994\/content\/images\/size\/w30\/2026\/04\/ss_d04f2e766f538d3680b28574ec97f06b3274aafc.1920x1080.jpg)](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tell-me-a-story-blue-prince-edition\/)\n\n- [Open Thread](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/open-thread\/)\n\n\/\n### [Tell Me A Story: Blue Prince Edition](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tell-me-a-story-blue-prince-edition\/)\nI refuse to waste a nice notebook on this game.\n\nBy [Gita Jackson](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/author\/gitajackson\/)\n\n\/\n\n11 Apr 2026\n\n[![Aftermath](https:\/\/storage.ghost.io\/c\/30\/f5\/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994\/content\/images\/size\/w30\/2025\/08\/ghostop.png)](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/)\n\n[Bluesky]() [Discord]() [Github]() [Instagram]() [Linkedin]() [Mastodon]() [Pinterest]() [Reddit]() [Telegram]() [Threads]() [Tiktok]() [Whatsapp]() [Youtube]() [RSS]()\n\n- [About Us](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/about-us-contact-us\/)\n- [Video Games](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/video-games\/)\n- [Features](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/feature\/)\n- [Labor](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/labor\/)\n- [Internet](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/internet-culture\/)\n- [Anime](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/anime\/)\n\n- [Sign up](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/woke-2-wokeness-black-lives-matter-activism\/#\/portal\/)\n- [Podcasts](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/podcasts\/)\n- [Merch](https:\/\/aftermath-shop.fourthwall.com\/)\n- [Tip Jar (Donations)](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tip-jar\/)\n- [Buy a gift subscription](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/gift-subscription\/)\n- [Pitch Us Freelance](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/aftermath-freelance-pitch-guide\/)\n- [Got some news? Know something? Let us know\\!](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tips\/)\n- [Subscription Goals](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/aftermath-site-subscriber-goals-2025\/)\n- [52 Pickup](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/52-pickup\/)\n- [Full Text RSS Feed](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/aftermath-rss-feed\/)\n- ['Latest' Story Feed](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/latest\/)\n- [Commenting Policy](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/commenting-policy\/)\n- [Group \/ Institutional Subscriptions](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/aftermath-group-institutional-subscription-deal\/)\n- [Thanks](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/thank-you\/)\n\n©2026 [Aftermath](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/). Published with [Ghost](https:\/\/ghost.org\/) & [Gazet](https:\/\/brightthemes.com\/themes\/gazet).","attrs_readable_markdown":"When I think about the successes and failures of wokeness as an ideological lens, I think about the music video for Childish Gambino’s song “This Is America.”\n\nWhen the music video dropped in 2018, I remember feeling like it was genius. Police brutality against Black Americans had been a central focus of my political activation since 2014, when the murders of Eric Garner and Tamir Rice lit the country on fire. This was the beginnings of the Black Lives Matter movement. I was living in Chicago when a group of activists [shut down](https:\/\/www.nbcchicago.com\/video\/news\/local\/protesters-shut-down-sb-dan-ryan_chicago\/1990577\/?ref=aftermath.site) the Dan Ryan Expressway, spanning across it in a human chain. Four years later, watching “This Is America” was an affirmation of the things I already believed and could see to be true just by being politically aware: America is a death cult where it's wholly permissible to use state sanctioned violence against Black people, and in particular they are being killed by police.\n\nFor the second round of Black Lives Matter in 2020, I lived in New York. As the COVID-19 pandemic shut the city down, it was also writhing with life in the form of protest. This was life-giving fire—I remember being handed a bouquet from a woman in a march going by, then later watching a bus driver film us as I marched past her, tears in her eyes—but by the end of the summer I also understood its limitations. I went to a rally with the man who is now my husband, and on our walk home I told him how annoying it was to hear everyone’s Instagram handles after every speech.\n\nThe idea of wokeness comes from Black culture. It’s not a complicated idea—to be “woke” means that you are not sleepwalking through life. You are awake and aware of the political realities around you. Notably, wokeness does not instruct you how to use this knowledge. If there is to be a sequel to wokeness, a “woke 2,” what I want to see is a better understanding of what to do once you have woken up.\n\nBeing so for real: woke 2 is an idea that started as a joke. Erin Vanderhoof from Vanity Fair [describes its origins](https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/culture\/story\/can-woke-2-go-irl-protests-online-culture?srsltid=AfmBOooiak8DdN5sWR4SVJtWS06ExCzB9q59ySQ2lEtskIowgzukB1eL&ref=aftermath.site) as coming from “progressive retribution fantasies after Donald Trump’s 2024 victory.” The idea was about bringing back wokeness as it was during Obama's presidency, when many people thought having a Black president meant racial progress was inevitable so our work was done—a political movement as defined by a desire to get back to brunch.\n\nBut the wheels fell off that brand of neoliberal thought a long time ago. “Woke” as a term joined ideas like “political correctness,” “DEI,” or “social justice” in its popular meaning becoming “things liberals do or say that’s annoying.” Calling something woke became more about being able to signal an in-group and out-group—a polite way of calling something tainted by its association with certain kinds of liberal-coded ways of being “anti-racist,” like mandatory unconscious bias training at work. The idea of flipping things back on their head—no, we *are* woke again, and you are too *or else*!—really cracks me up. Wokeness full cultural victory! Put those pronouns back in your bio, do a land acknowledgement—the wokeness struggle session begins now! But if I were to ask myself what I want out of the idea of being woke in this political era, there are failures of woke 1 that I think are useful to dissect.\n\nWokeness, being so wrapped up in the Black Lives Matter movement which itself was reliant on the ecosystem of Twitter, was sometimes more about watching than taking action. I remember watching the protests in Ferguson, Missouri after the death of Mike Brown on Periscope, a Twitter product, trying to use the internet to get a sense of what was happening on the ground. I don’t know that watching all that footage did me much good; sure, I was pretty aware of what was going on in Ferguson, but there wasn’t much I could *do*. Mostly, it gave me a panic attack.\n\n> In 2026, talk is cheap.\n\nAs a movement, Black Lives Matter was intended to be decentralized and leaderless, but of course, that didn’t mean that figureheads did not emerge. The negative space in the idea of wokeness—who are you watching, who is bringing you to awareness?