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racial justice
How to Use 197 Forbidden 'Woke' Words and Still Get a Grant From the Trump-Musk Government
A grant proposal concerning reparations for the descendants of slave owners, submitted in good faith to Elon Musk during this cruel and unusual time of oppressive wokeness.
Mar 27, 2025
Dear Elon,
On behalf of the Diversified Organization of Grant Enablers, (the original DOGE), thank you for ordering the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation to flag proposals that contain certain oppressive“woke” words you don’t like. We’re not wild about them either.
Forbes leaked the list of the 197 terms, rendered here in bold italics. (And kudos, dear sir, for not banning George Carlin’s seven dirty words!)
BTW, the biased media is inflating the number of forbidden words, trying to make you look bad. For example, it counts as individual terms diverse, diverse backgrounds, diverse communities, diverse community, diverse group, diverse groups, diversified, diversify,diversifying, and diversity. Fake news, is it not?
But we have a suggestion. Rather than ban them, giving the liberals something easy to roast you with, why not put them to work in an anti-woke context? That’s what our professional team of DOGE grant writers has done in a model culturally appropriate proposal. You will love it, even though it uses just about all the barred terms. (Sorry, we failed to squeeze in people + uterus.)
We don’t want to brag, but this can’t-miss proposal will shake up the lunatic left. You will want to immediately fund it, even while chain-sawing so many others into sawdust. And when you spread the word on X, your popularity with anti-woke key groupsis going to skyrocket! Even Steve Bannon will snuggle up to you.
Thanks for purifying our thoughts and bringing your antiracist Afrikaner sensibility to our great nation.
Proposal For Reparations for the Descendants of Slave Owners (DSO)
Britain abolished slavery in 1833 and provided former slave owners 20 million British pounds (the equivalent today of $22.1 billion US dollars) as compensation. Racial justicedemands a similar response from the U.S. federal government for the descendants of U.S. slave owners.
In South Africa today, oppressedwhite farmers face land confiscation without compensation from its BIPOC government. Slave owners in the U.S. were victims of a similar injustice after the Civil War, punished for their identity. Without reparations, which have been too long denied, their descendants are victimized again generation after generation.
To promote a truly inclusive society based on equity, equality,and diversityfor all, we must recognize and celebrate our cultural differences. While we are a nation of immigrants, we also are a nation of slaveowners!
For too long implicit bias and hate speechhave been used against those, due to no fault of their own, who were born into slave-owning families. These key populations, labeled DSO here, should be considered at riskminorities. They helped create our national identityand contributed significantly to our cultural heritage. Racism in America would have little meaning without them.
Our proposal is a multicultural exploration ofrace and ethnicityamong the slave-owning class, and their extended contact with indigenous communities and the Hispanic minorityalong the Gulf of Mexico. These marginalized non-white groups, including males and females, also owned slaves and suffered losses due to emancipation.
We must put aside our stereotypesabout the plantation class. This underappreciatedand undervaluedpopulation is difficult to analyze due to our own unconscious bias against all aspects of slavery. The DSO have lost their voice and its once fearsome power, since some ancestors of slaveowners are burdened by a crippling sense of guilt and so are underrepresented in modern political discourse.
To advocate for reparations for DSO members is not to whitewash their faults. Slave-owners promoted systemic racism, segregation, and white privilege— even for white non-slave-owners— but we should acknowledge their genuine sense of belongingformed though the intersectionalityof socioculturaland socioeconomic factors in plantation society.
Even though white womenwere systematically placed on a pedestal, they were never excluded from institutionalslave-owning power. They adored their narrow gender identity. These women of high status were never marginalizedby aggressive feminists. They were totally at ease with being biologically female and with the genderthey were assigned at birth.
Also, we can find no transgenderand transexualmembers of slave-owning society and the DSO. Women did not run domestic plantation life in order to overcome disparities or spew meaningless pronounsin polite society. This wholesome tradition has been carried on by the DSO and provides another reason for just compensation.
A key, but seldom discussed factor, is the gender-based violence suffered at the hands of marauding Yankee soldiers. The DSO may deserve additional compensation for thetrauma suffered as well as any resulting mental disabilities of their forebearers.
