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Some Republicans are demonizing and redefining a word popularized in the Black community: woke. Theyve turned the word into a slur, using it to attack diversity, equity and inclusion, along with additional policies that benefit Black Americans and other oppressed and marginalized people.

The reaction by many Republicans chief among them Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to wokeness resembles the hysterical response of Chicken Little in an old childrens story. When an acorn falls on her head, Chicken Little panics, yelling The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

DeSantis and other Republicans now screaming about wokeness make as much sense as a frightened chicken. But the governor, who is expected to announce his Republican presidential candidacy in the spring, clearly hopes his anti-wokeness obsession will get him the nomination in pursuit of moving into the White House.

Meanwhile, DeSantis is not alone. Some Congressional Republicans have even laughably said the recent failure of Silicon Valley Bank in California was caused by the bank devoting too much attention to pursuing woke policies. In fact, Republican-backed banking deregulation legislation signed into law by then-President Donald Trump may have played a far greater role in the banks collapse.

The word woke used to just mean awake, as when we say: I woke up at 7 this morning.

But beginning in 1923 with Black nationalist and civil rights pioneer Marcus Garvey, Black people began urging each other to stay awake or stay woke to the dangers posed by Jim Crow-styled racism and social injustice and to work against these evils. The expression gained circulation over the decades and was picked up in music popular with Black audiences.

Indeed, two years after the historic 1963 March on Washington, in a commencement address at Oberlin College, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. also challenged the students to prepare for the great revolution of their time by essentially being awake:

There are all too many people who, in some great period of social change, fail to achieve the new mental outlooks that the new situation demands. There is nothing more tragic than to sleep through a revolution. There can be no gainsaying of the fact that a great revolution is taking place in our world today. It is a social revolution, sweeping away the old order. The wind of change is blowing, and we see in our day and our age a significant development. The great challenge facing every individual graduating today is to remain awake through this social revolution.

The hashtag #StayWoke spread on social media after neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black 17-year-old, in 2012 and was later acquitted of second-degree murder. The phrase and hashtag were picked up by the Black Lives Matter movement and gained traction following police killings of unarmed Black people.

DeSantis and other Republicans have turned the meaning of woke on its head, changing it from a warning and a sign of awareness of injustice into an insult. They use the terms woke and wokeness to ridicule people and attitudes they consider to be absurdly far left, hypersensitive and obsessed with political correctness.

Advocates for people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, womens rights, accurate public school education on race and gender issues, and social justice have been denounced as woke by Republicans including DeSantis, Trump (again seeking the Republican presidential nomination), and longshot GOP presidential candidate and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

The Republican war on wokeness illustrates the sad decline of the party, which once took a principled moral stand against slavery. Sadly, Republicans today are obsessed with stoking the fires of hatred and grievance and dividing Americans. Not quite a winning strategy to make it into the White House, but we will have to prepare ourselves for this battle ahead.

Rather than accepting responsibility for their own shortcomings that have worsened Americas problems, particularly under Trumps incompetent administration, many Republicans now choose to scapegoat Black people and others opposed to GOP policies with the label woke, blaming them for our nations ills.

DeSantis boasts about signing the Stop WOKE (Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees) Act, which bars public school instruction that could cause students to feel guilt, anguish, or any form of psychological distress due to their race, color, sex or national origin. That absurdly broad prohibition now being challenged in lawsuits is being used to block lessons on slavery, racism, sexism, religious bigotry, prejudice against the LGBTQ+ community and more.

Think about it: how can an accurate lesson about the way enslaved Black people were horribly mistreated as subhuman property with no more rights than farm animals not cause psychological distress? Its not as if once unburdened with the chains and shackles could Black folks gain their rights as citizens. Our ancestors had to fight for their own freedom and this struggle persists today as other grave injustices cause psychological distress among some other students.

But schools arent supposed to be free of negative information about America. Theyre supposed to teach students about the real world the good, the bad and the ugly. Schools are supposed to open up our curiosities about the world we live in and how to navigate our place in it.