—can easily be occupied by grifters and other bad actors. In 2025, [the executive director of the Oklahoma City branch of the Black Lives Matter organization](https:\/\/oklahomavoice.com\/2025\/12\/12\/oklahoma-city-black-lives-matter-leader-indicted-on-embezzlement-money-laundering-charges\/?ref=aftermath.site) was indicted on embezzlement charges. Shaun King, an organizer who would go on to work on Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, has had enough accusations of pocketing donations meant for families of Black people killed by police violence that [there’s a section on it in his Wikipedia page](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Shaun_King?ref=aftermath.site#Fundraising_activities_and_disputes). Because the Black Lives Matter movement used Twitter to signal boost news and organize events, apparently [former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson became friends](https:\/\/mashable.com\/article\/twitter-dorsey-deray-ferguson?ref=aftermath.site). I think we all know how that one turned out—as soon as [Twitter execs found a buyer](https:\/\/abcnews.com\/Business\/timeline-elon-musks-tumultuous-twitter-acquisition-attempt\/story?id=86611191&ref=aftermath.site) to take their company, they [passed it off to a white supremacist](https:\/\/mashable.com\/article\/elon-musk-stay-woke-twitter-shirts-black-lives-matter?ref=aftermath.site) and washed their hands of the whole thing.\n\nIn this first version of wokeness, I wasn’t nearly as skeptical of figureheads and corporations co-signing social movements as I needed to be. I had this unshakeable belief that justice would emerge in the end, that people would do the right thing just because it was the right thing to do. I trusted companies, I put my faith in people who posted about the right things online.\n\nNow in 2026, that talk is cheap. People—and corporations—who loudly demonstrate how much they are aware of the right things, how woke they are, are not always behaving in alignment with those values. In 2021, Target made a commitment to invest \\$2 billion[into Black-owned businesses](https:\/\/corporate.target.com\/press\/release\/2021\/04\/target-commits-to-spending-more-than-2-billion-wit?ref=aftermath.site) by stocking their products in its stores. By 2025, after America elected Donald Trump president *again*, Target had [rolled back its DEI initiatives](https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/01\/24\/target-rolls-back-major-dei-initiatives.html?ref=aftermath.site), including scaling back its investment in stocking products from Black-owned businesses. A long time ago, that might have felt like a betrayal, but I don’t put much faith in publicly-traded corporations to do the right thing anymore.\n\nWokeness as an ideology became about showing people how much you are aware of things happening around you, rather than a cogent plan about what to do with your newfound awareness. Being aware is really easy to do, and if just being aware becomes in itself a virtue, then there’s the potential for an ecosystem that is centered around showing other people how much you know. *Oh, you’re fighting for Black Lives? I bet you don’t even know about these other marginalized groups of people that also need help\\!* I have watched the brightest minds of my generation, starving hysterical naked, arguing about whether or not the finale of *Stephen Universe* was sufficiently righteous on the internet.\n\nKnowing and being able to see the firmament that upholds injustice is useful, but you also have to know what to do with that knowledge. I felt proud of seeing different celebrities extol the virtues of the “This Is America” music video, but at the end of the day, it’s just a music video. What did I think people sharing it a lot was going to do? “Stay woke,” raising awareness, cannot be where one’s desire to do good terminates. When all you ask of a person is that they stay aware, attention and consumption takes the place of action. Getting out into the street to march was wonderful, but not when the marches are aimless and without goals, or when they become a platform for people to gain new Instagram followers (*follow me to know where the next action is\\!*). Wokeness can be instead about small, interpersonal actions, a way of linking humans together in a chain of community.\n\nI think the [mostly grassroots effort to boycott Target](https:\/\/19thnews.org\/2026\/03\/target-boycott-black-women-protest\/?ref=aftermath.site) is an example of this in action. There is only one goal for this boycott: show Target that it has lost the loyalty of the Black shoppers it used to enjoy, unless the company is willing to reinstate the policies it dropped after Trump was elected president again. As far as I know, there’s no leader to this movement, and it is mostly a spontaneous action born out of Target deciding to roll back its DEI initiatives. It’s not going to change the world, sure, but it’s making a dent in Target’s finances. When [a Black pastor attempted to call off the boycott](https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/business\/retail\/target-shopper-boycott-over-dei-changes-winds-down-f6e0a299?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqcGUn8_6MywVhzyYEf6z0Ao3SudiRSNZ9zIq7BmNSBfcjG_bilmpFud2l-w-hY%3D&gaa_ts=69c02e81&gaa_sig=Ie8rkvD9qQFm34_nK5x0P_Oi5WMVkyQtyV6bwG8epiC1gblIcdR2-9oVptYV2ss2l6FUwBVUmJUENH2amZhLug%3D%3D&ref=aftermath.site) after a year, [Black people en masse refused](https:\/\/19thnews.org\/2026\/03\/target-boycott-black-women-protest\/?ref=aftermath.site). Former Ohio state Senator Nina Turner told USA Today that in meetings with Target executives, they were still hostile to the idea of diversity, equity and inclusion, [and she intended to escalate her efforts in organizing against the brand.](https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/money\/2026\/03\/18\/target-dei-boycott-backlash\/89189046007\/?ref=aftermath.site) All in all, not shopping somewhere isn’t a big ask, but if a lot of people do it together, then you can demonstrate power in a way that these corporations understand: [losing them money](https:\/\/www.mprnews.org\/story\/2026\/03\/03\/target-another-quarter-of-declining-sales-but-signs-of-improvement-start-2026?ref=aftermath.site).\n\n> I don’t really want to change the world anymore.\n\nRecently, I also joined the Democratic Socialists of America. It was the campaign for Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a campaign he handily won, that tipped me over. At least in New York, the DSA is an organization that offers me a lot of opportunities to use my knowledge of what needs fixing in this city and put it into action. I don’t think electoralism is the answer, per se, but I know this group will give me resources to put pressure on my local government if and when I need to.\n\nAnother part of this is that I have stopped trying to demonstrate my wokeness to other people. I want to lead with actions rather than words. And besides, trying to argue people into submission is quicksand you’ll never get out of—a lot of the time, [the person I’m yelling at on the internet knows their argument doesn’t make sense](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/assassins-creed-shadows-yasuke-racism\/), and by responding to it with anything other than “fuck off” I’m just amplifying it.\n\nTwo weeks ago, a friend reached out to me to help with a fundraiser for my friend Stella. We talked about her situation on the [Aftermath podcast](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/podcasts\/pokopia-is-a-viva-pinatalike\/)– she had been scammed out of a lot of money from a game developer who decided just to never pay her for services rendered. We didn’t end up fundraising the entire amount of the money Stella was owed, but we raised nearly \\$13,000. I was happy to raise awareness of what Stella went through on the channels I have available to me. It is good that people knew that the studio she worked for scammed her. But more than that, I made a material difference in my friend’s life.