Meanwhile, slave-owning men were real men, biologically maleswith no wanton legacy of men having sex with men(MSM). And please forgive us for a personal judgement: These god-fearing slaveowners left their descendants with not the faintest expressions of non-binary awareness, thank goodness.
Because of the uncompensated destruction of the slave-holding structures, we regret to report that more than a few white plantation women became commercial sex workers in order to survive the marauding armies. The anguish and mental healthproblems facing white plantation prostitutes should be considered when awarding reparations. While it is too late to do something for them, our unconscious bias about sex should not distract us from a path of justice for their descendants.
Another important thread connects the slave owners to the climate crisisthey and their descendants experienced. Monocrops repeatedly planted to raise cash in trade depleted the soil on Southern farms, creating pollution in their drinking water and a more generally degraded environmental quality. Westward expansion of slavery took more and more land from Native American tribes. Without climate scienceto inform them, effective solutions were missed and succeeding generations paid the price. We compensate farmers today for crop failures and tariff losses, why not do the same for the DSO including tribalDSO?
We hope that grant reviewers will look beyond their built-in anti-slaveowner confirmation bias, as well as their preconceived notions about race and ethnicity. It’s time to hone our cultural sensitivity and embrace a true cultural diversity, one that includes both descendants of slaves and slave owners. Our all-inclusive survey will make plain the biases we hold against this DSO class.
Since the Civil War, polarizationhas led to oppression and vilification of our great but marginalizedplantation heritage. This injustice can only be rectified by fair and equitablecompensation for the undervalued and underserved,whose relatives had their Blackhuman capital stripped from them.
Our project asks only that we adjust our orientation and increase the diversityof those considered the victimsof slavery. We must foster inclusiveness, devising just and equitable compensation programs for all descendants of slavery, including the DSO.
Social justice requires that we overcome our own prejudices and promote diversityof thought. By doing so, we all should recognize that slave-owning descendants too should be considered among our most vulnerable populations, entitled to equal opportunities when reparations are considered.
Now is the time to rectify the historical inequity faced by the DSO.
Now is the time to enhance the diversity of reparations recipients and the way they are viewed.
Now is the time to fund our bold proposal which strives, like no other, to bring community equity to all our people.
Cc: Rober Kennedy Jr., J.D. Vance, and the descendants of Robert E. Lee
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Trump May Try, But It’s Impossible to Erase the Legacy of Black People in This Country
Having overcome enslavement, Jim Crow, and more, our striving to thrive in a country with so-called leaders who would prefer to keep us living on the margins only exemplifies the America we aspire to.
Feb 10, 2025
It’s a trend that’s been building for a few years now.
Books by predominantly Black authors are being banned around the country. School curricula have been amended to skip the history lesson on slavery and racism. Critical Race Theory (CRT)—and anything that vaguely looks like it—is under attack. And the concept of “wokeness” has been misconstrued and weaponized.
Fast-forward to February 2025 and there’s been a doubling down on these attempts to erase Black history. U.S. President Donald Trump’s anti-DEI, anti-“woke” rhetoric has led major companies and even many federal agencies to avoid observing Black History Month.
One thing Black people are going to do is to be Black—and proud. We don’t need a month to know that we stand on the shoulders of giants.
As I consider the president’s campaign promise to “make America great again,” I wonder if he means to make America “white” again.
From failing to condemn white supremacists for their violent march in Charlottesville, Virginia during his first term to blaming “diversity hires” for January’s plane crash in Washington, D.C. this year, Trump and his allies seem to have a difficult time acknowledging the diversity that actually makes this country great.
This has been especially true for Black people feeling the brunt of his Executive Orders. These haven’t just eliminated recent diversity and inclusion initiatives—one even rescinded an Executive Order signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to end discriminatory practices mostly aimed at Black Americans.
During a speech at Howard University in 1965, President Johnson said that Black Americans were “still buried under a blanket of history and circumstance.” Following widespread protests, it was Johnson who signed the landmark Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act into law. Now both historic milestones are under threat by the attempts of Trump and many others to erode the social and economic gains made by Black Americans.
It’s as if we are reliving a time akin to the nadir of race relations in America—the period after Reconstruction, when white supremacists regained power and tried to reverse the progress Black Americans made after the emancipation of enslaved people.
