Cancel Culture and Woke: There is a Broader Way of Understanding These Terms That Has Been with Us for a Long Time

American Eclectic posts articles twice a month, on the 1st and 15th. This is the second year of publication; previously published articles can be found on my site.

December 15, 2023

The problem with terms that change from meaning something useful to where they become abused and manipulated for political purposes changes how terms can be understood.  The political manipulation that comes with the political uses of Cancel Culture and Woke, serves to make something that has merit and can be addressed in ways that has value, suddenly made to be reduced to the level of mockery.  In September 2021, Richmond, Virginia removed the statue of Robert E. Lee, that was prominently displayed.  In 1889, the General Assembly of Virginia issued a resolution that which, in part, stated, “this patriotic purpose is highly appreciated and approved by the General Assembly [and] …the state will hold [the Lee Monument] perpetually sacred to the monumental purpose to which it has been devoted.”  This statement fits in with the belief of the South and Lost Cause thinking, that Southerners perceived fighting for honor in the Civil War and slavery was presented in ways where slave owners were seen as benevolent.  Here was something that deserved to be addressed.  Understandably, any black American seeing the statue and knowing what it was erected to symbolize had reason to be offended.  In 2019, the Philadelphia Flyers removed a statue of Kate Smith from outside their arena.  Smith was a well-known singer and was known as the “Songbird of the South” during the Second World War and her rendition of “God Bless America,” was played before the opening of Flyers games for decades.  It came to light songs she sang, “That’s Why Darkies Were Born,” in 1931 and, “Pickaninny Heaven,” from 1933, which denigrated black Americans made her singing of “God Bless America,” offensive to Flyers fans who were black.  Imagine attending a Flyers hockey game, knowing Smith’s other songs, and trying to wonder why you needed to show a moment of respect for America based on listening to Smith’s voice.

Addressing the Robert E. Lee monument and the Kate Smith statue might have been relatively easy decisions to make. In West Virginia there is a park, Stonewall Jackson Lake State Park. When I passed the sign on the highway that refers to this park I wondered: How far do we go to make changes that can be seen as offensive to groups or cross-sections of Americans. Everything that is offensive will not be addressed. The difficulty of determining what is offensive and what is less important or insignificant is also part of the process of struggling with Cancel Culture and Woke. Furthermore, offensive to whom and in what ways are standards difficult to easily define.

A beer company, is promoting itself by selling “woke free” beer while also selling a calendar titled, “Conservative Dad’s Real Women of America 2024 Calendar Featuring the Most Beautiful Conservative Women in America.” The CEO of the company stated regarding the calendar, “We've reached incredibly stupid times when it's 'controversial' to say men can't be women. This calendar will serve as a reminder, men can never replace the beautiful women of America." Of course, all you need to do is walk through almost any mall and find a calendar to buy with pin ups of women selling at Christmas time kiosks. This company sounds more like it is marketing a reaction to Cancel Culture and Woke as a sales pitch which comes across as opportunistic. The reference to woke free beer is a reaction against Bud Lite putting a picture of Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender individual on a beer can. Emotions still run high about this particular beer can. I addressed this controversy as a culture war issue in an earlier article (Bud Lite, Transgender, and Drag: Eventually Culture War Issues Become a Big Nothing, but Until Then They Will be Milked for Some Moral Outrage and Political Use). Part of the way to look at Cancel Culture and Woke are people seeing a business opportunity supporting or opposing whatever they feel is covered by these often-undefinable terms.

Regarding the conservative dad’s calendar, some of the proceeds from sales go to support the Riley Gaines Center at the Leadership Institute. The goal of the center, as the web site states is to “save women’s sports.” Furthermore, the web site creates the impression that there is an onslaught of transgender athletes pushing to compete in women’s sports, “The left has used all its power to destroy the distinctions between women and men — eliminating opportunities for women, and silencing those who dare to speak the truth.” I realize this is a difficult issue and one that is not easily resolved—particularly by reducing it to the level of a nonsensical ideological battle. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R. AL) has linked transgender athletes to the word Woke which, once again, raises the issue of the ease with which Woke can be applied anywhere. By one estimate the number of transgender athletes at the grade school level is less than a hundred. One count placed the number of high school transgender athletes at fifteen of which two are transgender girls. The Republican governor of Utah vetoed a bill last year that would have banned transgender athletes from participating in girls high school sports because it would only apply to four individuals in his state. He made a good statement about why he vetoed the bill, “I struggle to understand so much of it and the science is conflicting. When in doubt however, I always try to err on the side of kindness, mercy and compassion.” I wonder what this center will be doing regarding transgender boys who were biological girls competing in men’s sports. Part of the way Cancel Culture and Woke are often addressed is to magnify issues well out of proportion. But when the goal is to “defend America’s founding principles” as the center states, there is no reason to search for ways to resolve issues without an I-win-you-lose mentality.

