The War on “Woke” and the Future of Multicultural Marketing

By David Morse – New American Dimensions

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a Black man, died after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground, gasping for air, by Minneapolis police officers, in an episode that was captured on video, touching off nationwide protests. It was a lynching, for all to see. Importantly, it was a turning point, specifically for millions of White people, who were shocked and outraged — a moment of awakening when the country, as a whole, realized just how badly the legacy of racism had permeated the fabric of society.

At the same time, people across the nation began to look at their government, as well as their brands, to ask important questions: What are you doing about racial injustice? What are you doing for Black and Brown lives? And if you’re talking about it, what are you doing to walk the walk?

Corporate America was swift to react. The NFL apologized for past behavior and committed billions of dollars to fight racial injustice. Ben & Jerry’s, never a stranger to social justice, took on slavery, Jim Crow and white privilege. Nike, already an ally of Colin Kaepernick, launched an advertisement, adjusting the brand’s tagline to ‘For Once, Don’t Do It’, imploring its customers to stop pretending ‘there’s not a problem in America’.

In 2020, Starbucks tied executive pay to diversity targets and Apple launched a $100 million Racial Equity and Justice Initiative. Scores of companies made efforts to assume and promulgate a social justice stance, from declaring Juneteenth a company holiday to placing a moratorium on the sale of facial recognition equipment to police departments.

Many companies looked inward, at outdated, often racist brand names, board member composition and human resource policies to ensure that they were solidly positioned on the anti-racist bandwagon. And for many of us, it seemed that perhaps, finally, Americans were ready to embrace ideals of diversity and social justice.

However, as has all-too-often been the case in American history, short lived advances in social justice would lead to backlash. And nowhere is this more apparent than in the case of the word “woke.” It’s a term with a long history, but one that has taken on new meaning, perhaps being most closely associated with Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who calls his home state the place “where woke goes to die.”

DeSantis, by no means, was the first to use the term. The term “stay woke” had been a part of African American speech for years, a general warning to be alert, to not be taken in or deceived. In 1923, Jamaican social activist Marcus Garvey called on Blacks worldwide to be more politically conscious with the phrase “Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa”. In 1938, bluesman Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, used the phrase “stay woke” in the song “Scottsboro Boys,” which tells the story of nine Black teenagers in Scottsboro, Arkansas, accused of raping two White women.

However, in the last few years, the term “woke” has been coopted by the Right and is often used sarcastically to mean Left-wing political correctness on steroids.

In May 2021, when the U.S. Army posted commercials on social media aimed at recruiting women soldiers, conservatives accused the military of going too “woke”, forcing them to take down the ads. “Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea,” tweeted Sen. Ted Cruz . Also in 2021, Florida’s state Board of Education banned critical race theory — an academic discipline based on the idea that racism is systemic in American institutions and functions to maintain the dominance of Whites — adopting rules designed to shield schoolchildren from “woke” teaching that could “distort historical events” and hurt their feelings.

The recent implosion of Silicon Valley Bank escalated calls of “woke”, as conservative politicians blamed the bank’s downfall on Leftist practices. Tweeted former President Trump, “SVB is what happens when you push a Leftist/woke ideology and have that take precedent over common sense business practices.” Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus told Fox News, “These banks are badly run because everybody is focused on diversity and all of the ‘woke’ issues.”

Perhaps one group to feel the wrath of the war on “woke” most acutely has been the LGBTQ+ community, and specifically, those who are transgender. In March 2022, DeSantis signed the “Parental Rights in Education” bill, dubbed “Don’t Say Gay”, which prohibits classroom instruction in sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through the third grade, or in a manner that is “not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”

In the bill’s wake, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, similar bills banning instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools are being considered in at least 15 states. This February, The Human Rights Campaign announced that it is presently working to defeat 340 anti-LGBTQ+ bills at the state level, 150 of which target transgender people, the highest number on record.

The war on “woke” is a disturbing trend, especially for us practitioners of DEI and multicultural marketing, who fight to assert the importance of recognizing, acknowledging, and embracing human differences.

Fortunately, as a collective, corporate America has rallied against the war on “woke.” Even before the murder of George Floyd, in 2018, in response to a growing controversy about transgender rights, 56 major companies, representing more than $2.4 trillion in revenue, issued a statement declaring, “We, the undersigned businesses, stand with the millions of people in America who identify as transgender, gender non-binary, or intersex, and call for all such people to be treated with the respect and dignity everyone deserves.”

In June 2020, The ANA and its diversity initiative, the Alliance for Inclusive & Multicultural Marketing (AIMM), acknowledged the limited progress made in all aspects of DEI. In a letter to its board of directors and members, the organization pledged to do everything it could “to end systemic racism and achieve equality and justice” in the marketing and advertising industries. The letter stated:

“As marketers and industry leaders, we commit to unflinchingly examine our own history and current practices to shine the light on systemic and institutional bias that exists within the industry. We can no longer accept the failings of many of our diversity and inclusion initiatives and commit to examine why they fail and what action is needed to advance. And we commit to interventions that will have an immediate and sustained impact on equality, inclusion, and systemic change in our ecosystem and in our society.”

Looking toward the future, the attitudes of young people are always a bellwether, and these seem to point unequivocally toward a future that is more tolerant and accepting of difference. And in 2023, it is Gen Z that represents the leading edge of the country’s ideological transformation.
To begin with, only a small majority of Gen Z, 52% in 2020, is White – significantly smaller than the 61% of Millennials who were White in 2002. Beyond the demographics, more striking perhaps, are attitudes.

Take Gen Z’s attitude toward gender. A 2021 study by Bigeye, “Gender: Beyond the Binary,” found that 50% of Gen Z respondents believe that gender is a spectrum, as opposed to being a binary. A 2019 Pew study found that 53% of those ages 18 to 29 say that forms should include other gender options, compared with 43% of those ages 30 to 49, 37% of those 50 to 64 and 35% of those 65 and older.

As America changes, so does multicultural marketing. Historically, advances in social justice have always provoked a counter reaction. However, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

I believe this will also be the case for multicultural marketing. Despite opposition from many Right-leaning, and let’s face it, White folks, many companies, and many organizations such as ANA AIMM, are stepping up to the plate, and doing what is right. Right for society, and I believe, right for business.

About Author

David Morse is president of the multicultural market research firm, New American Dimensions, and author of the book “Multicultural Intelligence: Eight Make-Or-Break Rules for Marketing to Race, Ethnicity, and Sexual Orientation.