Cancel Culture Is the Best Weapon the Powerless Possess

In November 2019, when I wrote a guest op-ed in The New York Times criticizing former President Barack Obama’s “very boomer view of cancel culture,” I wasn’t prepared for the amount of backlash I would quickly receive.

Both liberals and conservatives were up in arms about my critique of Obama, especially when he argued that cancel culture was “not activism.” It’s “not bringing about change,” he added. “If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far. That’s easy to do.”

But that’s not how I viewed cancel culture, nor the individuals who are often connected to the controversial term. What Obama, Donald Trump, Dave Chappelle, Joe Rogan, Chrissy Teigen, J. K. Rowling, Fox News, and the hundreds of other politicians, celebrities, and influencers who have spoken against cancel culture don’t get is that it’s not simply about casting judgment, censorship, or intolerance of other viewpoints. It’s about power. Too often, the most powerful among us love to play the victim, acting as if the injustices they cause shouldn’t be met with consequences, while those with less power are supposed to suffer for it. That was when I decided to speak up.

Read more at The Daily Beast.