Oddly, there appears to be a pay gap by going from male to female, where transgender women make less than transgender men, although both make less than non-transgender people. Not exactly a sports-related passionate issue but an issue where a living wage matters. If the only focus is on biological males now competing in women’s sports, and all other issues associated with being transgender are ignored, simple ideological perspectives easily take hold. Ideology has a wonderful way of reducing difficult issues to seemingly simple ones with an us versus them mentality. With an ideological perspective, it is easy to take the terms Cancel Culture and Woke and distort them, so they lose all meaning.

The mayor of Boston did something that can only be described as foolish and strange: A Christmas party as her email stated for, “Electeds of Color Holiday Party.” Why on earth this was needed is beyond me. Was it necessary to separate white from non-white for whatever reason and believe it was a good idea. An article in the British publication, Daily Mail, referred to Michelle Wu as “Boston’s Woke Democratic Mayor.” I suppose there is something of Woke in here, although the tabloid might just as easily have described it as an idiotic decision, without using Woke as descriptive of the mayor’s actions. The broader issue, beyond the mayor’s not-particularly-thoughtful-idea, is the looseness of using the term Woke for a variety of reasons, in this case ridicule, and that further complicates how to understand it.

Richard Russell was a United States Senator from 1933 to 1971, in Washington there is the Russell Senate Office Building. There have been some rumblings to rename the building looking backwards and recalling the segregationist positions of the late senator so maybe having a building named after him might not be a good idea anymore. So now, his career in the Senate built on his segregationist views, seems unacceptable to many in the present—Cancel Culture and Woke run together here. Somewhere along the way, some criteria will be addressed about what in the past needs to be disapproved of in the present and what to do about it—a very difficult thing to do.

I have trouble distinguishing between the terms Cancel Culture and Woke—which probably is true with more than just me. Frustration and annoyance go along with reactions associated with these terms and the pushback is to want to go back to something that was there before—whatever that means is unclear and probably is different for different people. More or less, Cancel Culture seems to address looking backward and developing an awareness of past injustices which should be acknowledged now while Woke is more about the present and how to approach issues, both terms seem to run together. Senator Tuberville had been preventing military officer promotions because he objected to the use of Defense Department funds for female military personnel to travel to get an abortion. He has ended his hold on many promotions, although continues to do so for most at the four-star general rank. A Washington Examiner article, however, gave the impression that Tuberville is focused on more than just abortion in the military, “The senator now says that unanimous consent allows too many ‘woke’ officers to make it through.” Exactly how Woke applies to military officers is unclear. Cancel Culture and Woke abused for political purposes, add to the terms losing any meaning. I wonder what a non-Woke military officer is exactly as distinct from a Woke military officer.

In an odd way, I saw Woke on a billboard driving out of St. Louis into Illinois.  A “gentleman’s club,” OK a strip club was advertising “Micro Wrestling.”  I pulled off the highway to look more closely at the billboard, since I had no idea what “Micro” referred to, what it showed were small people—there was a time when it was acceptable to use the word “midget.”  This can sound trivial, but it raises issues associated with the boundaries, limitations or trivialities of how we learn to develop a new way of looking at something in a different way. Or, as we approach Christmas, Target is selling Santas in wheelchairs and it seems to have created an uproar, particularly from conservative critics who, I guess, have nothing better to do. Why some issues cannot just be glossed over, and people move on, is always a feature of complaining. Here, the Santa in a wheelchair issue is being linked to Woke—exactly why is unclear. Is everything and anything that appears different than something people are used to seeing, suddenly a cause to cry “Woke.”

