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Conservative author Bethany Mandel predicted she would go viral—and she was right.
She struggled and stumbled to define the term “woke” on Tuesday while discussing her new book “Stolen Youth,” which accuses liberals of targeting children with “woke indoctrination.”
“So, I mean, woke is, sort of, the idea that, um,” Mandel began, after The Hill Rising’s Briahna Joy Gray asked her to define the term. The author added, after a pause, “This is going to be one of those moments that goes viral.”
“Woke is something that’s very hard to define, and we’ve spent an entire chapter defining it,” Mandel said of her and co-author Karol Markowicz. “It is sort of the understanding that we need to totally reimagine and redo society in order to create hierarchies of oppression. Sorry I, it’s hard to explain in a 15-second sound bite.”
Woke is tired of the GOP keeping its name in their mouth
As a regurgitated right-wing talking point, their conservative “experts” inability to define a word they’ve repurposed for campaign speeches, fundraising efforts, and new books speaks to the hollow argument against not only wokeism but all things Black.
As the poster boy for anti-woke, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has carried the Tiki torch for those who believe their feelings matter more than lived experiences.
Because of those insecurities compounded by centuries of ingrown racism, and now exacerbated by the Great White Replacement Theory, bloviating politicians and constantly incensed TV pundits, many conservatives have long been fearful of the truth being told out loud.
You can’t tell American history without Black people
While now-trigger words like woke are simply thrown around absent any context or clue, banning books about Blackness is a direct assault on the evolving story of America itself.
When the next generation learns about the crippling 2020 pandemic, the culture will always remember DJ D-Nice bringing people together and making way for the Verzuz era of hip hop to exist.
When death, depression and anxiety were at all-time highs, community, classics, and comfort was found from the culture’s most beloved artists.
Each February, we all learn about at least one ancestor who accomplished unimaginable feats of achievement at a time when every odd was stacked against them. Jaws agape, we ask, ‘How did we never hear about this before?’ Well, men like Ron DeSantis and women like Bethany Mandel are how.
Though the two of them are not singularly to blame, they embody a reminiscent overseer mentality which once forbade enslaved Africans of learning to read or write, even if unable to verbally defend the rationale behind their rigid racism.
For an enslaved African to practice literacy, it was considered an act so irredeemable by colonizers that punishment was death for not only the slave but whomever taught them.
People who would rather see you dumb and dead rather than liberated and well-read have long lost the right to gentrify our language.
As GOP states look to put a stranglehold on women’s reproductive rights, it would seem the more things change the more they stay same, jailing not only women who get them but anyone who assists them.
The truth is that Black people are as creatively imaginative as the galaxy is vast
Music is the soundtrack of life, and historical moments are often encapsulated by our most bright and brilliant.
In 2008, I vividly remember while attending Winston Salem State University, walking down Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard watching candy-painted box Chevy’s sitting on 22’s” ride down the street, trunks rattling to the max blaring Young Jeezy’s newest hit, “My President is Black.”
In one line, Jeezy asks, “Just cause you got opinions, that make you a politician?” As today’s GOP becomes more defined by culture wars than policies to improve Americans wellbeing, it would seem the Snowman was right way back when.
If DeSantis and Mandel had it their way, the next generation would know nothing of President Obama, yet, the truth is whether in rap or politics, Black people excel in whatever rhyme or reason we pursue.
If loving woke is wrong, I don’t wanna be right
Just last month, LeBron James became the all-time NBA scoring champ, Maxwell Frost now sits as the youngest member of Congress in history, Daya Brown is a high school senior in Atlanta who got accepted to 50 schools with $1.3 million in scholarship offers, Howard’s men swim team won their conference championship, and US Air Force veteran Morgan Freeman is still making great movies.
Black women played in the Negro Leagues and invented 3-D movies, stood in the face of racism without a flinch or blink, and after all that, they educated and loved generations of Black children who would grow up to make history of their own.
Otis Boykin loved his Black mother so much when she died, he perfected the pacemaker so others wouldn’t have to feel the same heartache.
Joyce Abbott is the inspiration behind “Abbott Elementary”, the instant culture classic of the highly acclaimed Quinta Brunson.
She was one of Abbott’s sixth-grade students in 2000-2001 at Andrew Hamilton School in West Philadelphia. Her impact on Brunson’s life led directly to the stories she tells to this day.
To deny our history to children is to deny them of not only education—but inspiration.
Many Black inventors, entrepreneurs, and artists excelled in spite of the obstacles presented, yet, that bittersweet chunk of American history and present is rarely chewed by those who oppose basic human rights.
Up from a past rooted in pain,
I rise
Over one hundred years ago, the City of Tulsa was the Ku Klux Klan and Mob in the 1921 Race Massacre.
The Black Wall Street Times obtained evidence from over one hundred years ago which found the city committed genocide against our ancestors who lived in the Greenwood District, famously known as Black Wall Street.
City employees, a police chief and officers, firemen, judges, insurance agents, and two Tulsa city mayors were among the over 1,000 racist marauders who fundamentally destroyed the lives of Black Tulsans during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and onward.
In spite of their tireless efforts to “cancel woke culture,” The Black Wall Street Times moves forward as do the beloved survivors of the massacre and those reimagining Greenwood today.