\n\nIt doesn’t have to be a national movement. Stella’s live stream was only a few hours, and most of the people participating were just her friends and neighbors. Still, we managed to do a little good just by pooling our resources and working together.\n\nIn 2014, 2018, and 2020, I thought that it was possible to be so woke, so aware, that liberty would emerge. I don’t know what the end goal of a woke 2 could or should be—I think of it more of a chance to give back to people and communities that have helped me, to create spaces of love for the people I love in a world that can be uncaring. I think I don’t really want to change the world anymore. I am just happy to be able to do a little good.\n\n[![CTA Image](https:\/\/storage.ghost.io\/c\/30\/f5\/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994\/content\/images\/2026\/03\/download-1.png)](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/woke-week\/)\n\n****This week on Aftermath, we’re celebrating Woke 2****. What does that mean? Pieces that dig into the origins of woke—not the empty, sanitized version peddled by companies, but actual culture created by people—as well as communities that are already charting a course to a bolder, better future where we can all just be chill to one another.\n\n[Read More](https:\/\/aftermath.site\/tag\/woke-week\/)","meta_canonical":null}

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Meta Description	Stay woke, and carry a big stick.
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Boilerpipe Text	When I think about the successes and failures of wokeness as an ideological lens, I think about the music video for Childish Gambino’s song “This Is America.” When the music video dropped in 2018, I remember feeling like it was genius. Police brutality against Black Americans had been a central focus of my political activation since 2014, when the murders of Eric Garner and Tamir Rice lit the country on fire. This was the beginnings of the Black Lives Matter movement. I was living in Chicago when a group of activists shut down the Dan Ryan Expressway, spanning across it in a human chain. Four years later, watching “This Is America” was an affirmation of the things I already believed and could see to be true just by being politically aware: America is a death cult where it's wholly permissible to use state sanctioned violence against Black people, and in particular they are being killed by police. For the second round of Black Lives Matter in 2020, I lived in New York. As the COVID-19 pandemic shut the city down, it was also writhing with life in the form of protest. This was life-giving fire—I remember being handed a bouquet from a woman in a march going by, then later watching a bus driver film us as I marched past her, tears in her eyes—but by the end of the summer I also understood its limitations. I went to a rally with the man who is now my husband, and on our walk home I told him how annoying it was to hear everyone’s Instagram handles after every speech. The idea of wokeness comes from Black culture. It’s not a complicated idea—to be “woke” means that you are not sleepwalking through life. You are awake and aware of the political realities around you. Notably, wokeness does not instruct you how to use this knowledge. If there is to be a sequel to wokeness, a “woke 2,” what I want to see is a better understanding of what to do once you have woken up. Being so for real: woke 2 is an idea that started as a joke. Erin Vanderhoof from Vanity Fair describes its origins as coming from “progressive retribution fantasies after Donald Trump’s 2024 victory.” The idea was about bringing back wokeness as it was during Obama's presidency, when many people thought having a Black president meant racial progress was inevitable so our work was done—a political movement as defined by a desire to get back to brunch. But the wheels fell off that brand of neoliberal thought a long time ago. “Woke” as a term joined ideas like “political correctness,” “DEI,” or “social justice” in its popular meaning becoming “things liberals do or say that’s annoying.” Calling something woke became more about being able to signal an in-group and out-group—a polite way of calling something tainted by its association with certain kinds of liberal-coded ways of being “anti-racist,” like mandatory unconscious bias training at work. The idea of flipping things back on their head—no, we are woke again, and you are too or else !—really cracks me up. Wokeness full cultural victory! Put those pronouns back in your bio, do a land acknowledgement—the wokeness struggle session begins now! But if I were to ask myself what I want out of the idea of being woke in this political era, there are failures of woke 1 that I think are useful to dissect. Wokeness, being so wrapped up in the Black Lives Matter movement which itself was reliant on the ecosystem of Twitter, was sometimes more about watching than taking action. I remember watching the protests in Ferguson, Missouri after the death of Mike Brown on Periscope, a Twitter product, trying to use the internet to get a sense of what was happening on the ground. I don’t know that watching all that footage did me much good; sure, I was pretty aware of what was going on in Ferguson, but there wasn’t much I could do . Mostly, it gave me a panic attack. In 2026, talk is cheap. As a movement, Black Lives Matter was intended to be decentralized and leaderless, but of course, that didn’t mean that figureheads did not emerge. The negative space in the idea of wokeness—who are you watching, who is bringing you to awareness?—can easily be occupied by grifters and other bad actors. In 2025, the executive director of the Oklahoma City branch of the Black Lives Matter organization was indicted on embezzlement charges. Shaun King, an organizer who would go on to work on Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, has had enough accusations of pocketing donations meant for families of Black people killed by police violence that there’s a section on it in his Wikipedia page . Because the Black Lives Matter movement used Twitter to signal boost news and organize events, apparently former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson became friends . I think we all know how that one turned out—as soon as Twitter execs found a buyer to take their company, they passed it off to a white supremacist and washed their hands of the whole thing. In this first version of wokeness, I wasn’t nearly as skeptical of figureheads and corporations co-signing social movements as I needed to be. I had this unshakeable belief that justice would emerge in the end, that people would do the right thing just because it was the right thing to do. I trusted companies, I put my faith in people who posted about the right things online. Now in 2026, that talk is cheap. People—and corporations—who loudly demonstrate how much they are aware of the right things, how woke they are, are not always behaving in alignment with those values. In 2021, Target made a commitment to invest $2 billion into Black-owned businesses by stocking their products in its stores. By 2025, after America elected Donald Trump president again , Target had rolled back its DEI initiatives , including scaling back its investment in stocking products from Black-owned businesses. A long time ago, that might have felt like a betrayal, but I don’t put much faith in publicly-traded corporations to do the right thing anymore. Wokeness as an ideology became about showing people how much you are aware of things happening around you, rather than a cogent plan about what to do with your newfound awareness. Being aware is really easy to do, and if just being aware becomes in itself a virtue, then there’s the potential for an ecosystem that is centered around showing other people how much you know. Oh, you’re fighting for Black Lives? I