Cancel Culture or is it Woke could be seen in a more serious, or maybe just strange way, when Keurig, the coffee maker, pulled ads from Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News. The issue was Hannity defending Roy Moore when he ran for a Senate seat in Alabama in 2017. Moore was accused of being sexual inappropriate or making sexual advances regarding nine women. Two of the women said they had been sexually assaulted when they were 14 and 16-years old, more than a decade earlier. Fans of Hannity responded to Keurig pulling its ads by destroying their Keurig coffee makers. Take your own property (not necessarily cheap) and destroy it because Hannity expressed annoyance with the company pulling ads from his show because he wanted to show his steadfast support for a Republican. Hannity can be as big a Republican supporter as he wants to be, while he hides behind pronouncements of supporting America in some generally vague ways. Senator Mitch McConnell (R, KY) the Senate Majority Leader at the time eventually sided with Moore’s accusers stating, “I believe the women. Yes.” Furthermore, the Republican Senatorial Committee cut its fundraising ties with Moore. McConnell and the Republican fundraisers must have been practicing Cancel Culture or Woke.

Kevin Phillips published The Emerging Republican Majority in 1969.  The book is a classic within the study of American politics and addressed the changes taking place through the 1950s and 1960s that were leading the Republican Party to become a dominant political force.  Yet, while the book continues to be read and discussed, Phillips used the word “Negro,” throughout the book.  Somewhere after the book was published, the word “Negro” started to be dropped and replaced with either “Black” or “African American.”  Sometimes change is not always as confrontational and, in your face, as was the case with the removal of the Lee statue or the Smith statue.

I remember visiting Mount Vernon, George Washington’s estate, in the 1950s and early 1960s with my parents and sister.  For many white American families, this was a period when parents wanted to take their children to see American sites and develop some greater awareness of the country.  I visited Mount Vernon in July and saw something added I did not remember at all associated with those trips from when I was young: a greater focus on slaves as part of the Washington estate: There is now a Slave Memorial. The words on memorial state:

In memory of the Afro Americans who serves as slaves at Mount Vernon this monument marking their burial ground dedicated September 21, 1983 Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association

In February 1982, the Washington Post published an article about slaves buried at Mount Vernon.  The article stated:

Far back in the woods of Mount Vernon, a lone stone monument marks the site where George Washington buried his slaves. It is a modest memorial, apparently too unimportant to be roped off or otherwise distinguished from the other parts of the property.

It seems not to matter that the hands of these men and women built the celebrated mansion that was Washington's home. It seems not to matter that these men and women provided the free labor on which the plantation operated. This absence of proper recognition is an atrocity that adds insult to the already deep moral injury of slavery.

An interpretative historian told me that this article was the impetus that led to the monument placed at Mount Vernon in 1983. A new awareness, seen in a concrete way, is part of Cancel Culture, a focus on the past. Understanding George Washington owned slaves and knowing that in a passing way when I was young and then seeing a slave burial site on the grounds of Mount Vernon, provides a different insight into Washington as a slave owner.

Amos ‘n’ Andy was a radio show that began in 1928.  It was a comedy with white actors as the voices of black people.  As a radio show it was popular first on NBC Radio and then on CBS Radio and Television.  On radio the actors were white but on television the roles were played by black actors.  When the show was developed for radio, it came out of a minstrel style where blacks were presented in ways which were nothing more than simple stereotypes.  Protesting the radio show started in 1930, as one prominent black leader criticized the show for its “crude, repetitious, and moronic” dialogues.  The show moved to television in 1951 and the NAACP quickly began to protest. An NAACP bulletin stated, “Negro doctors are shown as quacks and thieves,” and “Negro women are shown as cackling, screaming shrews,” and “All Negroes are shown as dodging work of any kind.”  Oddly, the show, both on radio and television, had a large following among black Americans.  On television, a CBS affiliate in Chicago ran the show in the 1960s and, eventually, an agreement was reached between CBS and the NAACP to pull the show from the air in 1968. Part of the way to look at Woke and Cancel Culture is that change takes place in what the public accepts and does not accept, and Amos ‘n’ Andy was part of a change that took place in America beginning with the end of the Second World War in 1945 and continued as the post-war years progressed. A media historian stated:

Neither CBS nor the programs' creators were prepared for the change in national temperament after the Second World War ... Within black America, a new political consciousness and a new awareness of the importance of image had emerged.

The president of the NAACP in 1997, stated regarding the show, “If it was bad 30 years ago, it's equally bad now.” This comment reflects that the changes that take place around us, that we live with on a daily basis, where we look back from the present and see something in a different way. We can assume Amos n’ Andy will not be returning to television anytime in the near future.