To ensure Florida students are not exposed to the truth about slavery and racism, the Florida Education Department even banned a new Advanced Placement course on African American studies from being taught in the states high schools. The department said in a January letter that the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value. I am so glad my relatives in Florida were able to get a good education before this nonsense started.

As the anti-wokeness nuttiness spreads across the country, growing numbers of states and school districts controlled by Republicans are imposing censorship on teachers and ordering books removed from school libraries for being woke. A RAND Corporation study published in January that surveyed a nationally representative sample of 8,000 teachers found that a quarter have changed their courses to limit or remove any discussions of race and gender topics.

Incredibly, an eighth-grade social studies teacher in Iowa recorded a Zoom meeting with his school superintendent in which she told him she wasnt sure if he was allowed to teach that slavery was wrong. The uncertainty was generated by a new Iowa law barring teachers from telling students that the United States of America and the state of Iowa are fundamentally or systemically racist or sexist. In response, the teacher quit and left the teaching profession.

What has our country come to when teachers are silenced from telling students basic and indisputable truths, like denouncing the immorality of slavery? When book banning is so prevalent in our schools? When elected officials refuse to deal with the real problems facing our nation and fixate on silly culture war issues and disputes over wokeness?

Weve heard enough wokeness nonsense from Republican Chicken Littles. Americans need to reject this alarmism and believe that we can work together to share our stories, embrace our family history and start working together to solve the real problems facing our nation.

As Dr. King would remind us, the wind of change is still stirring in our midst. Lets make sure this phony war of wokeness doesnt take us off our mark towards a more perfect union for all.

Donna Brazile is an ABC News Contributor, veteran political strategist, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, and the King Endowed Chair in Public Policy at Howard University. She previously served as interim Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and of the DNCs Voting Rights Institute. She managed the Gore campaign in 2000 and has lectured at more than 225 colleges and universities on race, diversity, women, leadership and restoring civility in politics. Brazile is the author of several books, including the New York Times bestseller Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House. @DonnaBrazile.

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The Republicans war on woke has turned the party into a group of hysterical Chicken Littles - TheGrio

In the spring of 1844, the Latter-day Saints received a curious visitor to Nauvoo, Illinois.

Josiah Quincy, future mayor of Boston and the son of the president of Harvard, had traveled to Nauvoo with his cousin, Charles Francis Adams, son of John Quincy Adams, to tour the Mississippi River. During their stay in Nauvoo, the travelers met with Joseph Smith and toured the city. Some years later, Quincy published his observations of Smith and the Latter-day Saints for a literary magazine in New York. Among the many anecdotes he captured, one has particular salience today.

Quincy describes surveying a beautiful grove with Joseph Smith where there were seats and a platform for speaking. Smith explained that the Latter-day Saints held services in the grove at which point a Methodist minister traveling with the group said, I suppose none but Mormon preachers are allowed in Nauvoo.Joseph Smiths response was perhaps surprising: On the contrary, he replied, I shall be very happy to have you address my people next Sunday, and I will ensure you a most attentive congregation.

What! do you mean that I may say anything I please, and that you will make no reply?, the minister queried, according to Quincys account.

You may certainly say anything you please; but I must reserve the right of adding a word or two, if I judge best. I promise to speak of you in the most respectful manner.

What strikes us about this story is Joseph Smiths willingness to allow for the expression of differing opinions even potentially hostile opinions in an environment of respect.

In the past week a public campaign has gathered momentum, seeking to encourage Southern Utah University to rescind its invitation to Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to provide the keynote address for the Commencement ceremony in conjunction with the institutions 125th anniversary year. And just last month, two hours before the concert was scheduled to begin, Pensacola Christian College cancelled a performance of The Kings Singers because of concerns with the sexual identity of one or more of the groups members.

These kinds of cancellations and petitions have increased markedly in the last decade against professors and other speakers on campus, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and its work to compile episodes where somebody tries to block or prevent a speaker from being featured on a college or university campus. Their Disinvitation Database also confirms a pressure to cancel coming from both the left and the right, with 28% of commencement disinvitations in the last two decades coming from pressure on the right and 63% from pressure on the left (with another 9% from unspecified sources).

