The Politicians Staying Silent on Stephen Miller’s Racism Are Speaking Volumes
Stephen Miller is the product of American white supremacy. Getting rid of Miller is the task at hand. Getting rid of the entire system should be our goal. CW: racism, xenophobia When you think about the Trump administration, a few things
Muslim Americans Don’t Have The Privilege of Forgetting Bush’s Crimes
By sanitizing George W. Bush into a harmless old man with different political views, we dishonor the people who lived through or died by the injustices that he caused. CW: war, torture, death, racism, Islamophobia I envy those with the privilege to
If Cancel Culture Was Real, We Would Have Canceled Bill Maher By Now
Cancel culture is a myth and it’s only a matter of time until I’m forced to listen to another one of Maher’s offensive and terrible bits.
CW: Mentions of racism, sexual assault, fatphobia, and Islamophobia
I am relieved that I live in a world where powerful people face consequences commensurate with the harm they cause, often after being called out on social media.
Scarlett Johansson, famous tree, has been canceled after whitewashing characters, defending Woody Allen, and trying to play a trans man in a movie. Her punishment: a standalone film in the MCU. How will she recover? Thank God we’re through with Lena Dunham and her white feminism. I couldn’t bear it if she was adapting the story of a Syrian refugee woman for film. After admitting to being guilty of sexual misconduct, Louis C.K. is playing several sold-out shows. I am simply giddy that justice has finally been served. Stanford’s star rapist, Brock Turner, is free after only three months in jail. Cancel culture wins again!
That amount of sarcasm frankly exhausted me more than the people on Twitter constantly decrying cancel culture and mourning its many, many victims.
The fact of the matter is that cancel culture doesn’t exist. The same people who lamented the surge of political correctness have moved their target to so-called cancel culture. This group wants free reign to mock or harm LGBTQ+ people, Muslims, indigenous folks, sexual assault survivors, and everyone else without consequence. That’s why they take aim at any perceived loss of freedom of expression, no matter how evident it is that that freedom was never lost in the first place. Marginalized people on Twitter expressing pain caused by powerful—often famous— folks are not depriving problematic people of opportunities, fame, or money. Social media has just given historically silenced people a platform on which to discuss the abuse we’ve suffered at the hands of powerful people.
Even with the ability to rapidly and widely share a person’s wrongdoing, it is immensely rare for anyone with real power or resources to face consequences more damaging than embarrassment. Often, they don’t even have to acknowledge causing harm.
Bill Maher is a frequent “victim” of cancel culture. It seems as though every time I open Twitter I am inundated with yet another instance of him being offensive, rude, disparaging, or vicious toward entire communities. If canceling people was so effective, why is Bill Maher still being paid for his bad opinions and tired jokes?
Related: NO, YOU CAN’T BE FRIENDS WITH A WHITE SUPREMACIST AND NOT BE ONE YOURSELF
The Depraved Violence of Britain’s ‘Subtle’ Racism
British racism is only subtle insofar as it is left unspoken, forgotten and tolerated. By Rami Yasir In an episode of The Grapevine, Saïe, a musician going by @theafroromantic online, compares the experience of Black Americans and Black British people, “In America
Kashmir: Caught between Hindu Nationalism and Freedom
Modi’s Hindu nationalist government has escalated forces and has created a vacuum of mystery around what exactly they could be doing in Kashmir. TW: mention of sexual assault and ethnic cleansing By Manaal Farooqi Kashmir is a region well known to those