Letta Page

by Seth Abrutyn, Amin Ghaziani, and Letta Page | November 4, 2025 | Summer 2025 Dear Readers, Let’s start by saying that we owe you an apology. Recently, we received an email from Laurel Davis-Delano, Professor of Sociology at Springfield College.

I come from a family of 10 children. Neither of my parents went to college. I dropped out of high school and earned my GED at 16. I was a teen mom. Stories that begin like mine often end in a predictable way because a lack of resources continues to breed inequality and poverty. Two turning points altered the course of my life—and that of my family for generations. The first came when I was 21 and learned about how the Pell Grant could help low-income students pay for college.

We are thrilled to welcome Musa al-Gharbi to the Contexts blog to celebrate the publication of his new book, We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite. In this post, blog editor Elena van Stee chats with Musa to explore the emergence of a new “woke” elite and the hidden ways they actively benefit from and perpetuate the inequalities they vocally oppose. They also discuss Musa’s commitment to avoiding academic echo chambers.