Among other examples, intimidation from the political right led to cancellations against Michael Moore, Jeremiah Wright, Richard Dawkins, and Chelsea Manning while intimidation from the political left led to cancellations of Ann Coulter, Ben Carson, Ben Shapiro and Ivanka Trump.

Weve both had our own experiences with pressure campaigns including a recent university cancellation. New York Times JournalistThomas Edsall quotesJonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at Brookings, explaining some of the larger forces behind these growing instances of public outrage among students. Among other things, he notes: Universities are consumeristic these days and very image-conscious, and so they have trouble withstanding pressure from their customers, e.g., activist students.

Rauch, a respected writer who identifies as gay, also adds that activists have figured out that they can have disproportionate influence by claiming to be physically endangered and psychologically traumatized by speech that offends them. In the same article, Randall Kennedy, a law professor at Harvard recounts how activists have learned to deploy skillfully the language of hurt as in I dont care what the speakers intentions were, what the speaker said has hurt my feelings and ought therefore to be prohibited.

But intention really does matter. In the case of Elder Holland, his full remarks make clear that his intent was to call for more robust efforts to defend his faith tradition and teachings not to attack a particular community, and certainly not to justify physical violence.And as many know well, Elder Holland has gone out of his way over the years to cultivate friendship and build bridges across differences. Even so, some heard what he said as unsupportive of people who identify as LGBTQ. When meaningful differences in perspective like this exist, those disagreements should be an invitation for more dialogue and discussion, not less.

We know how it feels to express opinions, sometimes even controversial opinions, and be met with some version of cancellation or deplatforming, rather than further opportunities for dialogue and exchange. Tom recently had an invitation withdrawn to address a university audience. And organizations have been pressured to rescind invitations for Jacob to speak.

Identity disagreements can be especially challenging. As one professor shared with us recently, How do we deal with the fact that many people in our campus communities think that particular (usually conservative) viewpoints shouldnt be expressed because another person feels they are a threat to their identity?

Yet as weve learned in our own friendship, its possible to disagree about identity and other important questions, and still love, respect, admire and support each other. And we unitedly push back on the idea that disagreements about identity, marriage or politics means we cannot still hear each other with respect. That is simply not the case even if growing numbers insist it must be.

Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy went on to encourage leaders on campus to become much more skeptical and tough-minded when encountering the language of hurt so as to avoid incentivizing those who deploy the specters of bigotry, privilege and trauma to further diminish vital academic, intellectual and aesthetic freedoms. Its also worth noting that online petitions are open to widely disparate communities far removed from the local institution in question becoming a measure, perhaps, of a particular groups enthusiasm rather than broadly representative of those with an immediate stake in the question.

The good news is that in more than half of documented instances of public pressure campaigns to convince a university to cancel a speaker or event, universities stood firm and refused to cancel.Analyst Zachary Greenberg told us that once a school takes a strong stand against censorship and for free speech, it may deter attempts to persuade that school to disinvite speakers. Conversely, university acquiescence to disinvitation demands encourages more demands.

In our view, the point of a university education is not simply the essential engagement with conflicting ideas, but also regularly practicing the life skills necessary for individual growth at any age, in any setting.

Being willing to assume a speakers good intentions, and even good-heartedness, does not require a listener to agree with a given speaker.But it does require that we willingly expose ourselves to the discomfort of hearing our conclusions challenged.And it requires that we extend to those with whom we disagree the grace we ourselves hope to find.

This group of SUU students, much like Elder Holland expressed to BYU employees, rightly sees convocation as a visible demonstration of the core values of an educational institution.Yet by making space for a diversity of perspectives, we are walking the talk of inclusion and belonging.