The NAACP played a role in somewhat “sanitizing” the script of Gone With The Wind (1939, starring Clark Gable, Vivian Leigh, Leslie Howard, Olivia de Havilland) when they got MGM to remove the use of the N-word from the movie. Imagine how the movie would be viewed today if the word were included in the movie. In the movie an exchange between Scarlett (Leigh) and Ashley (Howard), after the Civil War is over goes:

Ashley: Scarlett, I will not make money out of the enforced labor and misery of others.

Scarlett: You weren't so particular about owning slaves.

Ashley: That was different. We didn’t treat them that way. Besides, I’d have freed them all when father died…if the war hadn’t already freed them.

To enjoy the movie and yet listen to lines such as this and realize that it is simply nonsense or worse propaganda, is part of Cancel Culture-and Woke. To look back and see something and wonder how you heard these lines the first time you saw the movie, maybe a decade or more ago and now hear them but with a different perspective on the present, is a change that can only be for the better. Cancel Culture, looking backward and Woke, how we look around us in the present, can be seen as running together here.

Rob Schneider, a comedian, has a routine on Woke.  In an interview on Fox News, he painted his routine as doing his part to somehow save America from what I have no clue:

When you have little kids and you start thinking well I have a good nest egg to take care of them financially but then why does that matter where the country that they live in where like you know the guy the President who wins at midnight loses at 3 O’clock in the morning.  …If enough people say enough of this.

If enough people say enough, then what is supposed to happen.  Schneider is allowed to put any spin he wants on something.  Obviously, he bought into Donald Trump’s lie that he won the 2020 Presidential election. It is interesting that from what he stated, I got the impression that he expected that vote counting was to stop once Trump had enough votes to be declared the winner—very democratic of him to not want to count all the votes. I guess if your favorite baseball team is winning after five innings, why finish playing the game to nine innings. Woke, for him, expands to cover any policies of the Biden presidency.  Another way of going after Cancel Culture and Woke, if you do not like the terms and what they represent, is to broaden the terms to cover even more than what they were originally aimed at addressing—much like referring to Woke military officers.  Schneider may be satisfied with simply saying “enough of this,” which allows him the comfort of not saying what he wants to stop exactly or when in the past he wants to return to exactly. Schneider can sound like he has something to say, when he has basically nothing to say.

Of course, Michelle Bachmann, a former Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota felt the need to top Schneider in her expanded use of Woke-and she added an international dimension to understanding the term. Bachmann felt that the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th was caused by wokeness. As Bachmann stated:

Now, the thing that may be—we have problems with wokeness in the United States, in our government agencies. It's entirely possible that perhaps the intel service in Israel also had wokeness and decided not to pass the information along. That could be a possibility, but I'm speculating.

Bachmann only added to her questionable thought process by stating, “What happened is, it is a spiritual, demonic presence that has come in and taken over.” I assume the “demonic presence” she referred to is demons who possessed Israeli intelligence and prevented them from doing something about the Hamas attack. Reading this nonsense by Bachmann and understanding the indiscriminate killings that were involved in the attack, makes Bachmann look like a disgusting individual, as she exploits this horrendous incident to support some idiotic position. I see she is now the Dean of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University. Nice to see her bring solid academic thinking to campus.

What is now known about Israeli intelligence is that a year before the October 7th attack, the Israelis knew about it. Military and intelligence analysts, however, doubted Hamas had the capability to carry out such an attack which led to them discount its possibility. I guess, using Bachmann’s logic, demons brought on those doubts.

Shirley Temple was best known as a child actor, although later in life she became the United States Ambassador to both Czechoslovakia and then Ghana.  In a 1934 movie, Bright Eyes, she sang On the Good Ship Lollipop, which is what many who remember seeing her movies probably can recall.  Yet, before some guidelines were established addressing movie content, Shirley Temple in her first movies was a prostitute.  In 1932, Temple was three-years old and appeared in a series of movies called Baby Burlesks.  One writer who described these movies wrote:

The eight short films saw toddler stars dressed in hyper-sexualized adult clothing. Beneath that, they donned oversized diapers clasped with a safety pin. The costuming alone in these films are enough to raise eyebrows. When viewed through the lens of a modern movie-goer, it seems nearly impossible to glean where the comedy in these shorts actually is.

However, in an era where audiences were still easily pleased by the novelty of film, the Baby Burlesks likely seemed charming.

