It's 2010 on a Tuesday night. We are in a tiny conference style room on the 5th floor of Fluor Tower at USC. This floor known as Somerville is reserved every year for black freshman students who want an HBCU experience in a PWI university. Tuesday nights the group 100 Black Men meet to discuss a variety of happenings in the black community on campus. Despite the title of the club, the meetings usually have just as many women as men involved. Girls come per invites by the senior boys and to simply not miss out on anything interesting happening on the floor. These meetings usually start off civil and end in “debates” or screaming sessions about the hot topics of the times. I like to think of these days as the simple times, the “prequel to modern twitter”.
I remember some of what was said in these 4 walls and a lot of the things said would today make me cringe. These were different times and the truth is that when we were 17 and 18 years old, we really didn't know what the heck we were talking about MOST of the time. And unfortunately, not too long after these days passed, Twitter, the online diary, became a thing and our most personal and ignorant thoughts left the four walls of that tiny room and became plastered for the world to see forever. Times changed and we adapted. We once could act up at parties with no consequences, and then snap chat became a thing and we realized that we needed to watch our back and behavior at all times. We now could screenshot texts on our phones so “receipts” were easy to manage. We felt the need to have live footage of all our escapades so our friends knew what we were up to at all times. And those of us who remembered the ignorant things we used to say in the past remembered to delete the evidence of those times as we grew and changed and matured. But not everyone was so lucky.
Whats happens in the dark will always come to light they say and in these times BOY is that true. It's almost like clockwork that when a celebrity starts to gain followers and be known for something positive someone digs up some old dirt that shows people their ignorance. The masses come out...many of them loving fans who are suddenly embarrassed by the behavior of the celeb they admire, others haters who were waiting on the celebs downfall. Regardless, the heckling begins and next thing you know the celeb is canceled.
We call it cancel culture and it is forsure a product of the climate these days. But when is it time to cancel and when do we allow growth? There seem to be two rival groups on this issue. The “cancel by any means necessary” group, and the “if we cancel everybody we will have nobody left” group. I like to consider myself a part of a much smaller third group dubbed as the “im prolly gunna cancel you, but how sincere was your apology group” but I digress… What I am here to explain today is a group-based guide on how to know when to cancel someone.
Group one: Age is definitely more than a number: My examples for this are:
Brother nature and Chance the Rapper - I am not going to go into the details of why they were “canceled” because that's what Google is for, but what they have in common is both of their mistakes occurred when they were significantly younger, AND their current personalities and character traits do not match their actions. They have taken accountability and have shown growth. Is that not the outcome we want from calling people out anyway?
Group two: Cynn Santana and Kevin Hart : Growth or Nah? They may have said ignorant things, but at the time they said them people weren’t nearly as politically correct. They might have never said those things in this climate. It seems that they grown but they could be fronting. WE take these on a case by case basis. If the person accused of the wrongdoing has sincerely apologized and made strides to be and do better, it might be worth letting them succeed another day.
Group Three: You ain't gotta go home but you got to get the hell outta here:
Erykah Badu and R Kelly fall into this group for me for different reasons. Erykah is the unapologetic type that never takes accountability or acknowledges she may be wrong. The key to not being canceled is knowing when you messed up. When dead wrong, you know you wrong, ya momma know you wrong and you still will not admit it…negro bye.
And R Kelly is a worse side of the same coin. His behavior is SO toxic and horrible it's not even worth the apology. Just bury yaself under the jail. Something much worse than canceling needs to be done to this group.
Group four: Yall, the people. Truthfully all of these groups are irrelevant cuz discovering where people fall should not be rocket science and truly yall lazy af! The thing is, no one ever wants to hold anyone accountable in real life, not they friends, not they uncles, and def not they momma and dem. And ESPECIALLY not themselves. The majority of people outside of Twitter bubbles make excuses for everyone and stand up for nothing. So for those of you all worrying that “everyone will get canceled,” worry not. Your unfortunate faves will continue to live another day. The truth is, cancel culture is a myth, and the streams, views, and continued success of many who deserve to be long gone is the proof.