Jimmy Fallon using blackface to play Chris Rock in a 2000 SNL skit, for which he's come under fire for recently.
Neil: It’s no secret that as a society we’ve come to a crossroads in history. In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, the troubled and the hopeful of the world have mobilized against an establishment that has become complaisant with injustices within itself. It is a fight characterized both by protest in the streets of western nations as well as passionate protest from fingertips to touchscreen in the form of online uproar- the Instagram story has never been used with such purpose ever before.
56 years ago this month, President Lyndon B. Johnson put pen to paper on the Civil Rights Act, which criminilized public discrimination and reversed segregation laws. However, to say that LBJ signed the Act out of the goodness of his heart is both a foolish and insulting statement. It is insulting to the memory of great activists who fought for their own freedom for centuries. It was activists like John Lewis, who passed away this week, who forced LBJ’s hand onto that paper- though he did ultimately sign the Act himself.
While we could argue all day about political motivation, he was educated into doing so after meeting with leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr.. The importance of that cannot be ignored when we’re discussing a man who grew up white in the early 1900s, when racism was sewn into his cultural fabric- a man who eventually agreed to criminilize that culture. Without a doubt, racial slurs and worse were thrown around in that environment, perhaps even by Lyndon B himself. Regardless, civil rights leaders knew that rather than to write the president off as a racist, they had to encourage discussion on critical issues to ensure change. It would be equally foolish and insulting to the memory of those great leaders to assume the same is not the case today.
However, in our reality with the presence of social media and the ability to call out someone for their mistakes in the past so easily, we often see the online community completely smearing names of celebrities if they’ve done something offensive in the past. In a situation where once again education is so important for change, this ‘cancel culture’ is both frustrating and detrimental to the person it concerns, never giving them a chance to change and to help to build a better world. There is no way to permanently shift attitudes in the world without the little conversations, and if we’re leaving no stone unturned, we can’t toss away the stones we don’t like. While these ‘cancel-worthy’ actions are unacceptable now, it is a waste of time and momentum to shame them after the celebrity’s apology. We should be educating those who make mistakes, not just that what they have done is wrong, but more importantly why it is wrong so that we can take down the culture that allowed for it to happen.
Former President Barack Obama agrees. “That’s not activism,” he says,” This idea of purity..and you’re always politically ‘woke’...you should get over that quickly.” Cancel culture is painfully ironic to the nature of the movement- an exclusive culture working towards inclusivity. If there is any hope to honor the great strides made by the raised fists of yesterday, we (the young and outraged) must work to recognize that there are normalized things in our world that shouldn’t be normal, and the way to strike those things down is not by “cancelling” people who are products of an outdated environment. Instead, our alternative is to forgive the less harmful of what we might think are unforgivable things and educate those who we would today ‘cancel” that their actions were wrong and that we must move on better informed.
“Now we have black and white elected officials working together. Today, we have gone beyond just passing laws. Now we have to create a sense that we are one community, one family. Really, we are the American family.” - Rep. John Lewis (1940-2020)
Photo: Yahoo
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