UNWOKE: A Memoir in Episodes

Jebra is hiding in her closet, going through her box ofpolitical mementos. In her most sacred collection, a secret stash of Hunter Biden photos, articles, a pretend crack pipe, and colored printouts of his artwork.She just loves a misunderstood bad boy.Brad has been watching Fox News. Ginsburg has been watching Turning Point USA. Tymothee has requested new eyeliner. Kip has a copy of Clinton Cash in the poolhouse.Then she goes to Anti-Fascist Resistance Flow yoga, where her college friend accuses her of language-ism .Later, she scrolls TikTok and a man in a red MAGA hatsays that America needs cheaper gas, law and order, and an end to whatever is going on in D.C.For one brief, shameful moment, she nods.

Jebra marches for immigrant housing rights. No Human Is Illegal! Everyone Deserves a Home. Housing For All. She has a matching sweatshirt, ball cap, and ethically sourced sunscreen from an all-female collective in Myanmar.Tymothee insists on coming. He does his nails for the occasion.At the rally, a volunteer asks if Jebra will host Luis, a migrant who has walked hundreds of miles and just needs a place to stay and medication for diabetes and schizophrenia.Jebra declines, and her son questions her.Then Brad and Kip have something to tell her.Ginsburg has made a PowerPoint. It is called PROMISES MADE, PROMISES GHOSTED.There are slides about Afghanistan, inflation, the border crisis, student debt forgiveness, and drag queens talking climate policy. "Why didn't The View cover any of this?" Jebra asks.For the first time, Jebra wasn't sure what she believed anymore.

Brad, Kip, and the kids go to Joe and Stephanie's for dinner. They come home evangelical about steak.Kip is making elk jerky. There is bone broth in the Crockpot. Tymothee has requested assless chaps. Literaleigh has been feeding the vegan food to Dosha. Then Jebra attends the Halo Voss Conscious Living Gala: Planetary Healing Through Mindful Luxury. When Jebra's Prius dies, she borrows Joe's F-150 with the Let's Go Brandon sticker. At the yoga studio, she meets Howland Dray, transformational coach, hypnotherapist, conscious leader, and emotional alchemist. He has messy gray hair, linen pants, and ugly Birkenstocks. He charges $1,111 for the Soul Reclamation Journey. He flirts with Jebra, she almost falls for him.

Jebra tries to stay perfectly progressive while raisingkids in a world where identity feels like everything. She dives into a restorative justice circle built on radicalempathy and rethinking crime, trying to align with its ideals fully. But the philosophy starts to crack when real-world fear shows up at her doorstep. Book club, meant to model inclusivity, turns into a minefield of judgment, language policing, and ideological tension. Jebra tries to hold the space together while quietly unraveling inside it.

Jebra's old flame, Blaze, has transitioned. They met in the90s at a club off Sunset, kissing in his Geo Tracker after too many Zimas. Now Blaze is a woman, hiking Topanga Canyon in a ruffled sundress and a blonde wig, complaining about period cramps.Jebra comes home to find Brad and Ginsburg watching Joe Rogan. Kip is in an ice bath in the backyard. There is elk jerky in the oven."This isn't ancestral eating. This is a testosteronefueled philosophy and it's disgusting."Jebra flees to a rage choir called Tranquil Dissenters, wherewomen in black robes scream about the patriarchy for an hour. Then two gay men move in across the street. Jebra brings them a welcome basket containing White Fragility and a Defund the Police sticker. She investigates their Instagrams. There is not a single tribute to George Floyd.

"Art as Resistance," hosted by Roland Poundsand, features an interview with multimedia artist Mahalo Wu Zenobi, whose Los Angeles exhibit Intersectional Nudes for Kamala apparently went viral. The two spend the episode in enthusiastic agreement about essentially everything: that conservatism is synonymous with emotional repression and fascism, that Mahalo's nude painting of Kamala Harris is a profound act of political resistance, and that right-wingers are fundamentally incapable of appreciating art or beauty.

Brad comes home from Washington D.C. with Kip, his Peloton instructor. Kip is short, immortal, gender-homoflexible, and wearing leather pants. They are moving into the poolhouse together. They are starting a podcast called Poolhouse Confessions.Brad had never wanted to do a podcast with Jebra.Jebra turns her heartbreak into a Medium essay titled Marriage and the Patriarchy: My Quasiplatonic Journey. It receives seven claps. "I ugly-cried into a roll of bamboo toilet paper, whispering: Decolonize your feelings, Jebra. Decolonize."Then Literaleigh needs help with her history homework. The topic is D-Day."Why is no one wearing a dress? Why is no one fat? Did they not have mascara back then?"Jebra visits her aura reader Ricardo, who tells her that testicles are becoming soft jewels and it's the dawn of a glorious matriarchy. She isn't sure how she feels about this.

A deleted scene from the UNWOKE archives.Jebra meets Echo for a wild-crafted organic beet kombucha at a West Hollywood café. They order Dung Beetle Ginger Booch. They discuss colonialism, climate debt, and the average oppressor — statistically a white cisgendered heteronormative male over forty with unresolved entitlement trauma.Then Jebra's gay conservative friend Neal invites her to a modern art gallery. One evening without politics. No Trump. No Kamala. Just art....However, the centerpiece is a fully explicit nude of Kamala Harris clutching a trans rights flag.

