Definition: Woke
“Don’t believe, here the evidence, where Brooklyn?
See that? Bound to take it all kid, believe that” — Definition By Black Star Verse by Mos Def.
I was in an orchard picking the reddest and ripest Honeycrisp apples I had ever seen. The acrid scent of fermenting apples in varying states of decomposition carpeted the ground and perfumed the air.
My mother and I would visit apple orchards during autumn when the leaves on the trees burst into a vivid symphony of color that arrested your eyes with delight when I was a child growing up in Minnesota. Apple orchards surrounded our town. It was a special treat for my mother and me to be able to enjoy this time together. Usually, we would be the only black people in the orchard on any brisk fall day. No one paid us any mind; we were just another voice in the chorus of happy families picking apples.
The crisp harvest air ushered in apple cider season, which would soon recede to hot cocoa season with marshmallows if your parents sprang for the more expensive Swiss Miss cocoa mix.
Remarkably, I found myself in a picturesque apple orchard. Boundless joy is the word that described how I felt to be a fully grown man picking apples in this charming grove. Shirks of joy from little kids plucking apples from…
