Woke is dead — the work isn’t


ByRoselle Gonsalves
February 21, 2025
DIGITAL JOURNAL

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Roselle is a thought leader in Digital Journal’s Insight Forum (become a member).

Mourners gather at the graveside of a once-revered ideal. Some sniffle into wadded-up tissues, others stare ahead, stone-faced like the tombstones around them. The wind is whipping and cold, stirring tears that may or may not be grief. As the casket is lowered into the ground, each person tosses a small black square — a weathered printout of an old social media post, a wrinkled corporate pledge — into the dirt. It was only five short years ago that they’d held those small black squares so dearly; a symbol of their newfound commitment to what they were now here to bury: being woke.

I watch from a distance, and my phone beeps in the pocket of my coat. Checking the message, I find another article with another headline about the so-called death of “woke.”

I exhale sharply, pressing my palms into my eye sockets, it isn’t the whipping wind that is making me weepy, though it offers a benevolent disguise to my tears. I adjust the collar of my coat, feeling it scratch against my neck, hoping it will protect me from the wind, and offer some anchor in this turbulent moment.

There is a weight I feel pressing against my ribs. The news has been relentless — one organization after another abandoning their inclusion commitments, governments dismantling Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs, entire industries declaring that this work has run its course. Not long ago, these same institutions flooded timelines with black squares and pledged unwavering allyship. Today they wield erasers, scrubbing away any evidence they ever cared. Instead, the rhetoric of meritocracy has been resurrected, as though the pursuit of inclusion was somehow too polarizing, and in opposition to excellence.

Having worked in the field of inclusion and reconciliation for nearly two decades now, I’ve witnessed the ebbs and flows. Where 2020 saw a peak in demand for inclusion work, we now find ourselves in a valley where those little black squares that promised to listen and learn are being tossed into the open grave of being woke.

Yet I know that beyond all this noise, this distraction, this flood of information … beyond all of it remains the work of building bridges, which must continue. Albeit, once again, subversively and quietly, but with no less resolve.

As I stand on the outskirts of the cemetery, I am aware of the deep grief that runs beneath my annoyance. Because I know that the word is not the work. The work has always been deeper than slogans and corporate pledges. The work, like an underground river, never stops flowing.

I am reminded of the Underground Railroad that enslaved peoples built and used to create networks of safety and community. The Underground Railroad was not an institution; it was a network of people who, in the face of immense danger, found ways to move forward, step by step, person by person. I am buoyed by knowing that when progress is publicly attacked, it often finds new, covert ways to move forward.

I think of the leaders who have told me in hushed tones, “We can’t call it DEI anymore, but we’re still doing the work — just under a different name.” I think of the educators, artists, and community organizers who, despite facing dwindling funding, continue to gather, to teach, to resist.

This is how change has always worked. It does not require corporate endorsement to persist. It requires people who care.

I remember a colleague, years ago, who found herself suddenly without a job after her department’s DEI function was dissolved. She had spent years advocating for change, only to be told that her work was no longer a priority.

In the aftermath of her dismissal however, something remarkable happened. The people she had supported — the interns she had mentored, the colleagues she had advised — rallied around her. They helped her find new opportunities. They carried her name into rooms she wasn’t in.

This is the power of community care. It is not just about grand movements and policies; it is about people showing up for one another, ensuring that no one fights alone. It is the same ethos that has sustained every movement for justice: when institutions falter, people step up.

The moment we now find ourselves in is not a novel one. The civil rights movement, the disability justice movement, Indigenous sovereignty efforts — all have seen waves of public commitment followed by periods of retrenchment. But those who have always done the work understand: the word is not the work.

The work is about shaping systems to be more just, creating spaces where people of all stripes can thrive, and recognizing that inclusion and meritocracy are not opposites — they are inextricably linked. True meritocracy only exists when barriers are removed so that the best of the best, regardless of background, can rise up.

If we are to learn from history, we must remember that progress does not always announce itself; sometimes, it moves in the quiet spaces between people who refuse to let the work perish. We find strength in community care. We find resilience in interpersonal support. We continue to tell stories, because they are the bridges that connect us to one another. And we will do the work, no matter what it is called, because history has shown us that the fight for justice does not end, it simply evolves.

I turn my back on the mourners and their funerary occasion. The wind presses against me as I walk away from the cemetery, but beneath my feet, I feel it — the quiet persistent flow of an underground river. The work will live on, coursing through those of us who refuse to let go.

Written ByRoselle Gonsalves
Dr. Roselle M. Gonsalves is a leader in inclusion, reconciliation, and culture. A bestselling author and ethnographer, she explores belonging, storytelling, and leadership. She heads Inclusion & Reconciliation at ATB Financial and serves on global DEI councils. She is a queer, racialized, immigrant woman based in Mi’kma’ki/Nova Scotia. Roselle is a member of Digital Journal's Insight Forum.