bet you don’t even know about these other marginalized groups of people that also need help! I have watched the brightest minds of my generation, starving hysterical naked, arguing about whether or not the finale of Stephen Universe was sufficiently righteous on the internet. Knowing and being able to see the firmament that upholds injustice is useful, but you also have to know what to do with that knowledge. I felt proud of seeing different celebrities extol the virtues of the “This Is America” music video, but at the end of the day, it’s just a music video. What did I think people sharing it a lot was going to do? “Stay woke,” raising awareness, cannot be where one’s desire to do good terminates. When all you ask of a person is that they stay aware, attention and consumption takes the place of action. Getting out into the street to march was wonderful, but not when the marches are aimless and without goals, or when they become a platform for people to gain new Instagram followers ( follow me to know where the next action is! ). Wokeness can be instead about small, interpersonal actions, a way of linking humans together in a chain of community. I think the mostly grassroots effort to boycott Target is an example of this in action. There is only one goal for this boycott: show Target that it has lost the loyalty of the Black shoppers it used to enjoy, unless the company is willing to reinstate the policies it dropped after Trump was elected president again. As far as I know, there’s no leader to this movement, and it is mostly a spontaneous action born out of Target deciding to roll back its DEI initiatives. It’s not going to change the world, sure, but it’s making a dent in Target’s finances. When a Black pastor attempted to call off the boycott after a year, Black people en masse refused . Former Ohio state Senator Nina Turner told USA Today that in meetings with Target executives, they were still hostile to the idea of diversity, equity and inclusion, and she intended to escalate her efforts in organizing against the brand. All in all, not shopping somewhere isn’t a big ask, but if a lot of people do it together, then you can demonstrate power in a way that these corporations understand: losing them money . I don’t really want to change the world anymore. Recently, I also joined the Democratic Socialists of America. It was the campaign for Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a campaign he handily won, that tipped me over. At least in New York, the DSA is an organization that offers me a lot of opportunities to use my knowledge of what needs fixing in this city and put it into action. I don’t think electoralism is the answer, per se, but I know this group will give me resources to put pressure on my local government if and when I need to. Another part of this is that I have stopped trying to demonstrate my wokeness to other people. I want to lead with actions rather than words. And besides, trying to argue people into submission is quicksand you’ll never get out of—a lot of the time, the person I’m yelling at on the internet knows their argument doesn’t make sense , and by responding to it with anything other than “fuck off” I’m just amplifying it. Two weeks ago, a friend reached out to me to help with a fundraiser for my friend Stella. We talked about her situation on the Aftermath podcast – she had been scammed out of a lot of money from a game developer who decided just to never pay her for services rendered. We didn’t end up fundraising the entire amount of the money Stella was owed, but we raised nearly $13,000. I was happy to raise awareness of what Stella went through on the channels I have available to me. It is good that people knew that the studio she worked for scammed her. But more than that, I made a material difference in my friend’s life. It doesn’t have to be a national movement. Stella’s live stream was only a few hours, and most of the people participating were just her friends and neighbors. Still, we managed to do a little good just by pooling our resources and working together. In 2014, 2018, and 2020, I thought that it was possible to be so woke, so aware, that liberty would emerge. I don’t know what the end goal of a woke 2 could or should be—I think of it more of a chance to give back to people and communities that have helped me, to create spaces of love for the people I love in a world that can be uncaring. I think I don’t really want to change the world anymore. I am just happy to be able to do a little good. This week on Aftermath, we’re celebrating Woke 2 . What does that mean? Pieces that dig into the origins of woke—not the empty, sanitized version peddled by companies, but actual culture created by people—as well as communities that are already charting a course to a bolder, better future where we can all just be chill to one another. Read More
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By [Gita Jackson](https://aftermath.site/author/gitajackson/) ![Notes Towards A 'Woke 2'](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/size/w30/2026/03/woke-2-image.png) Image Source: [One Battle After Another](https://youtu.be/feOQFKv2Lw4?si=yl-yo-0I4KPSjhnw) Published: March 23, 2026, 9:30 am Last updated: March 24, 2026, 3:12 pm \\| Share { copied = false; shareOpen = false; }, 2000)" title="Copy link" aria-label="Copy"\> [{shareOpen = false}, 2000)"\> Share to X](https://twitter.com/share?text=Notes%20Towards%20A%20'Woke%202'&url=https://aftermath.site/woke-2-wokeness-black-lives-matter-activism/ "Share to X") [{shareOpen = false}, 2000)"\> Share to Bluesky](https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=Notes%20Towards%20A%20'Woke%202'%20https://aftermath.site/woke-2-wokeness-black-lives-matter-activism/ "Share to Bluesky") [{shareOpen = false}, 2000)"\> Share to Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://aftermath.site/woke-2-wokeness-black-lives-matter-activism/ "Share to Facebook") [{shareOpen = false}, 2000)"\> Share to LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://aftermath.site/woke-2-wokeness-black-lives-matter-activism/&title=Notes%20Towards%20A%20'Woke%202'&summary=Notes%20Towards%20A%20'Woke%202' "Share to LinkedIn") [{shareOpen = false}, 2000)"\> Share by email](mailto:?subject=Notes%20Towards%20A%20'Woke%202'&body=https://aftermath.site/woke-2-wokeness-black-lives-matter-activism/ Notes%20Towards%20A%20'Woke%202' "Share by email") When I think about the successes and failures of wokeness as an ideological lens, I think about the music video for Childish Gambino’s song “This Is America.” When the music video dropped in 2018, I remember feeling like it was genius. Police brutality against Black Americans had been a central focus of my political activation since 2014, when the murders of Eric Garner and Tamir Rice lit the country on fire. This was the beginnings of the Black Lives Matter movement. I was living in Chicago when a group of activists [shut down](https://www.nbcchicago.com/video/news/local/protesters-shut-down-sb-dan-ryan_chicago/1990577/?ref=aftermath.site) the Dan Ryan Expressway, spanning across it in a human chain. Four years later, watching “This Is America” was an affirmation of the things I already believed and could see to be true just by being politically aware: America is a death cult where it's wholly permissible to use state sanctioned violence against Black people, and in particular they are being killed by police. For the second round of Black Lives Matter in 2020, I lived in New York. As the COVID-19 pandemic shut the city down, it was also writhing with life in the form of protest. This was life-giving fire—I remember being handed a bouquet from a woman in a march going by, then later watching a bus driver film us as I marched past her, tears in her eyes—but by the end of the