Wake me up From this Nightmare of “Wokeness”

Over the years, but especially the last few months, our eyes have been opened wider to the cancer of racism still prevalent within the United States. It is fantastic that so many people care, and want to do their part, in ending systematic racism and fighting towards equality. Yet during this activism, something alarmingly disturbing has been cropping up. In our enthusiasm to demonstrate that we are fighting bigotry, we have instead become vigilantes of a kangaroo court. A street jury of social media “police” is disturbingly acting to identify, even dox, so-called “racists”. Yet in doing so, most of the people exposed aren’t neo-Nazis, Klansmen, terrorists, or in hate groups. They are regular people like you and me, who often do not even understand that they have offended someone, or their behavior is justified when applied to the lens of context, nuance, and even actual facts. Other times, someone’s views and values evolve over time as they become more mature, educated, and interact with more diverse people. Such individuals do not deserve their reputations, careers, and lives ruined. “Cancel culture” is toxic. It is stupid. It is hypocritical. If we continue down this path, if we don’t check ourselves, one day the “Woke Police” WILL come for you and me next, as not a single one of us is innocent of microaggressions, insensitivity, and offending people, at some point in our lives.

Psychologically, I understand where this whole “cancel culture” trend is coming from. We take it upon ourselves to hold other people accountable for their prejudices. Yes, accountability requires being called out when someone is doing something offensive, but then there needs to be opportunity to educate why an action is hurtful, followed by future actions proving that the issue has been resolved. Such accountability should be demonstrated privately, possibly with some short-term consequences, but NOT negatively impact the perpetuator publicly long-term, if the problem has been successfully fixed. Unfortunately, for far too many, their definition of “accountability” means a scarlet letter of permanently being labelled as a “racist”, or “problematic”, punished by losing careers, terminating opportunities for growth, destroying reputations, and publicly shaming the alleged perpetuator for a lifetime. Some of us are so overzealous in wanting to “prove”, to ourselves, our friends, and the world that we are so “woke”, such great “allies”, and so “anti-racist”, that our emotional zeal blinds us to taking actual tangible, meaningful action. We fool ourselves into believing that we are “doing the work”, while in reality, we are too lazy and incompetent to even begin it. Destroying someone’s career prospects over a tweet in high school is so much easier than reforming systematic racial biases within the criminal justice system. Vilifying someone as a card-carrying “racist” for attending an antebellum-themed plantation fraternity party takes much less effort than fixing the historical economic issues created by redlining of properties and lack of educational opportunities for People of Color. Looking at every post, photograph, and like on social media is simpler to identify than the causes driving increases in physical assaults and shootings against minority communities, let alone how to prevent these. Why actually invest in taking the time to do the arduous labor of implementing actual, measurable changes mitigating oppression against minorities, when we can take easier, faster, and more convenient shortcuts by destroying people, virtue signaling to feel good about ourselves, and pretending that we’ve actually done something, while in reality, we have done nothing, except destroy the lives of some unfortunate people?

Acting as vigilante detectives, where we judge, shame, convict and sentence publicly online or on television, is extremely dangerous. In our thirst to become these warriors against racism, rather than finding justice, we are only creating more victims. With everything out on the Internet, accusations, often nuanced or out of context, if not outright falsified, are assumed as truth. Investigations are non-existent. The defendant is assumed guilty, until proven innocent, the opposite of how justice should function. There is a reason why REAL trials require discovery of evidence and the opportunity for both plaintiff and defendant to present his or her case, before taking all facts and mitigating facts into account and passing judgement, and, if required, sentencing. This is for fairness. It is to understand if there is even a case. If someone is guilty, it’s to mete out proper punishment. Instead, what we are seeing is a real-time, live court of Internet vigilantes, doing all the “investigating”, “judging” and “punishments” as a mob, publicly, in a very biased manner. Rather than tackling the REAL issues promulgating racism, we are instead destroying careers, friendships, and lives, rarely deserved.

We are ruining people’s careers for things they have said a long time ago, without even asking ourselves if they still believe these things. Despite a decade of solid capable work, with no issues, the new editor of Teen Vogue Magazine, Alexi McCammond, was forced to resign from her new job before her first day, due to backlash from her would-be subordinates about questionable tweets against Asians, that she wrote a decade ago, as a high schooler. We judge, before investigating nuance. Employment at the New York Times for over 30 years was not enough to save the career of Columbia University professor Donald McNeil uttering the n-word “without malice”, only repeating it back as a teaching context in private conversation, after his student asked if someone should be suspended from school for using it; he was forced to resign, under intense pressure from coworkers, where they told him that he had “lost the room”. We are too quick to overreact, too lazy to gather evidence, and too stupid to consider context, education, or personal growth, that we shame and terminate, rather than understand and educate.

