Hope on the Horizon

he is up against in New York. But I want to say this, fucking cable news man, like mainstream media, just stays fucking up, And at this point you got to say to yourself, is it a fuck up? Because

it just is deliberate. So first, let's start off with sixty fucking minutes deciding to give precious airtime to a white nationalist, anti Semitic, transphobic piece of trash like Marjorie Taylor fucking Green, who used her time on sixty Minutes to refer to Democrats who stand for gender affirming care for transgender kids as being pedophiles, right, And all the journalists supposed journalists Stall could say in response to that

was can you just not name call bitch? This is not elementary school, right, Marjorie Taylor Green is not an

elementary school, nor is she a preschooler. She knows exactly what it is that she's doing and what your network decided to do, what CBS decided to do, what sixty minutes decided to do, was what the New York Times did back in the nineteen thirties with fucking Hitler when they decided to give him an entire expose around his long walks in his better Home and Gardens section, right as he was shipping people off to Auschwitz and other

concentration camps. You have Marjorie Taylor Green getting airtime is if she is normal. Do you know how many other members of Congress that are actually doing fucking work, that are actually trying to save this country from a fascist takeover. You know who could have been on sixty minutes, Jamal Bowman, the representative who was shaming his Republican counterparts for not taking any actions. As we watch every fucking few months, another classroom of students be slaughtered by aar fifteens that

the Republican Party wears as essential flag pins on their lapels. Right, Jamal Bowman stood in the rotunda at the Capitol shaming his Republican counterparts for their inaction. We'll do everything, bulletproof backpacks, bulletproof whiteboards, fucking teaching little kids how to army crawl at the age of three, but they won't do anything about the guns because, as the Tennessee fucking representatives said, we're not gonna fix this. Criminals are just gonna crime.

That is the person that deserves a time slot on sixty minutes, not a fucking white nationalist piece of trash like Marjorie Taylor Green, who had to, by the way, be warned by the New York City mayor Eric Adams, because she tweeted and said she gonna find herself flying

to New York for Trump's arraiment. I don't know whether it's on a broomstick or not, right finding herself lying to New York, and Eric Adams said to her, don't be bringing your violent, insightful ass here and thinking that you're gonna rabble rouse and everything is gonna be okay,

because it ain't. We all hands on deck here. And I cannot stress enough, folks, I cannot stress this enough that the fact that New York has all officers hands on deck, the fact that New York has been building up barricade since Donald Trump's initial lyon ass tweet on his broke Ass Truth social where he said that he was going to be arrested just you know, from figment of his imagination, just so that he could once again

grift off of his followers. They've been all hands on deck because they don't want to be caught flatfooted in the way that the FBI, the National Guard, the DC Metro Police, Capitol Police, and the rest of them decided that they weren't going to do shit even as they were watching these groups like the Oath Keepers, the Proud Voice of three Percenters organized in plain sight because you know,

all but they're white, so they're not going to harm anybody. Okay, checks history books anyway, it should be covered in the way that it's like Donald Trump is being investigated by the Department of Justice, not only for stealing government documents, which, by the way, the Washington Post also came out with new reporting that said that there is way, way, way more evidence that points to the fact that Donald Trump was obstructing justice, was combing through said documents and deciding

what he was going to bring back, what he was going to send back excuse me to the National arc kives in what he was gonna keep right. So we also have found out recently with an interview that he did with Sean Hannity where Sean Hannity tried to give Donald Trump an out and say, well, you weren't going through those documents yourself, right, like you have staff and blahlah blah, and He's like, no, no, it was well

within my right. And not only that, but then says that Nixon took documents and was able to sell them back to the United States government for millions of dollars. Hook line and sinker, folks, Donald Trump is going to tweet his ass and talk his ass into an orange jumpsuit. And I'm like, go ahead, keep going. Let that ego continue right and checks that god willing your ass can't cash.