summer I also understood its limitations. I went to a rally with the man who is now my husband, and on our walk home I told him how annoying it was to hear everyone’s Instagram handles after every speech. The idea of wokeness comes from Black culture. It’s not a complicated idea—to be “woke” means that you are not sleepwalking through life. You are awake and aware of the political realities around you. Notably, wokeness does not instruct you how to use this knowledge. If there is to be a sequel to wokeness, a “woke 2,” what I want to see is a better understanding of what to do once you have woken up. Being so for real: woke 2 is an idea that started as a joke. Erin Vanderhoof from Vanity Fair [describes its origins](https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/story/can-woke-2-go-irl-protests-online-culture?srsltid=AfmBOooiak8DdN5sWR4SVJtWS06ExCzB9q59ySQ2lEtskIowgzukB1eL&ref=aftermath.site) as coming from “progressive retribution fantasies after Donald Trump’s 2024 victory.” The idea was about bringing back wokeness as it was during Obama's presidency, when many people thought having a Black president meant racial progress was inevitable so our work was done—a political movement as defined by a desire to get back to brunch. But the wheels fell off that brand of neoliberal thought a long time ago. “Woke” as a term joined ideas like “political correctness,” “DEI,” or “social justice” in its popular meaning becoming “things liberals do or say that’s annoying.” Calling something woke became more about being able to signal an in-group and out-group—a polite way of calling something tainted by its association with certain kinds of liberal-coded ways of being “anti-racist,” like mandatory unconscious bias training at work. The idea of flipping things back on their head—no, we are woke again, and you are too or else!—really cracks me up. Wokeness full cultural victory! Put those pronouns back in your bio, do a land acknowledgement—the wokeness struggle session begins now! But if I were to ask myself what I want out of the idea of being woke in this political era, there are failures of woke 1 that I think are useful to dissect. Wokeness, being so wrapped up in the Black Lives Matter movement which itself was reliant on the ecosystem of Twitter, was sometimes more about watching than taking action. I remember watching the protests in Ferguson, Missouri after the death of Mike Brown on Periscope, a Twitter product, trying to use the internet to get a sense of what was happening on the ground. I don’t know that watching all that footage did me much good; sure, I was pretty aware of what was going on in Ferguson, but there wasn’t much I could do. Mostly, it gave me a panic attack. > In 2026, talk is cheap. As a movement, Black Lives Matter was intended to be decentralized and leaderless, but of course, that didn’t mean that figureheads did not emerge. The negative space in the idea of wokeness—who are you watching, who is bringing you to awareness?—can easily be occupied by grifters and other bad actors. In 2025, [the executive director of the Oklahoma City branch of the Black Lives Matter organization](https://oklahomavoice.com/2025/12/12/oklahoma-city-black-lives-matter-leader-indicted-on-embezzlement-money-laundering-charges/?ref=aftermath.site) was indicted on embezzlement charges. Shaun King, an organizer who would go on to work on Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, has had enough accusations of pocketing donations meant for families of Black people killed by police violence that [there’s a section on it in his Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_King?ref=aftermath.site#Fundraising_activities_and_disputes). Because the Black Lives Matter movement used Twitter to signal boost news and organize events, apparently [former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson became friends](https://mashable.com/article/twitter-dorsey-deray-ferguson?ref=aftermath.site). I think we all know how that one turned out—as soon as [Twitter execs found a buyer](https://abcnews.com/Business/timeline-elon-musks-tumultuous-twitter-acquisition-attempt/story?id=86611191&ref=aftermath.site) to take their company, they [passed it off to a white supremacist](https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-stay-woke-twitter-shirts-black-lives-matter?ref=aftermath.site) and washed their hands of the whole thing. In this first version of wokeness, I wasn’t nearly as skeptical of figureheads and corporations co-signing social movements as I needed to be. I had this unshakeable belief that justice would emerge in the end, that people would do the right thing just because it was the right thing to do. I trusted companies, I put my faith in people who posted about the right things online. Now in 2026, that talk is cheap. People—and corporations—who loudly demonstrate how much they are aware of the right things, how woke they are, are not always behaving in alignment with those values. In 2021, Target made a commitment to invest \$2 billion[into Black-owned businesses](https://corporate.target.com/press/release/2021/04/target-commits-to-spending-more-than-2-billion-wit?ref=aftermath.site) by stocking their products in its stores. By 2025, after America elected Donald Trump president again, Target had [rolled back its DEI initiatives](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/24/target-rolls-back-major-dei-initiatives.html?ref=aftermath.site), including scaling back its investment in stocking products from Black-owned businesses. A long time ago, that might have felt like a betrayal, but I don’t put much faith in publicly-traded corporations to do the right thing anymore. Wokeness as an ideology became about showing people how much you are aware of things happening around you, rather than a cogent plan about what to do with your newfound awareness. Being aware is really easy to do, and if just being aware becomes in itself a virtue, then there’s the potential for an ecosystem that is centered around showing other people how much you know. Oh, you’re fighting for Black Lives? I bet you don’t even know about these other marginalized groups of people that also need help\! I have watched the brightest minds of my generation, starving hysterical naked, arguing about whether or not the finale of Stephen Universe was sufficiently righteous on the internet. Knowing and being able to see the firmament that upholds injustice is useful, but you also have to know what to do with that knowledge. I felt proud of seeing different celebrities extol the virtues of the “This Is America” music video, but at the end of the day, it’s just a music video. What did I think people sharing it a lot was going to do? “Stay woke,” raising awareness, cannot be where one’s desire to do good terminates. When all you ask of a person is that they stay aware, attention and consumption takes the place of action. Getting out into the street to march was wonderful, but not when the marches are aimless and without goals, or when they become a platform for people to gain new Instagram followers (follow me to know where the next action is\!). Wokeness can be instead about small, interpersonal actions, a way of linking humans together in a chain of community. I think the [mostly grassroots effort to boycott Target](https://19thnews.org/2026/03/target-boycott-black-women-protest/?ref=aftermath.site) is an example of this in action. There is only one goal for this boycott: show Target that it has lost the loyalty of the Black shoppers it used to enjoy, unless the company is willing to reinstate the policies it dropped after Trump was elected president again. As far as I know, there’s no leader to this movement, and it is mostly a spontaneous action born out of Target deciding to roll back its DEI initiatives. It’s not going to change the world, sure, but it’s making a dent in Target’s finances. When [a Black pastor attempted to call off the boycott](https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/target-shopper-boycott-over-dei-changes-winds-down-f6e0a299?