Replacing Cancel Culture with Critical Thinking.

Cancel culture is a recent trend that has grown to emphasize public shame at the expense of an individual’s past mistakes. What King had initially done as a lighthearted joke to gain attention when requesting for beer money, turned into something sour when Calvin uncovered a few racist tweets from his past as a youth. King was viewed as a community hero from his sign that had gone viral and had been seen as a noble by donating a large sum of his earnings to charity.

Although Calvin uncovered racist tweets from King’s past, it is not fair to completely dismiss the kindness and efforts King had done towards his community and the charity. When King wrote those tweets, he was in his adolescence and did not know any better. One can argue that we are all human and we make mistakes. We cannot contrast and uncover an individuals mistakes each time they perform a good deed. Nobody in this world is perfect and each day we all continue to grow and learn. If we replaced cancel culture with critical thinking, we would have more empathetic conversations instead of acting solely on emotions and “cancelling” a person. We should learn how to separate honest mistakes from actual hate.

Having an intellectual conversation and educating individuals about their past mistakes is a far better method than cancelling them and not allowing them to speak or defend themselves or better yet learn from their mistakes. It is important to note that everyone makes mistakes and the Internet is a place where every move you make is documented permanently. We must allow space for growth and for individuals to learn from their past behaviours and take the necessary steps to educate them. Canceling and banishing them from the community and allowing them to face public scrutiny is not the correct option.

Manal Nasrallah

#CommEthicsWeek2