How ironic is it that we are even cancelling ALLIES, destroying their lives for things they may not have even fully understood in the past? Having been accepted to the University of Tennessee on a cheer scholarship, Mimi Groves actively posted about supporting, donating to, and protesting with “Black Lives Matter”. Seeing this post, an African American classmate, Jimmy Galligan, chose this opportunity to destroy her life, by publicly posting, onto Twitter the snapchat of the high school student singing “I can drive, n***a”, after receiving her license at 16 (which someone else sent to him, as he was never the original intended recipient by Ms. Groves). Internet trolls then started sending hate mail to the University of Tennessee demanding they rescind admission to Mimi Groves, and the university caved to the Online Mob and kicked her out of school, before her first semester started. In rushing to cancel, we judge people on what they did in the past, rather than what kind of people they are today. Now poor Mimi Groves is condemned to attend a community college, while still living with her parents. Way to go! You have cancelled an ally. Someone who was on her way to becoming anti-racist, and actively supporting equality. A person who was actively willing to stand with you, march with you, and fight for justice with you. All for one mistake, in high school, 3 years ago.

This perverse absurdity is perfectly illustrated in the past season of “The Bachelor”. Rachael Kirkconnell signed up for the reality dating TV show to fall in love with a man who she knew was African American. He selected her, out of over 30 other women, to be his girlfriend. The summer before, before ever being selected to go on the show, before she was a celebrity or an influencer, Rachael’s Instagram stories were full of support for Black Lives Matter, understanding white privilege, and bringing attention to George Floyd, Trayvon Martin and Breonna Taylor, among others (the timestamped receipts are still on her Instagram stories). There’s a beautiful analogy she texted to her cousin explaining why we should not be saying “All Lives Matter” (‘you can have 5 people, and all of them matter, but if one person gets hurt, you aren’t going to save all five, but just the one that needs help’). From the first episode, Rachael was a popular favorite prediction to win to date Bachelor Matt James, and it showed on certain peoples’ comments, especially those who wanted the first black bachelor to end up with a black woman (some examples of such comments include: ‘get your white ass off the show, it’s a black season, bitch’, or ‘you white bitches always gotta turn our men’s minds around, give the black women a chance!’) . Some of these Internet vigilantes made it a personal mission to take her down, looking up not only Rachael’s own social media, but her friends’, every photo she was in, liked, and even her parents’ voting records. From the start, there was an objective to tarnish the image of this girl. And, after a month of digging through a decade of social media activity, including her friends’, it finally worked! A photo was discovered of Rachael attending an antebellum plantation party with her sorority (fun fact: if students, already on limited incomes, don’t attend Greek-sponsored events, where attendance is almost always required, they will get fined, and may even risk getting kicked out of Greek life), as well as her liking a photograph of her friends with a Confederate Flag in the background, and yet another one of a friend wearing a MAGA Trump hat. Overnight, this poor girl became vilified as a card-carrying, malicious racist. Meanwhile, of her competitors, there were at least 3 “problematic” white ladies who, despite not being targets of a deep dive of social media, actually directly bullied minorities, right on the show! We witnessed a white female start a false rumor accusing a Hispanic contestant of working as an “escort”, the white woman who decided to get rid of her Asian roommate by slandering her as a “disrespectful bully” , and the white girl who called 5 new women, all minorities (2 African Americans, 2 Latinas and an Asian American) “the JV team”, to their faces. Yet while these three faced no allegations or consequences for directly, maliciously, and intentionally emotionally attacking and abusing contestants of color, only Rachael, whose Instagram proves supports BLM and wants to raise biracial babies after marrying an African American man (who promptly dumped her due to, at least partially, pressure from the media) is forever labelled as a “racist”, her address doxxed, and even death threats sent to her and her family. According to the Woke Mob of Reddit, Twitter, and elsewhere, nothing she will ever do, learn, or contribute in the future will ever be “good enough”; Rachael has since released multiple apologies, promised to learn, grow, and talk “within the small corners of [her] life” and posted multiple resources and links on books, videos, podcasts, and social media to follow, black-owned businesses to buy from, where to donate for anti-racist causes, and other resources people can leverage to “learn to unlearn” racism, and yet, a disturbingly sizeable portion of Bachelor followers on Twitter and Reddit still hate her and call her “problematic”, if not outright “evil”.