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqcGUn8_6MywVhzyYEf6z0Ao3SudiRSNZ9zIq7BmNSBfcjG_bilmpFud2l-w-hY%3D&gaa_ts=69c02e81&gaa_sig=Ie8rkvD9qQFm34_nK5x0P_Oi5WMVkyQtyV6bwG8epiC1gblIcdR2-9oVptYV2ss2l6FUwBVUmJUENH2amZhLug%3D%3D&ref=aftermath.site) after a year, [Black people en masse refused](https://19thnews.org/2026/03/target-boycott-black-women-protest/?ref=aftermath.site). Former Ohio state Senator Nina Turner told USA Today that in meetings with Target executives, they were still hostile to the idea of diversity, equity and inclusion, [and she intended to escalate her efforts in organizing against the brand.](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2026/03/18/target-dei-boycott-backlash/89189046007/?ref=aftermath.site) All in all, not shopping somewhere isn’t a big ask, but if a lot of people do it together, then you can demonstrate power in a way that these corporations understand: [losing them money](https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/03/03/target-another-quarter-of-declining-sales-but-signs-of-improvement-start-2026?ref=aftermath.site). > I don’t really want to change the world anymore. Recently, I also joined the Democratic Socialists of America. It was the campaign for Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a campaign he handily won, that tipped me over. At least in New York, the DSA is an organization that offers me a lot of opportunities to use my knowledge of what needs fixing in this city and put it into action. I don’t think electoralism is the answer, per se, but I know this group will give me resources to put pressure on my local government if and when I need to. Another part of this is that I have stopped trying to demonstrate my wokeness to other people. I want to lead with actions rather than words. And besides, trying to argue people into submission is quicksand you’ll never get out of—a lot of the time, [the person I’m yelling at on the internet knows their argument doesn’t make sense](https://aftermath.site/assassins-creed-shadows-yasuke-racism/), and by responding to it with anything other than “fuck off” I’m just amplifying it. Two weeks ago, a friend reached out to me to help with a fundraiser for my friend Stella. We talked about her situation on the [Aftermath podcast](https://aftermath.site/podcasts/pokopia-is-a-viva-pinatalike/)– she had been scammed out of a lot of money from a game developer who decided just to never pay her for services rendered. We didn’t end up fundraising the entire amount of the money Stella was owed, but we raised nearly \$13,000. I was happy to raise awareness of what Stella went through on the channels I have available to me. It is good that people knew that the studio she worked for scammed her. But more than that, I made a material difference in my friend’s life. It doesn’t have to be a national movement. Stella’s live stream was only a few hours, and most of the people participating were just her friends and neighbors. Still, we managed to do a little good just by pooling our resources and working together. In 2014, 2018, and 2020, I thought that it was possible to be so woke, so aware, that liberty would emerge. I don’t know what the end goal of a woke 2 could or should be—I think of it more of a chance to give back to people and communities that have helped me, to create spaces of love for the people I love in a world that can be uncaring. I think I don’t really want to change the world anymore. I am just happy to be able to do a little good. [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/2026/03/download-1.png)](https://aftermath.site/tag/woke-week/) **This week on Aftermath, we’re celebrating Woke 2**. What does that mean? Pieces that dig into the origins of woke—not the empty, sanitized version peddled by companies, but actual culture created by people—as well as communities that are already charting a course to a bolder, better future where we can all just be chill to one another. [Read More](https://aftermath.site/tag/woke-week/) [![Gita Jackson](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/size/w30/2025/10/Gita1-1.png)](https://aftermath.site/author/gitajackson/) ### [Gita Jackson](https://aftermath.site/author/gitajackson/) Co-owner of the good website Aftermath. [All articles](https://aftermath.site/author/gitajackson/) Tags: [Woke Week](https://aftermath.site/tag/woke-week/) [The Best Of Woke Week](https://aftermath.site/tag/woke-week-roundup/) [The Best Of Aftermath](https://aftermath.site/tag/bestof/) ## More in Woke Week [See all](https://aftermath.site/tag/woke-week/) [![The Video Games Of Woke 2 (With Michael Hobbes)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/size/w30/2026/03/vegas.jpg)](https://aftermath.site/podcasts/aftermath-hours-podcast-woke-2-michael-hobbes/) - [Podcasts](https://aftermath.site/tag/podcasts/) / ### [The Video Games Of Woke 2 (With Michael Hobbes)](https://aftermath.site/podcasts/aftermath-hours-podcast-woke-2-michael-hobbes/) "The only real problem with Fallout: New Vegas is that if you play it, it does turn you trans" By [Nathan Grayson](https://aftermath.site/author/nathangrayson7/) / 27 Mar 2026 [![‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ Changed The World. Now What?](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/size/w30/2026/03/buffy-top-2-1.png)](https://aftermath.site/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-angel-reboot-sarah-michelle-gellar-chloe-zhao/) - [The Best Of Woke Week](https://aftermath.site/tag/woke-week-roundup/) / ### [‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ Changed The World. Now What?](https://aftermath.site/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-angel-reboot-sarah-michelle-gellar-chloe-zhao/) After hearing the news of the failed Buffy reboot, Nathan and Gita sat down to talk about what was once the wokest, and best, show of all time. By [Gita Jackson](https://aftermath.site/author/gitajackson/) and [Nathan Grayson](https://aftermath.site/author/nathangrayson7/) / 27 Mar 2026 [![Life (And Death) In Warframe](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/size/w30/2026/03/warf14.jpeg)](https://aftermath.site/warframe-digital-extremes-community-tennocon-wedding-funeral/) - [The Best Of Woke Week](https://aftermath.site/tag/woke-week-roundup/) / ### [Life (And Death) In Warframe](https://aftermath.site/warframe-digital-extremes-community-tennocon-wedding-funeral/) The stratospheric highs and craterous lows of 13 years of births, graduations, weddings, and funerals By [Nathan Grayson](https://aftermath.site/author/nathangrayson7/) / 27 Mar 2026 [![Three monsterous people, one with snakelike quills, another with tendrils, and a man with a distorted face.