She couldn’t define ‘woke,’ yet she claims it's destroying America. Newsweek rewarded her with an entire op-ed.

Whitney Alese
ZORA
Published in
5 min readMar 20, 2023

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Bethany Mandel

Bethany Mandel sputtered and stalled. When asked by journalist Briahna Joy Gray to define what the word “woke” meant, Mandel, in a viral clip, seemed to struggle to define the word. A word she wrote an entire chapter on in her book, Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation.

A word she claims is destroying America she couldn’t even define.

Mandel eventually sputtered some form of a definition on The Hill’s Youtube show Rising that was completely antithetical to the colloquialism woke’s actual origins and meaning. Mandel says, “It’s hard to explain in a 15-second sound bite.” Gray responds, “Please take your time.”

As Mandel says in the clip, “this is one of those moments that goes viral.” And it did. The video circulated on various social media platforms garnering millions of views and countless comments.

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Whitney Alese
ZORA
Writer for

Whitney Alese is an award winning writer & creator featured in WIRED Magazine, I-D Magazine, NBC, & Chalkboard Magazine.