Fight The Power: 15 Surprisingly “Woke” Celebrities
You don’t necessarily have to be Neil deGrasse Tyson or Ta-Nehisi Coates to educate the masses on important social issues.
photo: E! Screen Capture
In between the funny tweets, selfies, and/or their stereotypical profile, these 15 surprisingly “woke” celebrities might make you re-evaluate what you expect from them.
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Photo: Basketball Hall Of Fame screen capture
photo: WENN
Leslie Jones
It’s easy to accuse slapstick, physical comics of cooning, but the two aren’t always one in the same. When she’s not live-tweeting Game Of Thrones episodes, Jones is outing online trolls, giving you jewels on hate speech versus free speech, ageism, and the benefits of diet and exercise.
photo: Derrick Salters/WENN.com
Carmelo Anthony
The days of ‘Melo being on “Skinny Suge” DVDs are long gone. The man who has been the lone bright spot on the Knicks has been riding hard for #BlackLivesMatter, in case you didn’t know.
photo: Instagram
Kim Kardashian
Everyone knows she let Ray J beat on camera. But did you know Kimmy Cakes rides for #BlackLivesMatter, The Armenian Genocide, and (gasp!) feminism?
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Will Smith
You never imagine the guy from Suicide Squad going in about, materialism or the police being a proxy for protecting the interests of one group and subverting the interests of another.
photo: E! Screen Capture
Amber Rose
If you’re only paying attention to Amber’s “thicka than a Snicka” figure, you’re probably missing out on the light she’s brought to slut shaming, body positivity, and colorism.
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Beyoncé
Prior to “Formation” and Lemonade, Bey slowly began riding for feminism, donating money to #BlackLivesMatter, and spilling the tea on the wage gap.
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YG and Nipsey Hussle
Of course, this inclusion is powered by “FDT.” But don’t sleep on Nip’s repurposing of Jonah Berger’s Contagious and YG’s commentary on police brutality and Black and Latino relations in Los Angeles.
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Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer
Behind the jokes, your favorite Comedy Central stoner chicks are about gender equality and not so subtle nods to interracial dating.
photo: YouTube/LaughFactory screen capture
Jerrod Carmichael
Folks need to stop sleeping on The Carmichael Show. Start with the episode about police brutality (“Protest”) or cringe as Carmichael’s fam fumbles their way through a litany of LBGTQ issues (“Gender”) and marvel at the mix of social commentary and hilarious jokes.
photo: Brian To/WENN.com
Andy Richter
Sleep on Conan O’Brien at your own risk, and you’ll miss him dropping Twitter bombs on white privilege, the Democratic Party email leak, and gender equality.
photo: Adriana M. Barraza / WENN
Mo’Nique
She’ll go to war with Lee Daniels about unfair wage practices, do a stand up special in a women’s max security prison to shed light on the prison industrial complex, and quickly remind you how Hattie McDaniel accepted her Academy Award in a segregated Los Angeles hotel.
photo: Instagram
Christina Milian
We mostly think of Christina Milian as eye candy, but 2015 showed a whole different side of Milian as she went in depth about domestic violence on her E! reality show Christina Milian Turned Up. Also, she quickly took back her initial all lives matter struggle.
photo: Derrick Salters/WENN.com
Lisa Ann
In her former career, Lisa Ann is responsible for a whole lot of sticky laptop keyboards and ushering many a pre-pubescent teen into adulthood. Having retired from porn, she regularly schools athletes on how to avoid tabloid fodder and preaches the gospel of not judging a book by its cover.