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/size/w30/2026/03/nightbreed-cover_midup.jpg)](https://aftermath.site/nightbreed-masterpiece-review-clive-barker/) - [Woke Week](https://aftermath.site/tag/woke-week/) / ### [Nightbreed Is An Impossible, Anti-Assimilationist Masterpiece](https://aftermath.site/nightbreed-masterpiece-review-clive-barker/) Clive Barker’s Nightbreed was butchered on release, but through a miracle it was restored back to its daring vision. By [Chris Person](https://aftermath.site/author/chrisperson/) / 27 Mar 2026 ## More from Gita Jackson [See all](https://aftermath.site/author/gitajackson/) [![That's Not What Unc Means](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/size/w30/2026/04/7bab9923a5b6509bfb95e250d055a647.jpeg)](https://aftermath.site/unc-aave-african-american-vernacular-english-slang-gen-z/) - [Internet Culture](https://aftermath.site/tag/internet-culture/) / ### [That's Not What Unc Means](https://aftermath.site/unc-aave-african-american-vernacular-english-slang-gen-z/) You’d never know the meaning of unc or its origins in black culture if you looked to mainstream media. By [Gita Jackson](https://aftermath.site/author/gitajackson/) / 16 Apr 2026 [![Dosa Divas Makes Me Hungry](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/size/w30/2026/04/ss_1d5ca668f0c2dfcb2844bb8b487edff96899d1e6.1920x1080.jpg)](https://aftermath.site/dosa-divas-outerloop-outersloth-indian-food-capitalism/) - [Impressions](https://aftermath.site/tag/impressions/) / ### [Dosa Divas Makes Me Hungry](https://aftermath.site/dosa-divas-outerloop-outersloth-indian-food-capitalism/) Hungry for stories about how culture can be commodified, for more perspectives on the diaspora, and yes, for dosa too. By [Gita Jackson](https://aftermath.site/author/gitajackson/) / 15 Apr 2026 [![The Free Press Announces Pop Culture Podcast No One Asked For](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/size/w30/2026/04/free-press-top.png)](https://aftermath.site/the-free-press-suzy-bari-weiss-dan-ahdoot-pop-culture-bullshit/) - [Stupid Things](https://aftermath.site/tag/stupid-things/) / ### [The Free Press Announces Pop Culture Podcast No One Asked For](https://aftermath.site/the-free-press-suzy-bari-weiss-dan-ahdoot-pop-culture-bullshit/) I have a feeling that this "no-BS" podcast might contain some BS. By [Gita Jackson](https://aftermath.site/author/gitajackson/) / 14 Apr 2026 [![Tell Me A Story: Blue Prince Edition](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/size/w30/2026/04/ss_d04f2e766f538d3680b28574ec97f06b3274aafc.1920x1080.jpg)](https://aftermath.site/tell-me-a-story-blue-prince-edition/) - [Open Thread](https://aftermath.site/tag/open-thread/) / ### [Tell Me A Story: Blue Prince Edition](https://aftermath.site/tell-me-a-story-blue-prince-edition/) I refuse to waste a nice notebook on this game. 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Readable Markdown	When I think about the successes and failures of wokeness as an ideological lens, I think about the music video for Childish Gambino’s song “This Is America.” When the music video dropped in 2018, I remember feeling like it was genius. Police brutality against Black Americans had been a central focus of my political activation since 2014, when the murders of Eric Garner and Tamir Rice lit the country on fire. This was the beginnings of the Black Lives Matter movement. I was living in Chicago when a group of activists [shut down](https://www.nbcchicago.com/video/news/local/protesters-shut-down-sb-dan-ryan_chicago/1990577/?ref=aftermath.site) the Dan Ryan Expressway, spanning across it in a human chain. Four years later, watching “This Is America” was an affirmation of the things I already believed and could see to be true just by being politically aware: America is a death cult where it's wholly permissible to use state sanctioned violence against Black people, and in particular they are being killed by police. For the second round of Black Lives Matter in 2020, I lived in New York. As the COVID-19 pandemic shut the city down, it was also writhing with life in the form of protest. This was life-giving fire—I remember being handed a bouquet from a woman in a march going by, then later watching a bus driver film us as I marched past her, tears in her eyes—but by the end of the summer I also understood its limitations. I went to a rally with the man who is now my husband, and on our walk home I told him how annoying it was to hear everyone’s Instagram handles after every speech. The idea of wokeness comes from Black culture. It’s not a complicated idea—to be “woke” means that you are not sleepwalking through life. You are awake and aware of the political realities around you. Notably, wokeness does not instruct you how to use this knowledge. If there is to be a sequel to wokeness, a “woke 2,” what I want to see is a better understanding of what to do once you have woken up. Being so for real: woke 2 is an idea that started as a joke. Erin Vanderhoof from Vanity Fair [describes its origins](https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/story/can-woke-2-go-irl-protests-online-culture?srsltid=AfmBOooiak8DdN5sWR4SVJtWS06ExCzB9q59ySQ2lEtskIowgzukB1eL&ref=aftermath.site) as coming from “progressive retribution fantasies after Donald Trump’s 2024 victory.” The idea was about bringing back wokeness as it was during Obama's presidency, when many people thought having a Black president meant racial progress was inevitable so our work was done—a political movement as defined by a desire to get back to brunch. But the wheels fell off that brand of neoliberal thought a long time ago. “Woke” as a term joined ideas like “political correctness,” “DEI,” or “social justice” in its popular meaning becoming “things liberals do or say that’s annoying.” Calling something woke became more about being able to signal an in-group and out-group—a polite way of calling something tainted by its association with certain kinds of liberal-coded ways of being “anti-racist,” like mandatory unconscious bias training at work. The idea of flipping things back on their head—no, we are woke again, and you are too or else!—really cracks me up. Wokeness full cultural victory! Put those pronouns back in your bio, do a land acknowledgement—the wokeness struggle session begins now! But if I were to ask myself what I want out of the idea of being woke in this political era, there are failures of woke 1 that I think are useful to dissect. Wokeness, being so wrapped up in the Black Lives Matter movement which itself was reliant on the ecosystem of Twitter, was sometimes more about watching than taking action. I remember watching the protests in Ferguson, Missouri after the death of Mike Brown on Periscope, a Twitter product, trying to use the internet to get a sense of what was happening on the ground. I don’t know that watching all that footage did me much good; sure, I was pretty aware of what was going on in Ferguson, but there wasn’t much I could do. Mostly, it gave me a panic attack. > In 2026, talk is cheap. As a movement, Black Lives Matter was intended to be decentralized and leaderless, but of course, that didn’t mean that figureheads did not emerge. The negative space in the idea of wokeness—who are you watching, who is bringing you to awareness?—can easily be occupied by grifters and other bad actors. In 2025, [the executive director of the Oklahoma City branch of the Black Lives Matter organization](https://oklahomavoice.com/2025/12/12/oklahoma-city-black-lives-matter-leader-indicted-on-embezzlement-money-laundering-charges/?ref=aftermath.site) was indicted on embezzlement charges. Shaun King, an organizer who would go on to work on Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, has had enough accusations of pocketing donations meant for families of Black people killed by police violence that [there’s a section on it in his Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_King?ref=aftermath.site#Fundraising_activities_and_disputes). Because the Black Lives Matter movement used Twitter to signal boost news and organize events, apparently [former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson became friends](https://mashable.com/article/twitter-dorsey-deray-ferguson?ref=aftermath.site). I think we all know how that one turned out—as soon as [Twitter execs found a buyer](https://abcnews.com/Business/timeline-elon-musks-tumultuous-twitter-acquisition-attempt/story?id=86611191&ref=aftermath.site) to take their company, they [passed it off to a white supremacist](https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-stay-woke-twitter-shirts-black-lives-matter?ref=aftermath.site) and