Our country seems to have a big issue with Cancel Culture and it's ability to divide us over the balance of Free Speech and Hate Speech.
To understand why Cancel Culture is a thing we will need to understand some other things 1st.
What is Cancel Culture?
How did it start?
What do we do about it?
What is Cancel Culture?
The answer depends on who you ask and when you ask them.
Some say Cancel Culture is important as a tool to remove abusive people and idea's from power. It can expose mistreatment and apply some kind of real consequence. It can help people from using Free speech as a way of spreading hate speech. Unfortunately, some people use Cancel Culture for attention, avoiding responsibility or attacking another person's reputation even if it is unwarranted.
Others say Cancel Culture is dangerous and it could ruin free speech, limit ideas, limit freedoms, and force beliefs or opinions on others. This can all be true but there are others who only say that to avoid punishment, spread their opinions, or beliefs to divide people for their own agendas while also playing the martyr.
To sum things up so far it seems there are people on both sides who can be reasonable and unreasonable. It seems like this issue is being fought over constantly but to really understand it we will have to know how it started and what to do about it.
How did it start?
Many believe Cancel Culture was originally started by liberal democrats as a way to stop racism, prejudice and abuse by publicly shaming and shunning a company or person. The trend is believed to have started sometime around 2010 but that is not true.
How did it really start?
Cancel Culture was first used by white conservative republicans who mostly identified as Christians. They used religion and government to lobby against things like Rock & Roll, Rap, video games, and more. They wanted to cancel these things due to their own personal beliefs even though much of what they wanted banned was and is considered free speech.
It did not stop there. Going back further in time white conservatives used Cancel Culture when they believed in the right to refuse service to black people, gay people, and even people from other religions. This old trend gained popularity again during the 2000s as Gay Rights became an issue. Mostly white conservatives again used their own cancel culture to deny serving gay people.
Whether you thought is was appropriate or not for Colin Kaepernick to take a knee it was another event that was more recent which caused white conservatives to use Cancel Culture.
When Colin Kaepernick took a knee the NFL loss viewers as many white conservatives began to "Cancel" their support of football.
Today those same white conservatives who are angry about cancel culture seem to forget about the past of censorship their group has been responsible for and as a group it is insane to ignore so much hypocrisy.
White conservatives are unhappy with Cancel Culture but they are really unhappy when they realize how bitter the taste of their own medicine really is.
What do we do about it?
Cancel Culture has been around for a while and it will be hard to stop but there is a reason for it. It is a tool that we need to use wisely so we can keep the balance between free speech and hate speech. We should avoid letting people on both sides of the subject abuse it. People who abuse Cancel Culture and Freedom of Speech on both sides should be treated as the real problems to our society. If we let people in our own groups get away with abusing the system or provoking it then we will continue to taint our chances of evolving and figuring out any real solutions.
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