Some Thoughts on “Cancel Culture”

I don’t often like to think about the old pieces I wrote for the Fordham Observer while I was a student. Regardless of whether they are looked at for their quality of writing or the strength of the arguments they make, I like to think that I have developed enough such that those old pieces are no longer indicative of who I am as a writer. Still, I suppose it is only natural that current events cause moments of reflection from time to time, and in my case these moments request that I reckon with the positions I hold today compared to those I held the better part of a decade ago. 

One piece I wrote was centered around the debate of whether or not “controversial” figures deserved public dedications. It’s an argument that pops up frequently, especially around Columbus Day, and the Fordham community was no stranger to dipping their toes into the squabble. The piece in question was not necessarily a defense of Columbus the man, but rather a broader argument that an increasing number of historical figures will fail to meet the progressive standards of the present and thus should be seen as people of their time. We should not worship these people, but so long as the historical lens of the present remains in dialogue with the lens of the past, we should be able to acknowledge their flaws as well as highlight their contributions. Our nation would not exist without the work of men like Thomas Jefferson, yet the deeper we delve into his relationship with the institution of slavery, and the violations of humanity he may or may not have inflicted upon the slaves in his ownership, the more uncomfortable we become with his looming shadow. Therefore, I argued, it is possible to argue for the preservation of statues and dedications of controversial figures without those things simultaneously being turned into rallying cries or symbols of the worst ideologies humanity has to offer. One should be able to pay their respects to a statue of Jefferson without supporting the institution of slavery, and one should be able to acknowledge Christopher Columbus’s voyage without supporting genocide against Native American populations. 

This was what I believed at the time. Then a man who campaigned on the demonization of marginalized communities won his presidential campaign. Then Charlottesville happened. And then the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building; an attack that resulted, if only for the briefest of moments, in the Confederate flag being paraded through the halls of the building. 

My position, unsurprisingly, has changed a lot because of stuff like this. 

Now, to a certain extent I do mourn the loss of the possibility of discourse where we, as adults, could sit down and talk about how best to remember those historical men and women who no longer jive with the standards of today. In a vacuum that would be an intellectually stimulating discussion to have and one that could shape the general American perspective on the role of memorials, which in turn could have impacts on the aesthetic of what it means to be American. But if there is one thing I have learned since leaving Fordham, it is that discussions such as these are only interesting when the subject is separated from you personally. 

Academics have the luxury of hemming and hawing all day as they discuss the legacies of these controversial figures. But while we may talk about what these legacies should be, the reality of the situation is that, in many cases, these legacies promote active harm to marginalized communities in the present. 

This is one of the things we learned from Charlottesville. The very idea that the city would remove its statues of Confederate officers, something which is entirely within its right to do, resulted in the infamous “Unite the Right” rally which has produced photos upon photos of the kinds of faces of hatred that will live forever in the history books. So too will the chants of avowed white supremacists, crying out “you will not replace us” as they marched with tiki torches, some even bearing the flag of the Confederate States of America, and clashed violently with counter protestors in a struggle that cost Heather Heyer her life. 

What we learned from Charlottesville was that symbols and historical figures that are often the subject of “cancellation” can all too easily appear innocuous, but are instead insidiously dangerous. In a perfect world we should be able to read about men like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, acknowledge the role they played in American history, and then move on. But it is clear that what certain people took from the enduring presence of the Confederacy’s leaders was that these men stood for the absolute supremacy of whites as a race, and the removal of these statues signified a “victory” of sorts for black people. This is what was so intolerable for those who marched in Charlottesville. This was the wake-up call that showed the entire country that white supremacy was alive and well, although those who have to deal with racism on a day to day basis could only feign surprise when this happened, for they knew this reality all too well.

The term “cancel culture” is often thrown around haphazardly, typically to trivialize the concerns of those who are doing the “canceling.” Some, but not all, of Dr. Seuss’s books feature harmful stereotypes of ethnic minorities, and so when the man’s own estate decided not to continue publishing these problematic books there was no shortage of conservative voices claiming that leftist mobs had come to cancel a beloved children’s author. On a fundamental level the issue here is utterly ridiculous, and explaining why Dr. Seuss himself is not “canceled” but also why the books in question are harmful to young readers would be an exercise in futility, a waste of time and energy, and would fail to move anyone adamantly opposed to the notion of cancelation as a social practice. Their argument is simple; if it existed in the public sphere for years and it was never a problem up until now, then removing it is bad. 

The argument, whether it’s about Seuss or the Confederacy, remains consistent. We lived amongst statues of Confederate generals for years now and nothing bad happened, so how dare you try to remove them because your sensibilities suddenly demand their obliteration! 

It’s not an argument I can engage with because, and perhaps this is me being a jaded college graduate, I don’t actually believe that you can convince someone into being empathetic. You can explain why something is harmful. You can talk about how Seuss’s depictions of turbaned middle-easterners promoted, and still can promote, stereotypes that directly harm muslim communities. You can talk about how the Confederacy fervently clung fast to the idea of the inferiority of blacks and how their continued iconography can at best exacerbate racial tensions, inequalities, and misunderstandings, and at worst cultivate a terrifyingly prolific subculture of white supremacy. But it is easy to dismiss the impacts of these “controversial” figures if you cannot directly see these impacts, and it is difficult to convince someone of the existence of these impacts with words alone when the subject is apathetic to the victims in question. 

While I still do believe that certain “cancellations” are not done in good faith, I can’t argue against the practice as a whole. In practice, “cancel culture” is just a social mechanism that seeks to reduce the harm done to its most vulnerable individuals. It may not always be the intent for something to cause harm, but this does not mean that the impact will ultimately end up being innocuous. 

Donald Trump once said that if the left was allowed to continue their defacement and push for the removal of confederate statues, then one day they would come for the founding fathers. He used it as an argument that leftist cancel culture was coming for the soul of America, that our nation was under attack by the very idea of political correctness. Fear mongering at its finest. 

My stance on whether or not something should be “canceled” has evolved to be quite simple; if it does harm to the magnitude that entire communities are being impacted, then it must go. Leave their legacies to the history books if you must, but “canceling” in the interest of making our society a more inclusive space is not an inherently insidious process. It has its extents like every other movement, and it can certainly go beyond what is acceptable, but we do ourselves a disservice to treat the act of public removal as an innately anti-American process. There may yet be time for prolonged discussion and debate at a later date, but if there is bleeding happening now, then it behooves us as Americans, or even just people trying to be decent human beings, to stop that bleeding. 

And I say this as someone who grew up hearing nothing but praise and reverence for the hallowed image of George Washington, and thus grew to love the man as well. But if the figure of Washington became a rallying cry for an ideology of hate in this country, then I would be more than comfortable letting him go. Not because I would be forced to suddenly hate Washington, or because I can no longer appreciate his role in the founding of the country I love so much. 

But because it would be the right thing to do.