In the short “Polly Tix in Washington,” a four-year-old Shirley Temple is seen playing what is insinuated as a prostitute. Sent to “entertain” a senator playing what is insinuated as a prostitute. Sent to “entertain” a senator (played by a fellow child-actor), Temple can be seen wearing a small bra while filing her nails in a manner meant to mimic the actions of a self-assured and perhaps world-weary mistress lounging in her boudoir.

Temple later enters the office of the senator draped in pearls, sashaying into the room with her hands resting firmly on her hips in a disturbing display of mock adult sexuality.

Temple then wraps her arms around the senator’s neck and plants two clumsy kisses on his lips. Of course, the sexual implications are lost on the children who appear in the film, children who were simply following the direction of the adults controlling them, namely, the film’s director and he who discovered Shirley Temple, Charles Lamont.

Suddenly, On the Good Ship Lollipop, seems stained by a disturbing awareness that many knew nothing about when they see a little girl in pigtails dancing in a movie.

Some changes made to the type of movies that can be made are part of Cancel Culture and Woke—changes that took place decades before the terms came into vogue.  There was something wrong, which is an understatement, about these first Shirley Temple movies.  How we look at or try to understand any assortment of issues, that is a process we all go through: What do we tolerate, what do accept as normal, what do we state that needs to clearly be met with disapproval. 

Personally, I would like Michael Jackson songs to not be played anymore on the radio. Jackson died in 2009, but his songs continue to be played. When one suddenly comes on the radio, it makes me uncomfortable, and I change the station. A 2019 documentary, Leaving Neverland, addressed allegations of Jackson sexually abusing children.  I can remember reading about allegations extending back years, all the documentary did was reinforce those allegations. A California appeals court in August has allowed a court case by two men who accused Jackson of sexually molesting them when they were boys to, again, proceed. One wonders if the court case might reach a verdict on whether Jackson is guilty or not of child molestation. In this case, the issue of whether companies he worked with can be held liable and have to pay the two men is the issue involved. An author of a biography on Jackson addressed the problem of appreciating his music while being aware of the accusations made against him. The author stated:

[The death of Jackson has] allowed the [music] canon simultaneously to re-acknowledge the greatness of his art and to look at him as a damaged, harmed and harming person.

This author’s use of the words “harming people” should stand out. I see there is a musical on Broadway about Michael Jackson, MJ: The Musical. Really!

Cancel Culture and Woke are simply terms but the broader issues that they represent, how we evaluate the past and how we learn to look around us in the present and determine what is decent, appropriate, acceptable and unacceptable, that is constantly ongoing.

Notes

“Amos ‘n’ Andy,” Encyclopedia of Television, Museum of Broadcast Communications (1997): https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/shows/amos-n-andy

Amos ‘n’ Andy, Wikipedia: https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_%27n%27_Andy.  Here I am using Wikipedia as a source which I use with great caution, but this particular entry encapsulates an overview of the show.

Ronen Bergman and Adam Goldman, “Israel Knew Hamas’s Attack Plan More Than a Year Ago,” New York Times (November 30, 2023): https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html

Chabeli Carrazana and Jasmine Mithani, “Paid less for being trans, a woman and a trans woman,” the 19th* (June 15, 2023): https://19thnews.org/2023/06/lgbtq-equal-pay-day-trans-women/

Doug Criss, Jill Martin and Eric Levenson, “The Philadelphia Flyers remove a statue of Kate Smith over her racist songs,” CNN (April 21, 2019): https:// www.cnn.com/2019/04/21/us/philadelphia-flyers-kate-smith-statue/index.html

Andrew Dalton, “Michael Jackson accusers' sexual abuse lawsuits revived by California appeals court,” The Columbus Dispatch (August 20, 2023): https://www.dispatch.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2023/08/20/michael-jackson-accusers-lawsuits-revived-by-appeals

Eric Garcia, “We asked conservatives at CPAC what ‘woke’ means. Their replies were revealing, Independent (March 4, 2023): https://news.yahoo.com/asked-conservatives-cpac-woke-means-212211427.html

Dorothy Gilliam, “Remembrance,” Washington Post (February 6, 1982): https:// www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1982/02/06/remembrance/44ab74fb-0144-4bb2-b22a-2bd93fbf665c/

Gone With The Wind (1939) Movie Script, Movie Scripts: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=gone-with-the-wind

