To think 'cancel culture' is going way too far?

[Okeefe]

I've gone on twitter this morning to see #CancelKimmel trending, the reason.. he sang the N word when rapping a Snoop Dogg song in 1996.

Jenna Marbles being 'cancelled' due to doing blackface in a Nicki Minaj impression is 2011.

I swear every time I go on the internet, someone else is being 'cancelled'

People are digging up ancient tweets belonging to celebrities and normal people alike, searching for racist/problematic key words and contacting their employers, losing them their jobs and more often that not this content that they are 'cancelling' them for is historic

Are people not allowed to grow up? I'm pretty sure when I was in my early teens if I was singing along to a rap song, I would say the word like any other lyric. Would I now? No. Because I understand that it is offensive. Because I'm an adult now. Because times have changed.

I've had to quit twitter, it depresses me so much. You can't disagree with a word this woke generation say, or you too will be 'cancelled'.

I’m not choosing. What on earth do you base that assertion on?

I have already said that this principle applies across the board.

Sunsets? Subsets

Was watching, 'Blazing Saddles,' last night with DS. He was hearing the N word, initially thinking the movie was racist, which it absolutely isn't.

Cornetto

no you really can’t, not if your objective is for it not to be used as a slur.

You’re now qualifying it as ‘only if used as a slur’.

And you’re wrong because it’s racial abuse to use the ‘n’ or ‘p’ word if used by people not of that race.

Just like white Americans refer to some white people as ‘white trash’, but I’m sure if I called you ‘white trash’ you would rightly object?

This leftie feels the same about Tory politicians.

What someone did as part of their political record is one thing, and should be subject to scrutiny, with the weighting towards the more recent actions and statements and less weighting towards what they did decades ago - because even there, people and times change.

What they did drunk at University should be viewed as just that - the stupid stuff people do drunk at University.

The issue with the current Twitter generation, is that a lot of them just haven't lived very long. They don;t have a frame for how people develop over decades, because they (and their echo-chamber mates) haven't done that yet.

It's how the world works, its how we evolve - youth culture kicks off, older people push back and a compromise is eventually found which moves us along without burning down the place. Thus has it always been, and it worked - fresh ideas tempered by experience.

Now, though, the push back isn't happening at source as it once would have, and kick-offs are done using a platform which is very powerful and very risk and effort free, so it's causing a mess.

@Ninkanink

Cancel culture is the very antithesis of the principle of free speech. Hence why the relevant comment was entirely incoherent.

Nonsense. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom of criticism for the things you say.

CathyComes Home If that serial rapist has served his sentence then he shouldnt lose a job that he obtained after being serving his sentence.

@CathyComesHome

Cancel culture is the very antithesis of the principle of free speech.

No. You’re wrong. You cannot choose who is allowed free speech and who is not.

For the most part those engaging in “cancelling” are the least powerful and most marginalised: women, sex assault survivors, and ethnic minorities. The “targets” of cancel culture are usually very powerful and wealthy white celebrities, often men.

There is a huge status imbalance there.

I’m not saying cancel culture is great. But in the absence of a proper criminal justice system, women and minorities should have the right to express an opinion.

The people whose lives are ruined by Twitter mobs are not the rich and famous though - they are ordinary people who ‘go viral‘ after saying something thoughtless or something that was taken out of context for disingenuous reasons. Women’s lives have been destroyed by it, disproportionately so.

The truly powerful are untouched, despite much larger transgressions. See Trudeau.

@cadent

I think you might benefit from doing some research. A podcast by a journalist is not academic research actually looking at the validity of these tests.

Cornettoninja if you want to make “white people should be allowed to call black people n*ggers” your hill to die on, crack on.

It’s pretty well accepted that minority groups have ownership of certain words in order to reclaim them (lesbians using the D word, gay men using the F word, disabled people using the word cripple). It’s clearly not appropriate for a straight man to call a lesbian the D word or an able bodied person to refer to disabled people as cripples.

I have a degree in linguistics and the idea that certain words are only allowed to be used internally is well-established. It’s the same as only close friends and family being allowed to use nicknames.

But like I said if you feel oppressed by not being allowed to call black people the N word, knock yourself out.