But as it stands right now, folks, we are waiting to find out if there are in fact thirty counts or more against Donald Trump that could cover everything from the money payments to Stormy Daniels, tax fraud as well as business fraud, an accounting fraud at all of those different types of charges. So we will keep our eyes open for that as well as it seems that the

Jack Smith side of things are also heating up. Just hoping that the Department of Justice was also paying attention not only to Donald Trump's interview on Hannity about the documents, but also his farce of a rally in Waco, Texas where he was using footage from January six, you know, the thing that he incited people to violence and who went to jail for. We're in, for folks, a very wild week, and I just want you to know that we here at Woke A Up. We'll have our finger

on the pulse move in all week long. And so also make sure to follow me if you do not, on all of the socials at D two cents on Instagram and on Twitter, d E E. T w O ce NTS and Danielle Moody underscore on TikTok. While that's still a thing. Coming up next my conversation with Sophia Mohammed,

who is the interim CEO of Black Girls Code. We will switch gears a bit and talk about, you know, other news and uplifting things that are happening in our schools as opposed to just you know, talking about the shootings that happen in our schools. There are good things that happen there too, and Sophia Mohammed will share that next. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to woke F for the first time, the interim executive director of Black Girls Code,

Sophia Mohammed. Sophia, before we jump in, I want to give you the opportunity to tell folks who may not know a black Black Girl's Code what the mission is of your organization. Sure first, Danielle, thank you for having

me and thinking of Black Girl's Code. Black Girl's Code is an organization that puts black girls first in tech education, and it puts black girls first in also cultivating other parts of their girlhood so that they can be confident in in how they show up if they choose to show up into the tech space later in their life.

So we create our own culture responsive computer programming curriculum where students learn technical skills through cool projects that are connected to their personal experience, their identity, the things that they care about right and also with instructors that they

connect with. And in addition to the technical skills, we do activities to cultivate their confidence and their empowerment and their self love, focusing on the whole child, for example, you know, wellness activities providing opportunities for our students to engage with other women who come from maybe similar backgrounds as them, you know, just creating safe space for them to develop the relationships and sisterhood with other members of

our programs as well. I love that, And you know, I have always had just a warm place in my heart for organizations that are particularly targeted at black girls and getting them into fields that are traditionally closed have been closed to black people. And we know that STEM is really an important part of our education and an important part of getting a well paying job and into a field that is growing, but that has largely been

dominated by white males. And so before we jump in into where we find ourselves in the bubble of tech right now, I kind of want to ask you what it feels like to be the executive director of an organization with black girls in the title at a time in our country where diversity and inclusion and equity, particularly as it pertains to black people, to black indigenous people of color, is being targeted in our schools in curriculum and erasure that is happening and what it means and

how you've been dealing with this climate. Well, it's been a heavy topic on my mind and on the mind of a lot of educators, a lot of folks in this space, and in fact, so I was. So I'll go back a little bit. I was a teacher. That's

how I started my career. Although I was a former teacher, I always say I'm a forever educator, even though I even though I left the classroom, my heart has not left the classroom, and my passions and my work continues to be an educational equity and being a forever educator. The lack of diversity, the cultural erasure or just lack of existence of our history and curriculum, particularly stem curriculum.

It's something that has been on my mind since my first you're teaching, right, That's why when I was in the classroom, whether it was teaching sixth grade math or pre calculus on a high school level, or whatever the case was, like, I remember thinking to myself adjusting my lesson plans to make it more relevant and more inclusive

to my students. I remember adjusting problem sets so that the context was not about farming and golf, but rather everyday experiencing my students in a Brooklyn know about like writing the subway or a familiar event like West Indian Day parade, right, like things that like it's familiar to them, so that and passionate about and interested about, so that when they are doing the technical like hard math, like you know, like hard math things, it just like clicks, right.

And there's also a level of connection, um that they feel with the content and like application that they feel with the content. So those are those are the type of like practices that I was doing as a teacher, and a lot of teachers, a lot of transformational teachers and educators doing the classroom to be culturally responsive, to be inclusive, to be intentional. U in there as educators, right and here we are right and yes, there used

to be more of that happening right um. But that that unfortunately is not by itself, does not move the needle when it comes to creating diversity and inclusivity um in the tech industry or any industry that's predominantly occupied by white male populations. Right is, we have to take a multi a multi pronged approach to fixing this issue. And we also need to fix this issue not because like not because it's just for the sake of fixing.