Mike Gonzales, “Tommy Tuberville is right to challenge military wokeness,” Washington Examiner (August 25, 2023): https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/patriotism-unity/tuberville-right-to-challenge-military-wokeness

Benjamin Hart, “Read Utah Governor’s Heartfelt Letter on Veto of Transgender Athlete Ban,” New York Intelligencer (March 23, 2022): https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/03/read-utah-governors-letter-on-transgender-athlete-ban-veto.html

Gregory Harutunian, “What Happened to Amos ‘n’ Andy? (“I’m From Milwaukee and I Ought to Know…”) Sheperd Express (January 16, 2020): https:// shepherdexpress.com/culture/milwaukee-history/what-ever-happened-to-amos-n-andy/

Amelia McDonell-Parry, “Michael Jackson Child Sexual Abuse Allegations: A Timeline,” RollingStone (January 29, 2019): https:// www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/michael-jackson-child-sexual-abuse-allegations-timeline-785746/

John Patterson, “Gone With The Wind didn’t give a damn about slavery,” The Guardian (November 18, 2013): https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/nov/18/slavery-gone-with-the-wind

Will Potter, “Boston's woke Democrat Mayor Michelle Wu plans secret no WHITES Christmas party: Aide accidentally sent group email invite meant only for 'electeds of color',” Daily Mail (December 14, 2023): https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/boston-s-woke-democrat-mayor-michelle-wu-plans-secret-no-whites-christmas-party-aide-accidentally-sent-group-email-invite-meant-only-for-electeds-of-color/ar-AA1lrZJi?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=cf9e24fd71e048d8b789245ab372ead4&ei=15

Shannon Power, “Target Sparks Conservative Outrage Over ‘Woke’ Christmas Ornaments,” Newsweek (November 15, 2023): https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/target-sparks-conservative-outrage-over-woke-christmas-ornaments/ar-AA1jYdbm?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=4490752c43844dd6f0ff76f689dee510&ei=14

Marie Puente, “We may never resolve our conflicted feelings about Michael Jackson,” The Columbus Dispatch (June 25, 2019): https://www.dispatch.com/story/life/music/2019/06/25/michael-jacksons-legacy-can-we-ever-resolve-our-conflicted-feelings/1524747001/

Joe Schoffstall, “Anti-woke beer company teams up with Riley Gaines to launch 'Real women of America' calendar,” Fox Business (December 6, 2023): https:/www.foxbusiness.com/politics/anti-woke-beer-company-teams-up-riley-gaines-launch-real-women-america-calendar/

Rob Schneider reveals why he’s not afraid to talk politics, YouTube: https:// www.bing.com/videos/search?&q=rob+woke+fox&docid=603534817422805892&mid=454E23AFD2573CC79CC7454E23AFD2573CC79CC7&view=detail&FORM=VDQVAP&rvsmid=8A6B632D37BDB3F03A1F8A6B632D37BDB3F03A1F&ajaxhist=0

Anna Skinner, “How Many Transgender Athletes Play Women's Sports?” Newsweek (April 21, 2023): https://www.newsweek.com/how-many-transgender-athletes-play-womens-sports-1796006

Aila Slisco, “Ex-GOP Lawmaker Suggests ‘Wokeness’ to Blame for ‘Demonic’ Attack on Israel,” Newsweek (October 12, 2023): https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ex-gop-lawmaker-suggests-wokeness-to-blame-for-demonic-attack-on-israel/ar-AA1i42k0?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=87d3a307871d409f925c33ffa3fd4836&ei=42

Leah Silverman, “On The Creepy Set of Shirley Temple’s First Role As A toddler Prostitute in The Baby Burlesks,” ATI (September 2, 2019): https:// allthatsinteresting.com/shirley-temple-baby-burlesks

Helen Marie Taylor, ET AL. v. Ralph S. Northam ET AL., From the Circuit Court of Richmond City (September 2, 2021): https:// www.vacourts.gov/opinions/opnscvwp/1210113.pdf

The Riley Gaines Center at the Leadership Institute: https://rileygainescenter.org/about/

Eli Watkins, “McConnell on Moore: ‘I believe the women,’ Moore should go,” CNN Politics (November 13, 2017): https://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/13/politics/mitch-mcconnell-roy-moore/

Mel Watkins, “What Was It About ‘Amos ‘n’ Andy’?” New York Times (Jul 7, 1991): https:// www.nytimes.com/1991/07/07/books/what-was-it-about-amos-n-andy.html