American history, racism, and wokeness
~a column by Mary Weaver
I was awake early this morning. I am also WOKE.
Ring around the rosie / Pocket full of posies / Last one down is a _igger baby.
Eena, meena, mina, mo / Catch a _igger by his toe. / If he hollers make him pay / Fifty dollars every day.
We said those rhymes when playing during my preschool and early elementary school days. I recall Eena, meena, mina mo was used when selecting a person for a game or for whoever got to be first in line during my first grade class.
I did not have any interaction with African Americans in my preteen life. Those were just rhymes without any thoughts of people.
My mother read LITTLE BLACK SAMBO to me as a child. I recall admiration for Sambo, for his clever thinking and his willingness to give up materialistic items. I was not aware that Sambo became a politically incorrect word.
My children did not verbalize those rhymes. As a society we have become more aware, and sensitive.
I was chagrined when gubernatorial candidate Reynolds ran a campaign ad against her Black opposition that included her saying, “In Iowa we wake up early, but we’re not woke.”
Coffee time with former work friends last week included the discussion of woke and one asked what it really means to be woke. It drove me to research the word.
Woke is an adjective meaning “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination“. Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities.
By the mid-20th century, woke had come to mean ‘well-informed’ or ‘aware’, especially in a political or cultural sense. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the earliest such usage to a 1962. The term was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017.
Being woke does have history. While it is not known exactly when being “awake” was first used as a metaphor for political engagement and activism, one identified example in the United States was the paramilitary youth organization the Wide Awakes. This group formed in Hartford, CT, to support the Republican candidate in the 1860 presidential election, Abraham Lincoln.
I do not believe my father was prejudiced. He was born and raised in Greene and Boone Counties. He farmed in the area his entire life. He had minimal interactions with persons of Color. When something seemed incorrect or suspicious, he would sometimes say, “There’s a _igger in the wood pile.” This colloquialism dates to the Underground railroad times when African Americans were hidden in the fences or woodpiles. His statement had nothing to do with African Americans.
This past weekend we heard Republican presidential candidates speak of ridding the country of woke curriculum in our schools. The view from this window is that we must not erase the history of our country. We must acknowledge the atrocities done to the Indigenous people of the Americas by the White pioneers and settlers. We must recognize the strength of economic growth of the U.S. because of cotton and tobacco being raised and harvested literally on the backs of African men and women brought in shackles to the U.S. as slaves.
Ask yourself if you are woke? Ask others if they are woke. Will be an interesting conversation.
P:S: Lagniappe: A southern term. Giving unnecessary but interesting information. While researching about nursery rhymes I learned:
Ring around the Rosie meant the itchy rash around the infected sore of a person sick with the plague. Pocket full of posies were the flower pedals that plague doctors showered upon their deceased patients, which also helped to ward off their odor.
Ashes, ashes meant the cremated remains of the deceased.
And yes, whether sick or not: we all fall down (at the end of our lives).
Mary Weaver of rural Rippey is chair of the Iowa Democratic Women’s Caucus and a 4th generation Iowan
