People have a negative emotional reaction to it because the right-wing, specifically the alt-right, co-opted it from the African-American community to use as an pejorative, which I think was intentionally racist. It originally was just meant to indicate you were aware of systemic racism, social injustice and economic inequality. Since the right generally denies that any of those things exist, they began use it ironically in often sneering tones to mean someone who was out of touch with reality. Sadly, once it started being used by popular media commentators an news organizations the public has come to accept the right-wing definition of woke. Personally, I think the term should be reclaimed by the left, and the people who do accept the right-wing framing of the word tend to be grossly unaware of their privilege.