Several years ago in an Advanced Placement Language and Composition class, I read “Language in Thought and Action” by S.I. Hayakawa. Most of the book’s contents have admittedly slipped my mind, but one topic that has stuck with me is the difference between denotation and connotation. While a dictionary may denote the meaning of a word, our own connotations can lead to miscommunication. I think about this theory more today than I ever did in high school, especially when it comes to political buzzwords.
Such a thought struck me as of late when scrolling through Twitter. On Monday, Jan. 23, the M&M’s brand released a statement claiming that after unintentionally “polarizing” the country, they have decided to pause the spokescandies advertising campaign and have actress Maya Rudolph take over brand representation in place of the candies. This decision was prompted after outrage centering on the campaign’s redesign — one consisting of minimal changes such as swapping the footwear of the brown and green female M&Ms. Whether for genuine anger or a bizarre cash grab, Fox News’ political commentator Tucker Carlson, argued that “M&M’s will not be satisfied until every last cartoon character is deeply unappealing and totally androgynous.”
While there was some confusion over whether this announcement was genuine when it was first released, M&Ms has evidently made the retirement into a gag. M&Ms Twitter now says Ma&Ya’s, with Rudolph’s face plastered across a yellow M&M.
But, what sparked the M&M brand into such controversy in the first place? It wasn’t just Tucker Carlson’s comments that led to this animosity. It was one, magic word: woke.
The word originates from African American Vernacular English, one of many English dialects recognized by both linguists and social justice advocates. Merriam-Webster defines woke as “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues, especially issues of racial and social justice.” The term gained particular significance in our current social context as a key slogan for Black Lives Matter, appearing in popular media as the “Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement” documentary and the book “Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter.”
Words change naturally over time, and recent adoptions of the term “woke” have resulted in new connotations of the word. As recognition of the term increased, “woke” was subjected to criticism on mainstream platforms. Hulu’s aptly-named original comedy, “Woke,” follows an activist “in a world where ‘woke’ has become big business.” One “Saturday Night Live” skit, Levi’s Wokes, parodied the term with “sizeless, style-neutral, gender non-conforming denim for a generation that defies labels.” Hulu and “SNL’s” intended targets were brands capitalizing on social justice movements, but their representations put wokeness as a whole in a negative light; instead of just blaming business, woke became synonymous with performative activism. This connotation of performative activism, coupled with rising conversations over the role of cancel culture in our current socio-political climate, opened a window for a complete takeover of the term.
Fox News released their own definition of the term, adding that “in addition to meaning aware and progressive, many people now interpret ‘woke’ to be a way to describe people who would rather silence their critics than listen to them.” To me, the word interpret is key.
In reality, Fox News’ definition of the term is inconsistent with the current political climate. Aside from the M&M’s controversy, other “woke” media includes the “Game of Thrones” prequel, “House of the Dragon” for discussing gender roles, Victoria’s Secret for expanding their body inclusivity and James Bond’s finale “No Time To Die” for portraying 007 and Q as Black and queer, respectively. The anti-woke crowd also tries to link these examples to a failure in the market, in order to justify their ridicule and prove that diversity is unappealing.
The disconnect between the new connotations of wokeness and the efforts to quell progressive — or simply diverse — content is not irony, but rather a misinformation campaign that goes beyond the absurdities of M&M’s sexualization. Online culture wars and rage-baiting can be easily dismissed as asinine and inconsequential. However, the debate over what woke content is and its appropriateness is not only limited to the battlefield of Twitter.
These anti-woke instances of outrage do not exist in a world separate from our political atmosphere. Uproar over diversity and social justice, even in the most baffling contexts, affects how media consumers see and understand diversity in any context.
From school boards to Congress, wokeness lies at the crux of several public policy changes across the country. Florida is currently operating as the anti-woke epicenter of the nation, spearheaded by Governor Ron DeSantis. In April of last year, he signed the Stop WOKE Act, or Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees, which “prohibits colleges from promoting critical race theory lessons and targets other ‘woke’ concepts prevalent on higher education campuses.” The state of Florida also recently garnered media attention after the Florida Department of Education rejected to implement Advanced Placement African American History into public schools, claiming the course “is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.”
On the federal level, U.S. Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind. recently announced his plans to form an Anti-Woke Caucus, which is aimed at dismantling the “greatest domestic threat to America today.” The exact role this caucus will play is unclear, or if it will even come to fruition, but Banks has his eyes set on a vast number of sectors including schools, the military, government agencies and the private sector. His goal can be simplified into one phrase: stop funding wokeness.
This sentiment is shared by the House Freedom Caucus who, last October, urged Republican Party GOP leaders Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy to “end the contamination of our military by radical Leftists ‘woke’ ideologies.” This was in reference to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, which President Joe Biden signed into law last December. The letter also called for the NDAA to “halt wasteful spending on ‘Green New Deal’ pet climate projects” and “establish a Special Inspector General on U.S. Involvement in Ukraine.”
These proposals are generally formatted with the phrase, and other woke content, blatantly assuming the public is knowledgeable about the topics to which they are referring. It is this vagueness that allows anti-wokeness to be so permissible in our legislature. Woke couldn’t be a broader term, and yet everyone seems to know exactly what it’s referring to; race lies at its core, especially for BIPOC issues, and has extended to also identify LGBTQIA+ representation, efforts towards climate justice and the inclusion of women as its aims. For example, The Center for Renewing America, a conservative think tank, is proposing that Congress decrease funding in several agencies, especially those that they believe offices that are “infused with critical race theory and gender theory,” as well as “”health equity’ and ‘social justice.'”
In effect, “woke” has been co-opted to a dog whistle for anything progressive — which is especially insidious considering a term used to signal Black justice and other forms of equity is now a weapon wielded by politicians with an alternative agenda. The Freedom Caucus and potential Anti-Woke Caucus know that using the cultural influence surrounding wokeness can help garner support without admitting their real intent. In other words, the anti-woke crowd has become hypocritical by claiming they’re being censored while actively removing programs and media with which they disagree.
Dog whistles rely on connotations; a select group must have an understanding of a word or phrase that is different from others. Noam Chomsky, the father of modern linguistics, said in his book, “On Language,” “No doubt a propaganda system is more effective when its doctrines are insinuated rather than asserted.” Confronting this injustice over wokeness is not a matter arguing over the true definition of woke, but organizing the term’s various connotations. Without clear assertion of woke as a dog whistle, it will continue to operate in the public sphere, most detrimentally in our own news publications and governments.
Statement Columnist Elizabeth Wolfe can be reached at eliwolfe@umich.edu.