How Woke Are You in 2021 Big Quiz

Julian Assange is the Australian founder of WikiLeaks. A British judge blocked Assange's extradition to the United States, where he was to face criminal charges, including breaking a spying law, on Monday, Jan. 4, 2021. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Assange is 'free to return home' to Australia. Mexico offered Assange political asylum.

American poet and activist Amanda Gorman was born in 1998, which means she was ten years old when Barack Obama was elected president in 2008. At 22, she was the youngest poet ever (by far) to read at presidential inaugurations when appearing in the Jan. 20, 2021, inauguration of President Joe Biden. Watch Gorman’s awe-inspiring inauguration poet.

Hasbro launched Mr. Potato Head in 1952. Back then, families had to supply their real potato, which kids could turn into little people thanks to plastic pieces in the box, such as hands, feet, eyes, accessories like a pipe, and felt pieces that stood for mustaches. The following year, Mrs. Potato Head launched with feminized accessories, such as hair bows and red high heels.

Mr. Potato 2021 Woke Fact

As of autumn 2021, the toy loses its honorifics to become Potato Head on the packaging. The company says the reimagined toy will allow children "to create their own Potato Head family."

A month after the Facebook Oversight Board published 17 recommendations for improving its content moderation, one of the changes Facebook decided to adopt is Instagram's nudity policy to clarify "health-related nudity" is allowed. The Oversight Board recommended that Facebook update Instagram's community guidelines around adult nudity to explain that some nudity — health-related, photos of breastfeeding, giving birth, breast cancer awareness, gender confirmation surgery, or in the act of protest — is allowed on the platform.

In Seven Against Thebes, 467 B.C., the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus wrote: "Let women stay at home and hold their peace." This notion has been endlessly rephrased, with the typical place for a woman usually expressed with 'home,' 'family,' and 'kitchen.'

Burger King's 2021 Women's Day Foux-Pas

On Monday, Mar. 8, 2021,  International Women's Day, Burger King UK tweeted, "Women belong in the kitchen." "If they want to, of course," reads a follow-up tweet. "Yet only 20% of chefs are women. We're on a mission to change the gender ratio in the restaurant industry by empowering female employees with the opportunity to pursue a culinary career." The company soon removed the initial tweet due to enormous - and understandable - backlash.

In August 2018, at age 15, Greta Thunberg started skipping school to protest outside the Swedish Parliament, holding up a sign reading "School strike for climate." Soon, other students engaged in similar protests in their communities. She then addressed the UN, sailed across the Atlantic, and met with world leaders in the Davos World Economic Forum.

Greta Thunberg 2021 Fact:

Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World is the BBC's new documentary following 18-year-old Greta as she travels worldwide campaigning for environmental awareness. The series aired weekly starting Monday, April 12, 2021. Watch the trailer.

Titled Subject to Availability, the 2009 artwork features a defaced version of an 1890 oil painting by Albert Bierstadt depicting Mount Rainier National Park. Banksy added an asterisk to the painting with the note: "Subject to availability for a limited period only." - obviously referring to the climate crisis.

Banksy 2021 Fact

On Wednesday, June 30, 2021, Christie's sold Banksy's "Subject to Availability" at a London auction for more than £4.5 million ($6.3 million).

The Equality Act is a bill in the United States Congress. If passed, it would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity in employment, housing, public accommodations, education, federally funded programs, credit, and jury service.

What’s new?

The Human Rights Campaign, a Washington-based LGBTQ advocacy group, said its Business Coalition for the Equality Act has signed on more than 400 companies to support the legislation for LGBTQ rights that is moving through Congress. The list includes dozens of Fortune 500 companies like Tesla, Pfizer, Delta Air Lines, Amazon, Apple, PepsiCo, General Motors, Facebook, Starbucks, and Home Depot.

The keffiyeh is a traditional Arabian headdress, which originated in Yemen and is worn throughout the Middle East region. The black and white chequered Palestinian keffiyeh became a symbol of Palestinian nationalism during the Arab Revolt of the 1930s.

Louis Vuitton's Keffiyeh Trouble:

Screenshot: Diet Prada ™ on Instagram

Louis Vuitton is facing Pro-Palestinian backlash for selling a blue and white "monogram keffiyeh stole" for $705, saying on its website that it's "inspired by the classic Keffiyeh and enriched with House signatures." The product has since been removed from the website. Blue and white are the flag colors of Israel (and also Greece, Scotland, Argentina, and Finland).

Juneteenth originated in Texas. On June 19, 1865, Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger informed a reluctant community in Galveston, Texas, that President Abraham Lincoln had freed enslaved people in rebel states two and a half years earlier. He pressed locals to comply with the directive. Texas was the last Confederate state to have the emancipation proclamation announced. In 2021 Juneteenth became a Federal Holiday in the US.