It's because actually inclusivity and diversity and having a variety of different perspectives at the table when you are solving a problem, or when you are when you're inventing something new, or when you are improving something like actually makes the product better. It actually like is beneficial for all people, all stakeholders, all customers, you know, not just a group

of just one group of people. So I think those are the type of things that are on my mind then that I lean on when I do this work here at Black Girl's Code. It's like all of the things that you say. It was one of the reasons why I initially had gone into teaching as well, because I believe that, you know, education is the great equalizer that it is is the place where you receive you know, kind of the keys to equity is with a robust, challenging education, but one that is applicable right to you

in your life. And I find that where we are right now in a country is you have a party that is working to create a permanent underclass, that is working to create a permanent working class. Because if we were to create access and you know, apply curriculum in a way that is of interest, that is of excitement, but is also relevant, right, and that is not centered around whiteness. Well, then guess what you create A whole lot of access and a whole lot of opportunity that

I believe is not wanted. I want to switch gears and talk about how this applies to what we're seeing that is happening in the classrooms with diversity and inclusion, and what we're seeing mirrored in the tech industry right now. So I don't know how many companies now that are a part of big tech have announced major layoffs, tens of thousands of people from engineers and software people you know,

throughout their companies that are being laid off. And of course it's being said, well, this is largely due to inflation, and you know, the fear is around recession. But what is happening, it seems, is that it is the diversity and inclusion and the elements that we're helping to diversify this very white, very sis, very heteronormative culture, this very fat culture. To diversify it is what is being hardest hit.

So I wanted to give you an opportunity to speak to what you are hearing and seeing as it pertains to these matters of layoffs and what you are thinking with regard to the future of tech and the possibility of diversification there. See, one of the things that I am learning about the different layoffs I'm hearing about or I'm reading about, is every company has its different reasons. Right.

For some companies is because they've invested so much money on a particular project and did not really think about the long term you know, impact of that investment. And now we're you know, hitting a financial you know challenge. Then it's it's it's hitting the bank. Right. There are some companies where, uh, you know, maybe their investments completely went down. So there are different reasons to why layoffs are happening across our nation and our Black Girl's code.

What we are making sure to do are our goal and our aim is to to prepare black girls so that they have choices in entering and or staying in certain in companies if they choose to get into tech, right and also to um be able to uh well that to go back a little bit, I think that a lot of companies also had a season, especially during UM twenty twenty era, right, we're like, oh, we need to diversify, we need to diversify, right, And they were hiring left and right, but actually did not have a

plan to actually how to keep folks in their companies. Right. So it's one thing to hire and bring historically marginalized folks in your company, but you need to have a plan to make them feel and make them like valued, to make sure that they are growing, make sure that there is an opportunity for them to take on leadership

and senior leadership roles in the company. So if God infrastructure and that system for retaining talent, specifically talent of people of color or historically marginalized folks, then whether layoff or not, your diversity is going to go down over time because there's not a plan to sustain that diversity. Right. And I think about this summer of twenty twenty, which was you know, as many it said, oh, it's the

great racial reckoning, and it's the great racial uprising. And I had said on this show and many others that it was like a resistance internship for many people, for many white people in this country that they took up for the summer, and then by the time that the fall semester rolled around, it was just like, oh, well, I can't really do that elective right now, right, so

it's over. And similarly that was matched by a lot of companies, both in tech and outside of tech, that we're in a rush to create the diversity, equity and inclusion roles, these d EI roles, but not think about the infrastructure that was needed and the culture change that was needed, not to be done just by one person that was needed to retain people. So can you speak

to because you touched upon it. But retention is really important because it isn't enough for organizations like yours to train up the next generation of STEM and tech leaders if in fact they're entering into spaces where they find themselves as the only one right right. While black girls code mission is to educate like black girls, to you know, equip them with the technical and soft skills to be able to have a choice in entering right these spaces.

