“Cancel culture” supposedly started with the “me too” movement a couple years back. As a woman and a feminist, I supported women speaking out about sexual harassment. I still support it.
I am not sure if that truly qualifies as “cancel culture” now in 2021 (or as I like to call it 2084) as almost everything is being censored. I have never, ever seen so many “liberal” white people angry about everything. And yes, it does seem to be people who have declared themselves as “liberals” who are silencing others.
I’ve noticed that it IS usually white women (who fancy themselves as the voice for the oppressed, I suppose) taking offense at everything including asking simple questions like “I didn’t get my saliva COVID test in the mail, did you get yours?” The reactions are over the top, illogical and immature. I was called a “Nazi Fascist” for suggesting that black and white people could probably work together on some things. I was called this by a bunch of white “liberal” women. I was shocked. Do people even know what a Nazi or fascist is?
It used to be that questioning things was good. Questions used to be a encouraged, expected, even. We are currently in a society whence questions (even about the mundane) have become unacceptable. Many fear asking questions as some of us are being ostracized for asking “well, do I really need this vaccine?” Unacceptable question now. It is also unacceptable to question the government. This is dangerous. Abraham Lincoln warned that if the United States were to descend into tyranny- it would be at the hands of our own people.
Freedom of speech is very important. Americans who don’t support freedom of speech make no sense to me. Why would anyone WANT censorship? The book 1984 is one of my favorites. It’s a classic. It was probably even banned at some point. All the other rebellious teenagers I grew up with read 1984 and denounced “Big Brother”. As an adult in 2021 in the US, we’re rapidly approaching this dystopian society. Censorship has become trendy somehow. Erasing history and banning books is en Vogue. I never thought I’d see the day that I would be arguing with the same teenagers I grew up with who seem to now be wanting “Big Brother”?! What changed? Is it the whole “I didn’t sell out, I bought in” thing? Because that’s how it’s coming across.
There are a number of stand up comics, black, white, women, Asian, every type of person- all for free speech. It’s not even a liberal/conservative thing. It’s a slippery slope to silence people for anything, really. I don’t use hate speech, I don’t agree with hate speech. But should it be completely illegal? I don’t know. Maybe. But once you go after someone for using a term like, for example, “kike”- what’s to stop people using other terms, terms that have been adopted into communities and reclaimed by those who are meant to be disparaged by such terms.
I like “heeb”. I AM a “heeb” and I like joking around too. Do I have family members that died in the Holocaust? Actually yes. I never met them of course, having been born in 1981, but I have visited Israel and my German Jewish sort of second cousin by marriage- her whole immediate family was incinerated. I would have loved to talk to her more but unfortunately I speak neither German nor Hebrew. So communication with this cousin was mainly gesture based.
Things are constantly changing. They say “the only thing you can count on is death and taxes”, but I think the only thing you can count on is that every element of the universe is constantly changing, for better or for worse. Astrophysicists recently found that every element in the periodic table “move” constantly. And we already know from chemistry and physics that those elements can change and form new elements under various circumstances.
Any effort to homogenize individual thought is going to ultimately be futile, as it is not natural by the laws of science or reasoning that this is possible. Our genes as human beings even resist homogenization. When you inbreed, you have problems because too much of anything leads to problems. You don’t have to be a scientist to know that.
Short Stories by Kristina Tehrani 