If you’re not familiar with Sam Whiteout… here’s a brief recap – he’s a white boy who went viral because of his Kappa Alpha Psi frat affiliation. Many were impressed when videos showed him hitting the shimmy (see above)– as such, he gained a large following.
As noted by blavity.com, White has used his notoriety to talk about social issues, namely racism and white privilege.
“Being white in a Black space demands a very self-reflective mindset,” he told The Daily Dot in February 2017. “The onus is on me to make sure I don’t disrespect the culture or the community at large, and part of that is the authenticity with which I approached Kappa.”
But things went left for Whiteout when he penned an essay about being “woke” in an article for the Kennedy School Journal of African American Public Policy.
“Today, being woke and doing good have become part of the pop culture and have certainly become a bit diluted in the process,” he wrote. “Specifically, wokeness has lost some of its connection to Black activism. However, as the link between wokeness and profit becomes more clear, we will face more and more attempts to capitalize off this trend without actually being woke or doing any good at all.”
After detailing the issue, Whiteout offered some suggestions on how to stop corporations from capitalizing off wokeness.
“Let’s celebrate folks doing good while making sure the conversation doesn’t end without turning that inspiration into momentum for more good to be done,” he wrote. “And let’s be frank about the attempts to be woke that are too meager in their effort to warrant praise while making sure that conversation doesn’t take place in a contextual vacuum.”
After he posted excerpts of the article online, Black Twitter snapped. Below are some of the reactions.
https://twitter.com/FredTJoseph/status/1068500057589194753
https://twitter.com/HalfAtlanta/status/1068353625641164800
Whiteout eventually followed up with an apology: “I am so sorry,” he wrote. “My intentions … do not change the negative impact I have caused, and that is entirely my fault.”