washed their hands of the whole thing. In this first version of wokeness, I wasn’t nearly as skeptical of figureheads and corporations co-signing social movements as I needed to be. I had this unshakeable belief that justice would emerge in the end, that people would do the right thing just because it was the right thing to do. I trusted companies, I put my faith in people who posted about the right things online. Now in 2026, that talk is cheap. People—and corporations—who loudly demonstrate how much they are aware of the right things, how woke they are, are not always behaving in alignment with those values. In 2021, Target made a commitment to invest \$2 billion[into Black-owned businesses](https://corporate.target.com/press/release/2021/04/target-commits-to-spending-more-than-2-billion-wit?ref=aftermath.site) by stocking their products in its stores. By 2025, after America elected Donald Trump president again, Target had [rolled back its DEI initiatives](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/24/target-rolls-back-major-dei-initiatives.html?ref=aftermath.site), including scaling back its investment in stocking products from Black-owned businesses. A long time ago, that might have felt like a betrayal, but I don’t put much faith in publicly-traded corporations to do the right thing anymore. Wokeness as an ideology became about showing people how much you are aware of things happening around you, rather than a cogent plan about what to do with your newfound awareness. Being aware is really easy to do, and if just being aware becomes in itself a virtue, then there’s the potential for an ecosystem that is centered around showing other people how much you know. Oh, you’re fighting for Black Lives? I bet you don’t even know about these other marginalized groups of people that also need help\! I have watched the brightest minds of my generation, starving hysterical naked, arguing about whether or not the finale of Stephen Universe was sufficiently righteous on the internet. Knowing and being able to see the firmament that upholds injustice is useful, but you also have to know what to do with that knowledge. I felt proud of seeing different celebrities extol the virtues of the “This Is America” music video, but at the end of the day, it’s just a music video. What did I think people sharing it a lot was going to do? “Stay woke,” raising awareness, cannot be where one’s desire to do good terminates. When all you ask of a person is that they stay aware, attention and consumption takes the place of action. Getting out into the street to march was wonderful, but not when the marches are aimless and without goals, or when they become a platform for people to gain new Instagram followers (follow me to know where the next action is\!). Wokeness can be instead about small, interpersonal actions, a way of linking humans together in a chain of community. I think the [mostly grassroots effort to boycott Target](https://19thnews.org/2026/03/target-boycott-black-women-protest/?ref=aftermath.site) is an example of this in action. There is only one goal for this boycott: show Target that it has lost the loyalty of the Black shoppers it used to enjoy, unless the company is willing to reinstate the policies it dropped after Trump was elected president again. As far as I know, there’s no leader to this movement, and it is mostly a spontaneous action born out of Target deciding to roll back its DEI initiatives. It’s not going to change the world, sure, but it’s making a dent in Target’s finances. When [a Black pastor attempted to call off the boycott](https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/target-shopper-boycott-over-dei-changes-winds-down-f6e0a299?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqcGUn8_6MywVhzyYEf6z0Ao3SudiRSNZ9zIq7BmNSBfcjG_bilmpFud2l-w-hY%3D&gaa_ts=69c02e81&gaa_sig=Ie8rkvD9qQFm34_nK5x0P_Oi5WMVkyQtyV6bwG8epiC1gblIcdR2-9oVptYV2ss2l6FUwBVUmJUENH2amZhLug%3D%3D&ref=aftermath.site) after a year, [Black people en masse refused](https://19thnews.org/2026/03/target-boycott-black-women-protest/?ref=aftermath.site). Former Ohio state Senator Nina Turner told USA Today that in meetings with Target executives, they were still hostile to the idea of diversity, equity and inclusion, [and she intended to escalate her efforts in organizing against the brand.](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2026/03/18/target-dei-boycott-backlash/89189046007/?ref=aftermath.site) All in all, not shopping somewhere isn’t a big ask, but if a lot of people do it together, then you can demonstrate power in a way that these corporations understand: [losing them money](https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/03/03/target-another-quarter-of-declining-sales-but-signs-of-improvement-start-2026?ref=aftermath.site). > I don’t really want to change the world anymore. Recently, I also joined the Democratic Socialists of America. It was the campaign for Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a campaign he handily won, that tipped me over. At least in New York, the DSA is an organization that offers me a lot of opportunities to use my knowledge of what needs fixing in this city and put it into action. I don’t think electoralism is the answer, per se, but I know this group will give me resources to put pressure on my local government if and when I need to. Another part of this is that I have stopped trying to demonstrate my wokeness to other people. I want to lead with actions rather than words. And besides, trying to argue people into submission is quicksand you’ll never get out of—a lot of the time, [the person I’m yelling at on the internet knows their argument doesn’t make sense](https://aftermath.site/assassins-creed-shadows-yasuke-racism/), and by responding to it with anything other than “fuck off” I’m just amplifying it. Two weeks ago, a friend reached out to me to help with a fundraiser for my friend Stella. We talked about her situation on the [Aftermath podcast](https://aftermath.site/podcasts/pokopia-is-a-viva-pinatalike/)– she had been scammed out of a lot of money from a game developer who decided just to never pay her for services rendered. We didn’t end up fundraising the entire amount of the money Stella was owed, but we raised nearly \$13,000. I was happy to raise awareness of what Stella went through on the channels I have available to me. It is good that people knew that the studio she worked for scammed her. But more than that, I made a material difference in my friend’s life. It doesn’t have to be a national movement. Stella’s live stream was only a few hours, and most of the people participating were just her friends and neighbors. Still, we managed to do a little good just by pooling our resources and working together. In 2014, 2018, and 2020, I thought that it was possible to be so woke, so aware, that liberty would emerge. I don’t know what the end goal of a woke 2 could or should be—I think of it more of a chance to give back to people and communities that have helped me, to create spaces of love for the people I love in a world that can be uncaring. I think I don’t really want to change the world anymore. I am just happy to be able to do a little good. [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/2026/03/download-1.png)](https://aftermath.site/tag/woke-week/) **This week on Aftermath, we’re celebrating Woke 2**. What does that mean? Pieces that dig into the origins of woke—not the empty, sanitized version peddled by companies, but actual culture created by people—as well as communities that are already charting a course to a bolder, better future where we can all just be chill to one another. [Read More](https://aftermath.site/tag/woke-week/)
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