Page 14 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 12

MY AFRIKA

Woke: Genealogy? The discovery of this consciousness
was the discovery of a certain plea-
In its simplest definition, the term sure. “The pleasure of being black
"Woke" simply means aware and at- was a core part of the cultural revo-
tentive to important facts and issues lution staged during the Black Power
- particularly issues of racial and movement” (Margo Natalie Craw-
social justice. It was first used by ford, “What Was Is”: The Time
African Americans in the 1940s in and Space of Entanglement Erased
their own initiatives against injustice, by Post-Blackness, In Houston A.
inequality and prejudice. Baker and K. Merinda Simmons,
The Trouble with Post-Blackness, Nyawire Michael:
Thabiti Anyabwile (a.k.a. Ron p.36). To be “woke,” then, builds on Is a practicing Kenyan journalist who is pas-
Burns), a pastor in the US explains this discovery: that being “Black”, sionate about telling African stories that
that “woke” isn’t at all new. In his especially in Africa, is something to demonstrate its universal prowess. I aspire
article: "Woke Is..." he clarifies that take pleasure in. to be an influential and established financial
"Solomon taught a long, long time coach, which will well help me educate my
ago that, “there’s nothing new under But we can go even further. Before fellow Africans on reasonable practices that
the sun.” What we call woke today is the Black Arts, Black Power, and would ensure economic soundness and sanity
for Africa.
pretty close to the ‘Afrocentricism’ Black Consciousness movements I write as a hobby and as a profession. I'm typ-
of the 1980’s. Afrocentricism, a there was, in the 1920s, the New ically an Africanist championing for a better
word coined by Dr. Molefi Asante, Negro Movement of the Harlem Africa today and in the days ahead.
professor of African-American Renaissance and the Negritude
studies at Temple University at the Movement in Africa. Alain Locke
time, was about centering Africa and in Harlem with Aime Cesaire in This is why some version of “woke”
Africa-descended people in their Martinique and Leopold Senghor in appears in nearly every generation.
worldview much the way Europe West Africa were among the leading Each generation has to forge and
has always been at the center of thinkers of these movements. Fol- reclaim a sense of self that’s healthy,
the worldview of European people. lowing the defeats of Counter-Re- affirming, and productive in order
Afrocentricism taught that Black construction and Plessy v. Fergu- to withstand and resist the identi-
people should see the world as Black son, Negro artists and intellectuals ty-twisting and person-debasing ide-
people." began to give a more strident voice ologies launched against us." By us,
to the complaints, complexity, and I believe his reference is relevant to
He goes on to say that, "Of course, beauty of Negro life and thought. all people of African descent both
before Afrocentricism in the 1980’s This phase of the identity project on and off the continent. Africa is
there was the Black Arts Movement featured an international awareness not short of human and civil rights
and Black Consciousness move- and exchange, and gave rise to a issues and injustices that need the
ment of the 1960s – a movement number of publications and outlets. church's active involvement - but
that both inspired and also drew The movement, like all historical how willing are these churches to
strength from Pan-Africanism and iterations of what we call “woke,” empower their members or even get
its connections with independence sought to forge an identity both involved in addressing these issues?
movements in Africa and the Carib- independent of white determinants
bean. That period gave Black people and accepted by the wider world. “If you are neutral in situations of
“Black” as an identifier. People don’t We could go further back. I think an injustice, you have chosen the side
realize it today, but calling yourself essential thing to note is this: Negro, of the oppressor.” – Desmond Tutu
“Black” in America was not so Black, African, or African-Amer- Desmond Tutu is a South African
much motivated by describing skin ican (choose your descriptor and cleric, theologian, and human rights
color as much as it was a political time period) has always involved a activist. In the 1970s and 80s, he
statement about what is beautiful massive project in self-definition, spoke out against apartheid and
and valiant, re-appropriating what self-determination and self-affir- drew international attention to the
had been a slur in the mouth of mation in a national, continental racial injustice of the system. In
others and refusing to be erased in and world context characterized by 1984, he was awarded the Nobel
the world. anti-Black racism and oppression. Of Peace. This quote expresses the
importance of being vocal about

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