Greenberg: Cancel Culture Has Gone Too Far

Since the coronavirus panademic began, cancel culture has devolved from a useful method for holding people, who acted in a objectionable way, accountable into a form of doxxing.

For the most part, this withdrawal of support from companies, celebrities or TV shows is relatively effective. Twitter users have taken on brands such as Tapatio hot sauce or Aunt Jemima syrup for racial stereotypes in their marketing, as well as sports franchises such as the infamous Washington Redskins. Many have caved to this pressure and completely abandoned their insensitive images.

One example of effective pre-lockdown “canceling” is the Twitter hashtag #JimmyFallonIsOverParty, affixed to Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon after an SNL skit from 2000 resurfaced where he impersonated fellow comedian Chris Rock while in blackface. This perpetration may have been a mistake of the past, but Fallon losing some of his fan base seemed an appropriate response.

Recently, however, cancel culture has taken a dark turn, devolving into a blame-game, a movement centralized on the eradication of individuals based on contrary ideologies rather than pure racism. Even those who make honest mistakes and have atoned are at risk.

Cancel culture began to sour at the beginning of a recent nationwide fight against racial and social injustice. Many people in positions of privilege are using their social media platforms to serve as allies to people of color. While this is inherently a good use of social media, this desire has turned into a moral superiority contest, a competition that has turned allyship into an exercise in white saviorism. It has become a witch hunt of sorts, causing individuals without the same status as celebrities to lose their jobs and financial security.

Various posts have circled Instagram and Twitter about why it’s okay to reveal racists. In theory, exposing and disowning racists, even if they are friends or relatives, is powerful and just. But unfortunately, we now see people leaking the private information of anyone who does not morally or politically side with the “progressivism” that cancel culture pushes. Multiple high school-age Trump supporters from the Seattle-Portland area have had their private information spread after videos of their controversial views surfaced. Ignorance is no reason to leak home addresses, phone numbers and social media handles across a network of Gen Z-ers to use to harass people for opposing viewpoints. No one’s private information should ever be available to the public.

As President Obama said, “There is this sense [on social media] that the way of me making change is to be as judgemental as possible about other people, and that [is deemed] as enough… That’s not activism.”

Moving forward, I hope my generation will continue our fight against racism and change the current landscape of our nation. In the meantime, I urge you to discontinue using judgment as the foundation of your activism, and fix the impulsive decisions made from a disorganized and knee-jerk need for change.

Photo: “Cancel Culture is Cancerous Culture” by C. R. Strebor is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0