Since April 2021, New Yorkers are permitted to smoke cannabis in public wherever smoking tobacco is allowed. Smoking cannabis, however, is not permitted in schools, workplaces, or inside a car. In addition, tobacco smoking is banned in New York City parks, beaches, boardwalks, pedestrian plazas, and playgrounds but is generally permitted on sidewalks.

According to Harm Reduction International, there are currently at least 30 countries worldwide with capital punishment for drug offenses, including the United States - which never applied capital punishment for drug offenses, despite the law.

Which countries regularly execute drug offenders?

At least 213 people received a death sentence for drug offenses in 2020 in Vietnam, Indonesia, China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Singapore did not carry a single execution in 2020 for the first time since 2013 (!).

Oxford Languages define colorism as prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group.

Colorism in the News:

“In the Heights,” a big-budget film based on the musical created by Lin-Manuel Miranda, was called out for its short supply of dark-skinned, Black Latinos in leading roles. Miranda, best known as the creator of the Broadway musical “Hamilton” and a longtime champion of including Latinos in the arts, recognized his own short-sightedness in addressing colorism and issued an apology.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates the state’s electric grid, put out the call on Monday, June 28, 2021, for people to conserve electricity, asking them to set thermostats to 78°F (25°C) or higher, turn off lights and avoid using large appliances. The California Flex alert features the same recommendations.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos wanted to say thanks to the people who made his trip into space Tuesday, July 20, 2021, possible. “I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all this,” the 57-year-old Bezos said during a news conference after becoming the second billionaire in just over a week to ride in his spacecraft.

How does Jeff Bezos finance Blue Origin?

Bezos said in April 2017 that he finances the rocket company by selling $1 billion in Amazon stock each year.

On Sept. 2021, a Texas law banning most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy went into effect the same week Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled to decriminalize abortions.

Texas Abortion Law Fact

Under the new Texas abortion law, the countdown to six weeks of pregnancy starts from the first day of the mother's last period (not the one she missed), leaving many with no more than two weeks (tops) to end the pregnancy. On May 3, 2022, Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma signed the Oklahoma Heartbeat Act, which was modeled on the one that came into force in Texas.

US President Joe Biden called on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021, after the New York state attorney general's office released a new report on allegations of sexual harassment against the governor. The report detailed multiple allegations of sexual harassment, said that the Cuomo administration was a "hostile work environment," and claimed that Cuomo violated numerous federal and state laws. On Aug. 23, Cuomo finally resigned from office.

When asked on Friday, July 16, 2021, if he had a message for platforms like Facebook where false information about the coronavirus vaccines has spread, President Joe Biden told reporters, “They’re killing people.” On Monday, July 19, 2021, Biden explained he meant his rhetoric to pressure the social platforms to take action.

Facebook Fake-News News Facts

A study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit that studies extremism, has linked just a dozen accounts to most vaccine misinformation on Facebook. “Facebook isn’t killing people. These 12 people are out there giving misinformation. Anyone listening to it is getting hurt by it. It’s killing people,” Biden said.

Viktor Orban has been Hungary’s authoritarian anti-migrant, anti-semitic, anti-LGBT Prime Minister since 2010, previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002.

What does the Pope think of Viktor Orban’s policies?

Pope Francis visited Budapest on Sunday, Sept. 12, 2021, and urged Hungary to “extend its arms towards everyone,” criticizing Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s anti-migrant policies. The Pope met with Orban for 40 minutes upon arrival in Hungary in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest. After the meeting, Orban wrote on Facebook: “I asked Pope Francis not to let Christian Hungary perish.”

In 1643 Dutch cartographers named the newly discovered islands Nova Zeelandia, after the Dutch province of Zeeland (in the Netherlands). This name was later anglicized to New Zealand.

What is Aotearoa?

Aotearoa is the te reo Māori (an indigenous language) name for New Zealand. On Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021, New Zealand’s Māori party has launched a petition to change the country’s official name to Aotearoa. The petition calls on the government to “identify and officially restore the original Te Reo Māori names for all towns, cities, and places right across the country” by 2026.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez famously wore a white gown with the message “tax the rich” in red to the 2021 New York Met Gala.

What were other slogans worn at the 2021 Met Gala?

New York Representative Carolyn B. Maloney came to the 2021 Met Gala draped in sashes stating “Equal Rights for Women.” American soccer player Megan Rapinoe carried a purse that reads “In Gay We Trust,” and Cara Delevingne wore a Dior vest, with “Peg the Patriarchy” printed in red.