These days, you do not even need to do or say anything “racist” yourself; the mere appearance, even association of defending someone considered “problematic”, is enough to make you lose your job. Staying silent is no longer an option, you must speak out, even without knowing the full details! Rachel Lindsay, on her show “Extra” specifically asked Chris Harrison, the host of “The Bachelor”, about the “racist” allegations against Rachael Kirckonnell. Chris responded by asking for “grace” and “compassion” for Rachael, who he knew just happened to be dating the African American bachelor, explaining that youthful immaturity and the “lens” of time and age should be taken into consideration, and suggesting we give her the opportunity to speak out and defend herself first, before passing judgement. While he did misstep by asking an African American woman “who the hell are you” (he also asked her ‘who the hell am I’, so many conveniently ignore that this wasn’t even a personal attack against her) most of what he said is fair. For this faux pass, he has already been suspended from at least one season of the “Bachelorette”, and an extremely vocal minority of the fanbase wants him fired permanently. Likewise, Sheryl Underwood directly challenged Shannon Osbourne to discuss Piers Morgan questioning the credibility of the biracial Megan Markle, who called out potential racism within the British monarchy. For daring to question if evidence existed to conclusively label Piers Morgan as a “racist”, merely for questioning the validity of Megan Markle, Mrs. Osbourne has been suspended “indefinitely”, from her own show, “The Talk”. How are you not disturbed by this? Instead of engaging in meaningful and necessary conversation and debate, independent thought and free speech is no longer allowed, just one “acceptable” viewpoint, a public condemnation, facts, context, and nuance be damned, is allowed. Someone with a differing viewpoint is muzzled, and all dissenters are silenced, blackmailed into losing a career for daring to hold a differing perspective.

Investigations and facts no longer matter, as even innocent people are not immune from the ludicrousness of this vigilantism to “catch” racists. A HISPANIC truck driver, Emmanuel Cafferty dared to stick his hand outside of his truck window, only to be accused by someone with a video camera of flashing the “white supremist” “OK” sign, which resulted in his termination from his employer, San Diego Gas and Electric (later, the vigilante who filmed the video confessed that he may have been “mistaken” in what he saw). While attacked by a throng of Trump supporters after a BLM rally in Los Angeles, am African American woman, Berlinda Nibo, was bear-hugged by a white male, Roy Ball, who was caught on video, and then promptly fired from his job at Toyota. Great, right? Not so fast. Turns out that this man actually SAVED the woman by shielding and carrying her away from the hostile crowd; the woman herself, called him her “hero”. Isn’t “cancel culture” just terrific, acting to destroy the careers of innocent people, before gathering facts to figure out the true story? Instead of “innocent until proven guilty”, we have moved the other way of “guilty until proven innocent”. No need to investigate, nor research anymore, immediate judgement and sentence. Lovely, right?

The unfortunate truth is, if we look hard enough, EVERY person has skeletons in his or her closet. No matter how much good your favorite celebrity contributes to today, at one point in his or her life, he or she has been “problematic” for having done something racially insensitive. Lebron James builds schools and provides scholarships for disadvantaged minorities, yet he once rapped about “kosher” “Jewish money”; Ice Cube also wrote a song about this. Jimmy Kimmel, Sarah Silverman, and Jimmy Fallon may leverage their platforms to amplify anti-racist voices today, yet these white comedians, along with the pro-immigrant Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, all wore blackface at some point (Stephen Colbert and Jay Leno fans, your guy is not off the hook, either, as the former has made countless transphobic comments, while the latter has just publicly apologized for his anti-Asian jokes). J.K. Rowling wrote entire books about the dangers of bigotry and the power of tolerance and friendships, yet she has also made some questionable transphobic statements. Lady Gaga and Rihanna write beautiful songs about inclusiveness and tolerance, yet the former once attended a party with 2 white men in blackface, dressed up as “slaves”, complete with chains, while the latter mocked the Asian girlfriend of an ex by making Asian “chink” eyes, as well as doing the same on her “Drink to That” music video. Charles Barkley speaks eloquently against bigotry these days, while also admitting that things he and his fellow NBA players said in the locker rooms in the 1980s “would get you fired today”. Before Prince Harry married an African American woman and worked with her to call out racism within the British monarchy to Oprah, he attended a British colonialization party dressed up as a Nazi, who would throw people who look like his wife and kids into the same gas chambers as the Jews, and also used slurs against Pakistanis, while serving in the army. What microaggression or offense has your favorite celebrity committed? Find out here! Then ask yourself, now that you are “woke”, will you be unfollowing them? Start ignoring their art? Cancel them? Suddenly decide they are horrible people who are not worthy of your time? Will you focus on one mistake, and forget about all the good they continue to create, their voices and platforms against injustices, and the charity work they are involved in? Or, perhaps you will be a hypocrite, ignore their offenses, and continue to scroll through every social media post, photograph, and like to find something to destroy the life of your next poor victim, while Lady Gaga music blares in the background, and Lebron James is hooping it up on TV?

