Wokeness, Hip-Hop, & President Trump’s Definition of Wokeness: Reclaiming What’s Ours
Wokeness, Hip-Hop, and President Trump’s Definition of Wokeness: Reclaiming What’s Ours
© Ogbonna Paul Hagins for Philly Word Magazine and Freedmen’s Journal 2.0
Wokeness, at its core, is about knowing the truth—understanding the struggle, facing our history, and pushing back against the system that keeps us down. For the American Freedmen, wokeness has always been about understanding the fight that’s uniquely ours: the fight for justice, for reparations, for the promise of the 13th Amendment.
But somewhere along the line, wokeness got hijacked and turned into a buzzword that lost its meaning. The people who’ve always profited off of our pain have now made a mockery of our movement.
It’s the same old game. Just like the American Freedmen’s creativity has been stolen and used for profit, wokeness got watered down and sold back to us. Hip-hop is a prime example of this.
It was born in the struggle, an expression of resilience and rebellion, the voice of the oppressed. It was our truth, our history, our fight against the system that sought to erase us. But today, what’s left of hip-hop isn’t the same. It’s been commodified, sanitized, turned into a product for mainstream consumption.
What was once revolutionary is now just another industry. Wokeness has been subjected to the same fate: it’s been co-opted, twisted, and turned into something unrecognizable.
But here’s the truth—the American Freedmen are not going to let that happen to us. Wokeness isn’t some passing trend for us.
It’s embedded in who we are. It’s not about fitting into a trendy political narrative; it’s about confronting the centuries of oppression that our ancestors endured and ensuring the promises made to us are fulfilled.
Wokeness for us is about demanding reparations, the creation of Freedmen towns, and fighting against the ongoing effects of slavery. This fight is permanent. It is unshakeable. It is ours.
When President Donald Trump stood in his State of the Union and spoke about “eliminating wokeness,” he wasn’t talking about us. He wasn’t talking about the American Freedmen.
He wasn’t talking about the children of the enslaved, the ones whose ancestors fought and died for freedom, the ones who still stand firm in the fight for reparations. Trump may have wanted to eliminate the watered-down, corporate-approved version of wokeness that’s been twisted for political gain, but we know that our fight is different.
We know he wasn’t referring to us. He knows we’re not just a trend—our wokeness is tied to our struggle for justice and equal protection under the law.
The American Freedmen have equal protection, and we will never let anyone erase that. We know our history. We know what we’re owed. Wokeness for us is about reclaiming what’s been stolen from us for generations.
It’s about making sure the fight for justice, for reparations, for our dignity, stays alive, no matter how much others try to water it down.
J
ust like hip-hop, our wokeness can’t be erased. It can’t be commercialized. It can’t be co-opted by politicians or corporations. Wokeness for the American Freedmen is more than a word—it’s a movement, a legacy, and a fight that has always been ours and always will be.
When Trump spoke about wokeness, he wasn’t talking about us, and he knows that. We’ll keep pushing, keep fighting, and keep reminding the world that wokeness for the American Freedmen is a fight that will never go away.
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