-Republicans around the country have called out
the dangers of woke ideology.
-Wokeness is a virus more dangerous
than any pandemic, hands down.
-That's why I want to start a caucus focused
for the first time in Congress on uprooting Wokeism.
-Prime among them,
Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis.
-We reject this woke ideology.
We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob.
Florida. Florida.
Florida is where woke goes to die.
-DeSantis has enacted anti-woke legislation.
-Called Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees Act.
-He's called out what he says
are woke corporations, including Disney.
They are now in a feud that has escalated,
with Disney suing DeSantis in federal court,
followed by a countersuit in state court
by DeSantis's new handpicked board.
-We're not going to delegate our leadership
to a woke corporation based in Burbank, California.
-And in August 2022, he also suspended
Hillsborough County state attorney Andrew Warren,
calling him a woke prosecutor.
-I don't think the people of Hillsborough County
want to have an agenda that is basically woke.
-But what does the word "woke" mean,
and how did it become part of the Republican
rallying cry? -For the most part,
most Republicans are now awakened to this fact
that wokeness is weakness.
It's a cancer that's eating America.
-♪ Go to Alabama and you better watch out ♪
♪ The landlord'll ya, gonna jump and shout ♪
♪ Scottsboro, Scottsboro boys ♪
♪ They can tell ya what it's all about ♪
-The earlier reference to woke,
We can date back to the blues folk singer Lead Belly.
The word woke doesn't appear in the actual lyrics,
but it appears in an interview with him
about the making of the song.
-Huddie, what did the Scottsboro Boys do anyway,
to get in all this trouble?
-In that recording, he says,
"I want particularly Black people to be aware,
or woke, when they're coming to the South."
-I'd advise everybody to be a little careful
when they go along through that, but stay woke,
keep the eyes open. -It connects to the idea
of being socially aware
about inequity, injustice, and marginalization.
In the 1980s, Spike Lee is famous for having "wake up"
as a refrain in all of his movies.
-Wake up!
-You have persons like Erykah Badu
whose own song where she has a refrain of "Stay woke."
-♪ I stay woke ♪
-And this becomes a way of, again,
talking about political consciousness,
particularly at the height of Ferguson.
It's going to be used in terms of a hashtag
with the Black Lives Matter movement,
and that is the contemporary iteration of the term.
-Experts say that the way Black vernacular
has held this term over decades is now being rescripted.
-The term woke today connects to political correctness.
It connects to ideas of policing.
And there's pushback that is not necessarily
just beholden to one political group or political party.
-This idea of purity and you're never compromised
and you're always politically woke and all that stuff,
you should get over that quickly.
-Are you woke?
-No!
-Are you finally awake?
-Yes!
-The Republican Party has appropriated the term woke.
They're using it as a way to say,
"We want to be against this policing of language,
this policing of culture."
-We fight the woke in the legislature.
We fight the woke in the schools.
We fight the woke in the corporations.
We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob.
-In 2021, Florida governor Ron DeSantis
first defined woke as... -A form of cultural Marxism.
They really want to tear at the fabric
of our society and our culture.
-Then in 2022, the governor suspended state attorney
Andrew Warren after Warren signed two statements
pledging he would not prosecute cases
stemming from Florida's 15-week abortion ban
and potential bans on gender-affirming care.
Warren sued DeSantis
for violating his First Amendment rights.
During the trial, people close to DeSantis
were asked how the governor defines the word woke.
-Ryan Newman, DeSantis's general counsel,
said it would be "the belief
that there are systemic injustices
in American society and the need to address them."
-Newman was asked if the governor was woke
and according to court transcripts,
Newman said, quote,
"No, no, I don't think he shares the view that, you know,
our society is fundamentally unjust and needs policies
to correct that systemic injustice."
-My research supports the idea
that there are systemic injustices that continue today.
-That's a social fact.
-There are injustices across institutions
and across areas, whether that's, you know, health
or the criminal justice system, or even in corporations.
How much do women make as opposed to men
for doing the same job?
-Until 1968, in this country,
it was legal in many places to discriminate based on race.
-Black and Latinx neighborhoods
bear the brunt of this long-term discrimination.
-They have lower economic investment
and they have fewer job opportunities
in those neighborhoods.
And so that is one of those ways in which systemic injustice
persists to the present. -Well, I am running for
President of the United States
to lead our great American comeback.
-So what does it mean if a 2024 presidential candidate
does not believe there are systemic injustices
in the United States?
-It takes us back to times before many minoritized groups,
the very groups that are targeted today,
do not experience full citizenship.
I think that is dangerous
because it puts us on a road to go backwards.
-The DeSantis administration declined
to respond to "The Washington Post"'s inquiries
about how exactly the governor defines the term woke,
but he continues to use the word frequently.
And as Governor Ron DeSantis makes a bid
for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination,
it's unclear if his rejection of woke ideology
will appeal to a national audience.
But for now, in Florida, it's working.
And according to the governor...
-You ain't seen nothing yet.
Thank you all.
God bless you.
Thank you.