If everything I heard or saw was “reported”, the majority of my friend circle would be cancelled, along with myself. At an overnight summer camp, it was a tradition for us, late middle-school kids, with consent, if not outright encouragement from our high school and college-aged councilors, to “entertain” each other with racist jokes before bedtime…anti-black, Mexican, Italian, Polish, you name it. There was no ill intent, no member of the targeted group was present, and all were in jest, but this is still inexcusable, and I am embarrassed and ashamed to admit that I’ve partaken in these jokes myself, and as a councilor, did not shut these down; I did not know any better, but now realize how wrong this was. I have friends who wore costumes culturally appropriating people; I even still have my sombrero, and my Irish Leprechaun hat. I have been in Groupme chats where “n***a” memes are casually thrown around (and can still find receipts). I’ve heard friends use the “fa***t” slur; even quoting the first (and best!) “Hangover” (‘paging Dr. Fa***t’). We thought at the time that these actions were meant to be harmless, never targeted at an actual victim, but we were so wrong and uneducated. Thank God social media had not been invented yet, because if unearthed today, some of us would have had suffered from destroyed careers, and probably, lives. Oh yeah, this was all in liberal, tolerant Boston, not the Bible Belt of the Deep South. Others have not been as lucky, nor will many more be, in the future.

Put down your torches and your pitchforks for a minute, and place yourself in the shoes of your victims, which is easy to do because one day, this could well be you. How would you feel if somebody went into YOUR tweets, Facebook posts, and texts messages? What if, like they did with the Bachelor’s Rachael Kirkconnell, they then went into your FRIENDS’ accounts, to search not only for every photograph of you, but which ones you’ve liked or commented on? If you are considering becoming an Internet vigilante, I can GUARANTEE that this will get you burnt faster than a marshmallow. Learn the sweet, poetic karma of the same people narcing on victims with “problematic” pasts getting their own racism exposed! Aaron Calvin, the editor of the local paper in Iowa, the “Des Moines Register” went snooping through the tweets of a college football fan, Carson King, who donated money raised on Venmo to the local Children’s Hospital, and found a racist one comparing African Americans to gorillas, only to self-cancel himself shortly after, ironically, it was discovered that he had, himself, used the n-word in the past. The same n-word also ended the career of Christine Dawitt, one of the employees most vocally opposed to the hiring of the African American Alexi McCammon, the new chief Editor for Teen Vogue, for tweeting anti-Asian sentiments in high school (this begs the question: was Ms. Dawitt’s real objective personal distress over a high schooler’s anti-Asian comments, or did she simply have a problem with having a black boss?). It turns out that The “Bachelor contestant” who started an entire petition to “fire Chris Harrison”, Taylor Nolan, herself tweeted hundreds of vile tweets offending everyone: Jews, Indians, Asians, African Americans, whites, redheads, people with mental or physical disabilities, you name it. She is now being investigated by the Washington Board of Public Health, and may lose her license as a therapist for tweeting about her patients, including encouraging them to commit suicide. These hilarious self-cancellations are the only ones I’ll celebrate because these hypocrites actually deserve it, after throwing the most stones, from the glassiest of houses! Are you one of them? Will you tempt fate to risk finding out the hard way?

In most cases, someone will be making a joke, or going to a party, or not realize that what he or she is saying is doing is even a microaggression or offensive, let alone racist. In such situations, to paraphrase Emmanual Acho, if someone is unintentionally insensitive or offensive, although “ignorance is no longer an excuse”, this is very different from intentional, malicious racism. In the latter case, if a person is incapable or unwilling to change his or her mindset, absolutely keep them away from positions of power; such people are dangerous to society. However, most cases will fall into the former scenario, as people are capable of becoming better, of growing and evolving, of becoming more tolerant and mature. When they mess up, absolutely call them out on it, but also allow them the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and do better. Actually talk to the individual and explain why you are offended privately, not via a public shaming session broadcast to the entire world online, or on live television. When we seek to punish rather than reform, humiliate rather than nurture, cancel rather than educate, eliminate rather than explain, we are losing out on gaining new allies, to join us in the ultimate objective of achieving equality and justice.