Today, from the U.S. Air Force [temporarily] removing coursework on the Tuskegee Airmen to orders by many federal agencies, including the military, canceling Black History Month celebrations, these extreme rollbacks will set a new precedent impacting all minority groups.
I can’t help but to return to sentiments shared by The 1619 Project founder Nikole Hannah-Jones: “The same instinct that led powerful people to prohibit Black people from being able to read,” she wrote, is also “leading powerful people to try to stop our children from learning histories that would lead them to question the unequal society that we have as well.”
There is nothing comfortable about the history of Black Americans—it’s a history that shatters the myth of American exceptionalism. Nevertheless, Black history is American history. Instead of banning it, we must teach it.
It would be impossible to erase the legacy of Black people in this country. Ours is a legacy that endures—one that will continue to endure no matter who’s in the White House.
One thing Black people are going to do is to be Black—and proud. We don’t need a month to know that we stand on the shoulders of giants.
Having overcome enslavement, Jim Crow, and more, our striving to thrive in a country with so-called leaders who would prefer to keep us living on the margins only exemplifies the America we aspire to. And it’s a fight that’s made this country better for struggling people of all races.
Like it or not, Black history is every day.
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Let This Black History Month Remind Us That Progress Is Still Possible
The African American tradition of struggle advances the entire nation. In that spirit, we must continue to build coalitions that address shared socioeconomic challenges across racial and ethnic lines.
Feb 07, 2025
I lead the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, America’s Black think tank. When we opened our doors in 1970, there were only 1,469 Black elected officials in office across the United States. Today, there are over 10,000.
These milestones are historic, yet they also compel us to confront the sad reality that African Americans are still far behind their white counterparts in terms of overall economic well-being and political representation.
This duality—celebrating progress while recognizing the challenges in front of us—defines the spirit of Black History Month for 2025.
While congressional power remains fluid, with the Senate and especially the House narrowly divided, strategic coalition building can help us address persistent disparities and create a more equitable future.
While the growth of Black political leadership is encouraging, representation alone doesn’t guarantee systemic change. And today, even that progress in Black political representation is threatened.
Under the last administration, African Americans held 11% of the highest ranking, commissioned officer positions within the White House—nearly reaching our 14% share of the U.S. population.
The current administration, by contrast, has appointed only one Black cabinet nominee, returning our country to the poor Black representation of the 1980s. And following guidance from the White House, many federal agencies have now canceled their Black History Month celebrations.
But outside the White House, Black political representation has reached historic highs.
Today, we have one Black governor, Wes Moore of Maryland—only the third Black governor elected in U.S. history. We’ve set a new record with five Black U.S. Senators: Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Tim Scott (R-S.C.). The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) now has 62 members—its largest membership yet.
At the local level, Black political leadership is flourishing with a record 143 Black mayors across the country. Black leaders are at the helm of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. These leaders are shaping not only their own cities, but urban policy across the nation.
Economic progress has accompanied these political milestones. Black Americans have achieved record levels of economic well-being in recent years, including historically low unemployment rates, a median income of $56,490, and median household wealth of $44,900.
But while these figures are encouraging, they remain overshadowed by persistent racial disparities. White households, for instance, maintain a median wealth of $285,000, highlighting the country’s deep racial economic divide.
The African American tradition of struggle advances the entire nation. In that spirit, we must continue to build coalitions that address shared socioeconomic challenges across racial and ethnic lines. Economic security, the need for a living wage, access to affordable housing, and moving communities out of asset poverty—these are the battles that our historic number of Black elected officials must continue to fight.
Recent attacks on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) are another area demanding focus. We cannot allow the Trump administration’s witch hunt for those who’ve advocated opportunities for underrepresented communities to turn back the slow, gradual progress in Black political power.
The Joint Center was born from the Black freedom tradition—not from a desire for surface-level diversity, but from the need for true systemic change. As we navigate these challenges, we draw strength from this tradition and our remarkable progress.
The next two to four years present unique opportunities for collaboration and advancement. While congressional power remains fluid, with the Senate and especially the House narrowly divided, strategic coalition building can help us address persistent disparities and create a more equitable future.
Let this Black History Month remind us that progress is possible, even in the face of persistent challenges. Together, we can honor the sacrifices of those who came before us and pave the way for a brighter future for generations to come.
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