The Jenna Marbles thing has upset me more than it should. She had already apologised (several times), privated the videos and said how ashamed she was. Since then she has absolutely changed and listened to her audience if she did something wrong. This is a woman who went to a pet shop, listened to the expert, bought a fish tank and then when her audience told her it was wrong she took it back to the shop and made an apology video so other people could learn from her.

Her content now is her dogs, crafting and (terrible) beauty videos.

@hamstersarse it’s a fab podcast that credits the researchers / papers

Don’t be superior

YANBU - it's absolute bullshit.

If that serial rapist has served his sentence then he shouldnt lose a job that he obtained after being serving his sentence.

We aren’t talking about men who have been convicted and served sentences. It’s extremely rare for rapists to go to prison, the vast majority of rapists are never even charged.

[quote Cadent]@hamstersarse it’s a fab podcast that credits the researchers / papers

Don’t be superior[/quote]
Ha ha, there we go.

I think you'll find you were the one who described me as a 'randomer on the internet' when you know nothing about me or what I do. You immediately got closed ears because someone is saying something that doesn't fit with your ideology.

You have the type of attitude as to why cancel culture exists in the first place.

Cancel culture isn’t a matter of criticism... criticism is speech. Anyone should be free to criticise anyone. Across the board.

Cancelling someone is a completely different thing. Especially if one is centring marginalised and oppressed groups, who do not have the power, financial or otherwise, to insulate them when the mob comes calling.

Although to be fair it is the kind of vague term that causes all sorts of issues because it doesn’t actually mean one specific thing. Cancel culture as I see it is definitely Orwellian (it’s straight out of the book!) and definitely dangerous.

The only saving grace is that twitter isn’t the real world, yet. At grassroots level there is still some hope.

Cornetto I can assure you that pretty much every ethnic group in the US uses slurs amongst themselves while not accepting them from outsiders. My mother's family is Polish-American and would regularly call each other a Polish slur after doing something dumb, but no way would they accept that from other people.

Why should African Americans be any different?

What is the difference between cancel and criticism?

My opinion is that trying to censor and silence women and black people for refusing to tolerate racism and sexual abuse is Orwellian.

@hamstersarse we’re all randomers on the internet, why so offended?

You called the test ‘rubbish’ and chucked a load of links at me. Hardly great debate is it?

Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom of criticism for the things you say.

Cancel culture isn't about criticising, it is about silencing.

It's also something that is done by both left and right, e.g. when James Gunn was forced to resign from directing Guardians of the Galaxy.

I’m not sure I’m getting what ‘cancel culture my actually is.

Surely we can’t claim Harvey Weinstein, convicted and jailed for rape in a court of law as ‘cancelled’? Not in the same breath as JK Rowling, who has not done anything illegal (or even objectionable IMO) but has also been ‘cancelled’? They are two different things?

@MinervaSaidThar - personally I wouldn’t give a shit what you called me but then I’m coming from a the position of a white person that doesn’t have the background of suffering and inequality because of my skin colour. It’s not really the same is it? I might get the hump as you’d obviously be initiating a slanging match but it’s not the name itself.

Yes I am qualifying the n word as a slur because it is. My mates and I regularly chuck around offensive names at each other within our own conversations, but me saying ‘ready to go bitches?’ is just as offensive in black and white as it is heard in context. Just because there’s an unspoken agreement in my immediate group not to take offence doesn’t change it’s meaning. (Disclaimer - I don’t actually use ‘bitches’ - I’m much more likely to say wankers but bitches demonstrates the offence to feminists angle but pretty acceptable in mainstream culture better)

What is the difference between cancel and criticism?

Canceling is about controlling and punishing.

Especially if one is centring marginalised and oppressed groups, who do not have the power, financial or otherwise, to insulate them when the mob comes calling.

Except that usually oppressed groups are the ones doing the “cancelling” and the “victims” of cancel culture are usually powerful white male celebrities.

On this 4-page thread alone we’ve got posts from someone making “white people’s right to use the N word” their hill to die on, posters insisting that rape survivors shouldn’t be allowed to speak about their experiences because they should rely on a criminal justice system that is clearly not fit for purpose, and a post defending serial rapists from suffering financial or career loss.

Plus loads of threads/posts trying to silence women and minorities by conflating anti-racism with TRA tactics.