If we keep cancelling people, if we will write them off before offering grace and compassion, all we are doing is practicing censorship, muzzling peoples’ true thoughts and feelings. More people will feel as if they are walking on eggshells, too afraid to speak out, let alone start meaningful conversations. According to an NPR poll, a whopping 47% of Americans fear that they “can’t speak their mind”, including 58% of men. 82% of Americans agree that racism is a major issue in this country, yet at the same time, 80% also “don’t like political correctness”. Clearly the overwhelming majority wants to end racism, but most of those same people also do not wish to be destroyed for one small error in judgement or an unintentional mistake. Thus, all cancel culture accomplishes is actually the OPPOSITE effect, create MORE racism. The consequences of these are dire, as this will alienate some voters more to the right, creating another (the same?) Donald Trump, which is exactly how and why the original one won the presidency.

Let me provide a personal example, and how I’ve handled the situation. Just after my high school graduation, one of my closest non-Jewish friends told me that because I’m “a Jew, money is important to me”. At first, I was deeply hurt, and it took me a few days to fully forgive him, but I explained to him why what he said was so offensive to me, and he apologized and explained that, like Lebron James a decade later, he thought that this was actually a “compliment”. All throughout college, and a decade later today, we’re as close, as before he made this comment. This is how it should be. Challenge people to do better, only cutting them out of your life if they fail to change their views, or when you see them repeating the same offenses. Hold them accountable, educate, but also forgive, make peace, and move on. We all make mistakes, including you, and me. Allow people to grow, while educating yourself, as well. Rather than publicly destroying someone’s reputation, challenge him or her to grow, and to help others do the same. Save the real outrage, and the actual cancellations, job terminations and boycotts, not for regular people who made a couple of minor, accidental mistakes in their lives, but for those who are maliciously racist, or cruel, incapable or unwilling to change, who actually should not have a voice or platform to influence others.

Racism continues to be such a cancer in this world today. There’s the continuing criminal justice and economic inequality against African Americans, the disturbing physical assaults on Asian Americans, and the record increases in anti-Semitic incidents, to go along with the stubborn and pervasive intolerance of Muslims and the LGBT community, and we have so much work to do. However, overreacting by destroying mostly innocent peoples’ lives is not the correct approach. All it devolves into is a mob justice of Internet “detectives”. It is cruel and outright repulsive to maliciously go into somebody’s social media or other communications to look for things to blow out of proportion, publicly humiliate them, and permanently tarnish their reputation, or even threaten their lives, all to score brownie points as some anti-racist hero to feel good about yourself. This is not “anti-racism”. This is not “allyship”. This is COWARDICE. It is merely the laziness, insecurity, and hypocrisy of cruel people who are more interested in tearing others down, rather than building them back up. If this is you, or if you actively support this, you are a horrible human being, as bad as the actual racists you are trying to shut down. I do not want your friendship, nor will I ever respect you. YOU are the one who deserves to be cancelled!

Instead, I challenge you to take TANGIBLE, SPECIFIC ACTIONS to fight bigotry around you. After hate crimes or acts of terrorism are carried out against minorities, pick up the phone, and reach out to your affected friends, families and neighbors. Ask them how they’re doing, and then just LISTEN. Allow them to vent. Make it clear you sympathize with their pain, and support their struggles, then ask what they need, and how you can help. Get educated on the facts and stay informed on current events by reading books, listening to documentaries, following the news, and talking with a diverse group of people about their experiences. Utilize your platforms to spread awareness about statistics, legislation, criminal and civil trials. Donate to organizations fighting for the marginalized, and advertise these organizations and what they are doing on social media. Leverage your vote to elect competent and moral politicians. Stand in solidarity with the targeted by marching with them at protests; few things are as powerful as strength in numbers. Reversing centuries of inequalities in housing, educational, and career prospects, reforming the police and the criminal justice system, or protecting our families, friends, neighbors, and strangers from physical assaults and emotional bullying will not happen overnight. It will be much longer, and way more complicated, than just digging through an individual’s even a celebrity’s, social media. We need to cultivate allies and friends, rather than turning away people who are still growing, but show interest in doing better. It will be painful, and require much courage, work, and sacrifice. But it will be so worth it, because these are the actions required to truly become not just “anti-racist”, but to break down a system of systematic oppression, into a fairer, just, more tolerant one.