We hope all institutions conservative or liberal, religious or secular will be more courageous, willing to trust the ability of those in the audience to weed out what is not valuable to them.We hope that SUU and its entire student body, faculty and staff will show the courage many other institutions lack and will listen with respect, if not agreement, to the insights of wise and wonderful people like a methodist minister in an open-air grove in 1844 or a Latter-day Saint apostle in a Southern Utah University auditorium in 2023.

Tom Christofferson is the author of That We May Be One and A Better Heart. Jacob Hess is the author of Youre Not as Crazy as I Thought (But Youre Still Wrong) with Phil Neisser and with Carrie Skarda, Kyle Anderson and Ty Mansfield, hes the author of The Power of Stillness: Mindful Living for Latter-day Saints.

Utah First Lady Abby Cox, from left, Sister Patricia Holland, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and a member of the Hollands security team stand on stage as Jeffrey Holland is awarded the Rural Legacy Leader award at the One Utah Summit 2021 at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah on Tuesday, October 5, 2021.

Nick Adams, for the Deseret News

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We've witnessed campus cancellation campaigns. Elder Holland ... - Deseret News

Bitcoin has rallied nearly 70% so far this year and industry insiders who spoke to CNBC remain bullish, with one saying the world's biggest cryptocurrency could reach new heights.

Bitcoin previously hit its all-time high of $68,990.90 in November 2021. Since then it has fallen about 60%.

Marshall Beard, chief strategy officer at U.S.-headquartered cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, said $100,000 could be a possibility for bitcoin.

"I think bitcoin probably breaks all-time highs this year," Beard said, adding that the $100,000 price figure is an "interesting number."

Beard said that if bitcoin gets to its previous record high of near $69,000, "it doesn't take much more for it to lift up" to $100,000.

Bitcoin would need to rally around 270% to hit $100,000.

Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer at stablecoin issuer Tether, said bitcoin could "retest" its all-time high near $69,000.

The predictions of new record highs mark a more optimistic outlook than in January when industry executives told CNBC that they expected 2023 to be a year of caution.

Part of the industry's positive view on bitcoin right now actually stems from how the asset has performed during the banking turmoil sparked by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the failure of two crypto-friendly lenders Silvergate Capital and Signature Bank.

Instead of crashing, bitcoin rallied.

Bitcoin proponents say this is evidence that bitcoin is offering an alternative to the traditional banking system as a place for people to keep their money safe.

"I think the rally is explicable by saying, people have got freaked out by the banking system by the collapses," Oliver Linch, CEO of BittrexGlobal, told CNBC in an interview at Paris Blockchain Week on Thursday.

Cryptocurrency industry insiders predict bitcoin could hit a new all-time high in 2023 and possibly reach $100,000. It comes after a noted investor bet that the digital currency could go to $1 million in 90 days.

Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg | Getty Images

For many years, bitcoin advocates have argued bitcoin is a form of "digital gold" a safe-haven asset that can provide investors a hedge against inflation and an investment in times of turmoil. But over the past few years, bitcoin has traded in correlation with stocks, in particular the tech-heavy Nasdaq.

There are now signs of decoupling with bitcoin massively outperforming the Nasdaq, many other risk-assets and gold this year.

But bitcoin also got a boost on hopes the banking crisis maybe reduce the U.S. Federal Reserve's ability to be as aggressive on interest rate rises, which would be supportive for risk assets like cryptocurrencies.

Discussion of where the digital coin's price could go this year has been rife since Balaji Srinivasan, an investor and the former technology chief at Coinbase, wagered on Mar. 17 that bitcoin would be worth $1 million or more in 90 days. He bet $2 million.

The wager was in response to a Twitter user who said that they would bet $1 million that the U.S. does not enter hyperinflation.

Srinivasan argued that the "world redenominates on Bitcoin as digital gold" as hyperinflation kicks in, erodes the value of the U.S. dollar, and nations, individuals and companies begin to buy large amounts of bitcoin. Hyperinflation is the massive rise in prices in an economy.

I think for bitcoin to be a million dollars in 90 days, some crazy things are happening in the world, which we don't want.

Marshall Beard

Chief strategy officer, Gemini

A $1 million price on bitcoin would represent a roughly 3,600% increase from the digital currency's current price.

