CC Won't Stop Us
Cancel Culture (CC) is on the rise and a eyesore to anyone who has a opinion, past history of behavior, political viewpoint, etc. So what exactly is Cancel Culture and why does AW have a issue with the movement more than any other movement?
First we need to properly define what CC is and its goals. Wikipidea's definition of the term is,
"Cancel culture or call-out culture is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person. Those subject to this ostracism are said to have been "cancelled".[1][a][4] The expression "cancel culture" has mostly negative connotations and is used in debates on free speech and censorship.[5][6] Some critics argue that cancel culture has a chilling effect on public discourse.[11] Others argue that calls for "cancellation" are themselves a form of free speech and that they promote accountability.[12][13][14] Some public figures claim to have been "cancelled" while continuing their careers as before.[15][16]"
Now that you know what it is seen and defined as, let's look at it's origin and its primary targeted audience.
Shockingly enough CC has been a on-going theme since the early 90' and recently made a come back in 2014 as part of the #MeToo movement. According to Wiki and other sources such as The Guardian and ABC's Fact Check Team, CC was originally centered on pop culture relationships, but now the idea of CC has become more political mainly towards celebrities, especially comic ones.
Celebrity Backlash
Renown celebrities like Dave Chapelle, Keven Heart, Steve Harvey, (these are comic people) received terrible backlash from CC, not just other offended communities like Woke. The comedian Kevin Hart faced intense online backlash in the fall of 2018 when his tweets was put on the spot after he was chosen to host the 2019 Oscars. Ellen DeGeneres and other known famous public figures defended him. They said he shouldn't be judged based on a statement he made years ago.
In the end, Hart stepped down from the hosting gig and refused to state another apology to CC and to the pubic. He later blamed cancel culture for his experience. Though much of the media attention was critical of Hart, he has found wide-ranging career success despite what CC did. Another group of people CC wants to silence is Christians. Christians are seen as "conservatives" and because Christianity is wrongly lumped into the category of "religion", Christianity is a threat to the liberal movement of CC.
Thankfully, the more CC was looked into, the more government and local officials reasoned the CC's accusations against others, mainly people in the political or celebrity world, did not involve criminal charges. The White House adviser, Stephen Miller, recently stated on the Larry O'Connor radio show,
"Cancel culture is a very grave threat to American freedom."
Sadly, anti-cancel-culture rhetoric continues on social media despite that a majority of people in the USA do not care for CC or believe they should be taken seriously. Zolita, a German American singer, said in a December 2018 tweet,
"Cancel culture needs to be canceled."
She's right you know. Unless it can be seen as proper and respectful and rational canceling, CC needs to stop because this is no longer about holding people to accountability for what they do wrong or say that is seen as harmful towards a person or ethnic group of people. Today in 2022, CC seems to be only about silencing anyone with a different opinions and viewpoints from anyone and everyone. Including published books of the past, books of the present and statements made in the past or currently from people CC sees as their enemy. This reason for the CC to rise and up and demand a cancel of something can be personal, political or preference based. Indya Moore said,
"Nobody deserves to be defined by the worse mistakes they ever made. Especially when they aren't consistently stubborn in complicity. We really need to cut down on this cancel culture, it's drowning everyone and it is unnecessary."
In the month of March in the year 2014, activist Suey Park called out a racist tweet towards Asians from the official Twitter account of The Colbert Report using the hashtag #cancelColbert, which developed widespread anger against Stephen Colbert and an even bigger amount of backlash against Park, even though the Colbert Report tweet was a sarcastic tweet. During 2015, the concept of canceling had become widespread on Black Twitter that refers to a personal decision that can be either serious or humorously to stop supporting a person or work. According to Jonah Engel Bromwich of The New York Times, the CC movement of canceling is the "total disinvestment in something (anything)".
After various incidents of online shaming towards celebrities and politicians, CC gained wide notoriety and the term cancellation was increasingly used to describe a widespread of outraged, online response to a single provocative statement, against a single target. Over time, isolated instances of cancellation became both more frequent and the mob mentality more obvious and citizens of the USA began seeing a birth of a new culture and the offended people that wanted to raise their voices to promote cancellation.
The phrase "Cancel Culture" gained even more popularity since late 2019. Most often as a recognition that society will exact accountability for offensive conduct from anyone of either social class. Here recently, the phrase has become a shorthand employed by conservatives in the United States to refer to what are perceived to be disproportionate reactions to politically incorrect speech--which affects AW's lively hood as an organization. Granted, AW does not associate to titles made of people and we do not have labels nor do we promote them. Labels is something the world uses to define something of importance, such as a movement or ones political views.
The way it is being enforced by CC is just one knock away from trying to legally ban anything and everything they see as "offensive". Even if it should come to that, AW and our online ministry, Unaligned Academy (UA) will not tolerate CC or their demands to never speak of words or phrases they feel should be canceled. We have a constitution and freedom of speech for a reason. If we wish to teach UA students from the Song Of Solomon (something recently is being canceled) we are going to do that. If AW goes out into their community to witness to the lost, we will tell people the way of sin and a lifestyle of sin is not acceptable in the eyes of true living God who sees everything we do and knows why we do it. CC cannot and will never cancel-out Christ or his doctrine. Why? Because Christ himself said that heaven and earth will pass (fade) away, but his word will never pass away.
No matter how much winds will howl, mountains can not bow to it. Likewise, no matter how much CC wants to ban and get rid of Godly things or just silence people for having a voice, just know that AW and UA are prepared to fight to preserve what we legally have a right to express, which is our speech. If CC or its community does not like that or what we say in general, they have two choices. They can block us and pretend we don't exist or their founder(s) can sit down and talk to us like adults and see why we refuse to give into their irrational demands.
Blog post written by AW
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