There's also a lot of responsibility that the tech spaces have in order to one receive black girls and black women and a diverse group of people into their companies, it is also the responsibility to train them and to help them grow. And like I said, make them feel seen, valued and empower and feel like a community is they have a community in the in the tech industry. So like it is not just the responsibility of of black women to train themselves up to like be competent and

be competitive into into the workspace. No, like how many times we have so many qualified, overqualified women, um black folk who may don't get the job or don't stay at an organization, not because of their lack of because of their short coming, but because the system, the environment itself has a lot of issues that it just was not ready for their leadership and their authentic self, you know. So the tech industries have a lot of responsibility. I

think schools also have a lot of responsibility. Yes, their organizations like Black Girl's Code, who provide these extracurricular supplemental education. But quite honestly, like preparation for quality STEMP preparation and computer programming education should really begin and continue throughout somebody's educational career. Just like how we have we take math classes every single year, right, like you take science every

single year. How powerful would it be if computer programming and like really specific technological skills were embedded and infused in the curriculum kindergarten up until you know, whenever you graduate dairy school, right secondary education. There's also a responsibility for our toy and our entertainment industry to be able

to put all types of people with technology, right. I always share the story of when I am I have a seven year old niece who is going on seventeen and and you know, for you know, her birthdays or for the holidays, when I'm at stores buying gifts and I go to the sections, the girls sections, or whatever the case may be, Like I you know, there are a lot of toys and entertainment that has to do with makeup and has to do with care and has to be which is all great, okay, and I'm gonna

buy it for her, And if when I was a kid, I love those two and I wish there were also a lot of choices for like STEM related toys or like construction related toys like cars and airplanes and other things like that could also tell my knees through the toys that she plays, that she can do STEM and

that she can be a technologist. So like even the entertainment industry, the toy industry, whatever you want to call it, like feeds into this narrative right that only a certain amount of certain types of people belong in that STEM space, and others are not included. Yeah. Going into the toy section for my friend's children and god daughter and what have you is probably my most frustrating shopping time because, I mean, for the life of me, I couldn't understand

why you needed to make legos passed out. Oh my god, I like I could. I couldn't understand why things that were new right gender neutral needed to be feminized or made to be masculine. I didn't like I and it

is it is a training. You know. You have people on the right talking about indoctrination, and I see no better indoctrination than the toy I absolutely, at any given place to tell young girls and young boys, you know, this is how you need to act, This is what you need to like in order to fit into these boxes.

With a short amount of time that we have left, what is your hope for black girls code, but also for black girls that are looking outside of the box that they have been placed in in terms of getting excited and invested in STEM and in careers that have not traditionally been open. Yeah, a few things I have in my hope and dreams for black girls code and

just girls and general. First is when you try something new, When you try something new for the first time, it's always going to feel hard and uncomfortable and you know, a little difficult, and you can do it right, like coding, computer programming, stem topics. Anything can be hard and you can do hard things. Mu. So don't be afraid of

a little bit discomfort. Don't be afraid of a little tug and pull when it comes to you know, uh, you know, working on a project and you have a moment of failure, like, get back up and try again until you feel more comfortable with that process of failing learning, failing learning, failing learning. But because at the end of the day, you're growing through that through that process, and

that's also life. It's not just coding. That's just like literally life, right, um So I want I hope that all girls, and specifically black girls like have embrace and like understand that mindset and can apply that mindset and their daily life and you know it will trickle to their education and their career path as well. My second hope is for black girls to have choices. I think the biggest I think, the biggest form of freedom that

one can feel. I know, the biggest sense of me that I can feel being an immigrant coming to America when I was nine. The reason why I came was because my family and I came was because we wanted choices, right yea. And for Black Girls Code, And what I hope for black girls is you can come to Black Girls Code events and workshops for years and if you don't want to go and tech, it is okay because

that is your choice. But as you're not going into tech because you don't want to, not because you cannot, not because you think you cannot, not because you didn't have access to it, you know. So like my goal and my hope is for girls to be able to choose how they want to live for the rest of their lives. And you know that choice changes. What they choose when they're twenty one is differ from a twenty five and thirty five and forty five, right, So yeah,

I just want them to have choices. I love that. Sophia Mohammed, thank you so much for making the time to join will Gay app and thank you for the work that you're doing with Black Girls Code. I think that it is really important and it is necessary, and I too believe that all black girls should have choices in their lives, and I think that what you're doing is invaluable for that hope to come true. So thank you, Thank you, Daniel. That is it for me to day.

Dear friends, Ann woke f as always Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.