Most people have poured cold water on this prediction.

Gemini's Beard said "there's probably a world where bitcoin hits a million dollars" but not in 90 days as Srinivasan wagered.

"I think for bitcoin to be a million dollars in 90 days, some crazy things are happening in the world, which we don't want," Beard said, adding that it could take 10 years to get anywhere near that figure.

Tether's Ardoino echoed the sentiment that if bitcoin were to hit $1 million in 90 days, it would likely mean an unusual economic event.

"I'm kind of skeptical about that, because honestly, I wouldn't even hope for that," Ardoino told CNBC in an interview at Paris Blockchain Week, that aired Thursday.

"Because if bitcoin would reach such a high price level, [it] would mean that the entire economy will crumble. I'm not sure [that] is the world that we want to live in."

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Bitcoin at $100,000? Insiders say the cryptocurrency could test new highs this year - CNBC

After skyrocketing earlier this week, Bitcoin fell to just above $27,000 on Wednesday afternoon as the Federal Reserve announced a rate hike of a quarter of a percentage point.

After reaching an intraday high of $28,803 before the Feds announcement, the most popular cryptocurrency dropped about 3.5%, to $27,100, on the news. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell also indicated that a rate cut was not likely for the rest of the year.

Rate cuts are not in our base case, Powell said.

The second-leading cryptocurrency, Ether was also down about 3.8%, to $1,700, after reaching an intra-day high of $1,821 just days after it hit a seven-month high, according to CoinMarketCap.

The two largest cryptocurrencies by market cap had seen a recent boost following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank on March 10. Advocates pointed to the decentralized nature of some cryptocurrencies as an alternative to the centralized banks like SVB, and later Signature Bank, that needed to be backstopped by the Federal Reserve.

On Wednesday, Powell emphasized that SVBs management failed badly by growing the bank quickly, exposing it to significant liquidity risks and interest rate risks without proper hedging.

He added that an investigation into SVBs failure is being led by Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr. Once the review concludes, the Fed will decide what policies to implement to prevent a similar situation, he said.

Powell was particularly interested in the speed of the bank run on Silicon Valley Bank, which he said was faster than historical record would suggest.

My only interest is that we identify what went wrong here, he added. How did this happen, is the question. What went wrong?

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Bitcoin teeters near $27,000 as Fed raises interest rates and Powell says cuts unlikely in 2023 - Fortune

Cryptocurrencies

Jake Paul and Ne-Yo among stars accused in case as most agree to pay settlement without admission or denial

Wed 22 Mar 2023 21.48 EDT

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed charges against a handful of celebrities including Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul and Ne-Yo for violating laws in touting cryptocurrencies.

On Wednesday, the SEC filed the charges against the celebrities as part of its broader charges filed against the crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun and three of his companies: Tron Foundation Ltd, BitTorrent Foundation Ltd, and Rainberry Inc (formerly BitTorrent) for the unregistered offer and sale of the crypto asset securities Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT).

The SEC charged eight celebrities, who also included the rappers Soulja Boy and Lil Yachty, the singers Austin Mahone and Akon, and the adult film star Kendra Lust for illegally touting TRX and/or BTT without disclosing that they were compensated for doing so and the amount of their compensation.

According to the SEC, Sun and his companies offered and sold the crypto asset securities as investments through various unregistered bounty programs, which directed interested parties to promote the tokens on social media, join and recruit others to Tron-affiliated Telegram and Discord channels, and create BitTorrent accounts in exchange for TRX and BTT distributions.

This case demonstrates again the high risk investors face when crypto asset securities are offered and sold without proper disclosure, the SEC chair, Gary Gensler, said in a statement.

All mentioned celebrities except for Soulja Boy and Austin Mahone agreed to pay a total of over $400,000 in disgorgement, interest and penalties to settle the charges, without admitting or denying the SECs findings.

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SEC charges celebrities including Lindsay Lohan over cryptocurrency endorsements - The Guardian