Jebra discovers that dog ownership is racist. Dosha, her Goldendoodle, snores on her feet, unaware of her privilege. She takes her to Land Acknowledgment Ridge, formerly the John Muir Loop, currently under review, where a ranger named Juniper leads the group in apologizing to a sycamore tree.Then Charcuterie gets a playdate invitation. Jebra prepares a screening checklist. The family fails immediately. They are unvaccinated and probably Republicans. Jebra finds this deeply problematic.for those who enjoy: political satirewoke culturecancel culturesuburban momcomedy fictionserialized fictionsocial commentaryprogressive humorpolitical humorsatirical memoirLos Angelesaudio fiction

Jebra attends a fashion event introducing shoes made from recycled TukTuk tires, and learns the shoes were made in a sweatshop.She discusses how everyone should own electric cars and talks about being driven off the road after seeing a truck with a Trump flag.Themes of this podcast include:woke culture cancel culture suburban mom comedy fiction serialized fiction social commentary progressive humor political humor satirical memoir Los Angeles audio fiction  woke culture   cancel culture   suburban mom   comedy fiction   serialized fiction   social commentary   progressive humor   political humor   satirical memoir   Los Angeles   audio fiction

Jebra reimagines Thanksgiving.Gone is the colonizer's turkey. In its place: wild-craftedinsects, foraged mushrooms, a faux buffalo hide tablecloth, utensils made from animal bones, a PowerPoint on smallpox, slam poetry, and a Western Apache seed mix fritter cooked on the sidewalk to shun modern appliances. She calls it Ancestral Gratitude Day. She posts it on Instagram. She gets canceled within the hour.This podcast is created for those who enjoy any of the following: political satirewoke culturecancel culturesuburban momcomedy fictionserialized fictionsocial commentaryprogressive humorpolitical humorsatirical memoirLos Angelesaudio fiction

A deleted scene from the UNWOKE archives. *satire*Jebra is sitting in Los Angeles traffic listening to The Soft Awakening, the podcast where host Harper Solstice decenters urgency, reimagines compassion, and holds space for collective healing in a late-capitalist world.Today's guest is Halo Indigo Voss. Academy Award winner. Climate advocate. Founder of the HIVV Conscious Living Collective. Creator of the viral Vaccines Are Self-Care campaign. Author of Nourish the Resistance. And the creator of HIVE Honey serum at only $100 for two ounces.Allow her to inspire you.

Jebra spends Saturday at the Farmer's Market, where a woman tests bread with a pendulum for vibrational energy, a vendor sells dream catchers made of umbilical cords, and Jebra runs into someone she got kicked out of the PTA. She offers no apology.Then Brad invites new friends for dinner. Their names areTyrone and Sasha. Jebra attends a Zoom symposium on decolonizing your settler concepts and spends three days purging the house of colonial candles, a marblebust of Thomas Jefferson, Brad's calendar (time is a colonial construct), and anything that might trigger ancestral trauma.This backfires.

It's January 6th, and Jebra will never forget the fear shefaced that day.She locks every door and window in case the insurrectionistsbook a connecting flight to LAX. She converts the pantry into an emergency bunker with canned chickpeas and dried jackfruit. She starts a GoFundMe for her emotional recovery. Then Ginsburg comes home from the park radicalized. He islistening to The Daily Wire. He has hung an American flag in his room. He has created a PowerPoint about small government.Jebra emails Ibram X. Kendi for help, but he doesn't reply.She researches orphanages in Canada to rehome him. She buys a telescope to monitor her neighbors, whom she suspects are radical MAGA. She considers pubertyblockers for Ginsburg’s ongoing interest in right-wing politics.Then she Googles "symptoms of political radicalizationin children" and finds something she wasn't looking for.

Jebra's neighbor Joe offers to fill her tire. He is Black. He has a Let's Go Brandon sticker. Jebra struggles to be an ally and to convince him to accept reparations.Then George Floyd happens, and Jebra does what any committed ally would do — she takes her reluctant teenage daughter to CHAZ, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle, packs organic mushroom jerky, and prepares for the Summer of Love.Featuring: a glow-in-the-dark BLM flag, five Blacknificent t-shirts, a gender-fluid Anne Frank play by candlelight, a tear gas canister to the chest, and Literaleigh eating a Cinnabon at the airport while her mother processes her radicalization.

It's 2016, and Jebra Faushay is certain Hillary Clinton will win. She has the fireworks, the vegan charcuterie, and the champagne ready to uncork.In the first chapter of UNWOKE, Jebra takes us through the election night that broke her, the COVID years that consumed her, and the glorious arrival of Joe Biden, coming to save the country.Featuring: a four-hour champagne hunger strike, a hazmat suit at Whole Foods, six keyed cars, and the ancestry results that made her 0.1% African and 100% certain she was now BIPOC.

Before Chapter 1, meet Jebra Faushay. Suburban Los Angeles mother, former ally, recovering activist. This is her story. UNWOKE: A Memoir in Episodes, new chapters every Monday.