On “Cancel Culture,” context & power

I’ve been thinking a lot about cancel culture, and recent histories, and the ways that the tools that marginalized people create to exercise autonomy in a bounded system are twisted against them. I’ve also been thinking about ideas and concepts getting lost in translation, and the ways that Black culture is often repackaged and recontextualized for audiences it was never intended for. If I am to believe that “cancel culture” truly exists – and I should say that I’m not quite convinced. Then I don’t think it can truly be understood without a lens of misappropriation and violence. I don’t think it can be understood outside of processes of social power, I don’t think it can be understood outside of carceral mentalities. And I don’t think we can speak about cancellation being weaponized without recognizing that those that are harmed most by it, are the same people that created it. But like I said – I’m still not sure if everything that we call cancel culture isn’t just oppression under the wrong name.

I wanted to start by asking myself what some key words mean to me. I realized that from speaking about cancellation and power with people around me – people that I believe to hold the same values and ideals as me – that we all had different working definitions of these terms. And they were informed by various experiences and based on the many competing definitions and contexts that they are used in.

These aren’t dictionary definitions. But these are the ways I explain these concepts to myself. And I think that it’s worth knowing what I mean when I use these words because we so often speak to each other with an assumption of mutual understanding that doesn’t actually exist.

Cancelling
An online phenomena that state’s an individual’s intent to divest support from another individual because of harmful things they have done recently or in the past. I don’t think you can cancel someone in real life, and I don’t think people can be cancelled interpersonally. I think when people speak about the harms of being cancelled they are often speaking about people being held accountable for their actions, or the harms of disposability or doxxing.

Cancel Culture
The widespread phenomenon of people collectively participating in “cancelling” someone. Both cancelling and cancel culture found their origins on Black Twitter and have since been labelled as harmful by people outside (and within) the social sphere it was created for. What it was intended to be used by has been co-opted and divorced from its original context. Often when people speak about “cancel culture” now, they are not speaking about its original use or intent but a culture of disposability that can be associated with cancellation.

Disposability
Disposability is rooted in carceral justice. The more I think about it and the more I investigate modes of transformative justice I believe this to be true. In a vacuum, disposability seeks to remove people from environments where they have caused harm because it is assumed that a harmful person will continue to cause harm indefinitely into the future. Disposability within the carceral system looks like disappearing people in prisons and jails. Disposability within a carceral mindset is often manifested as removing people from communities and social spaces. Social and physical solation serves the dual purposes of protection and punishment under this model. In an ideal world no one would be disposed of ever, we would have the tools to support victims and perpetrators and we would know that not everyone has to do everything in this system for us to be working towards the same goals. We do not live in an ideal world, and so sometimes when someone causes harm repeatedly and the resources of the community are stretched thin, they are isolated and they are disposed of. I personally find this outcome to be heartbreaking for two reasons. First, because this doesn’t protect people who may be harmed by this person into the future who are not part of insular communities. And secondly, because it does not necessarily address the root cause of why a person is being harmful. I am in a place where I can acknowledge why this is sometimes the outcome that reduces the most harm while still recognizing that it is not ideal or satisfactory. And more importantly, that disposability will never coincide with justice for me.

Doxxing
Revealing and disseminating information about people who have a reasonable expectation of privacy for details like their address, job, family members etc. For this reason, I think its’s important to note that public figures do not face the same harms of doxxing nor do they face them to the same extent that previously anonymous individuals do.

Accountability
In my mind accountability is an often-ongoing process of taking responsibility for and hopefully rectifying harm that was done. The most important step of accountability, in my opinion is a commitment to not replicating or repeating that harm in the future.

Lets Talk About Power
For me, power is both fixed and contextual. It is constantly shifting and changing based on who is present in the room, who isn’t, what everyone’s goals are and who we are trying to appeal to. Power changes based on whether or not there is a white person, or a cis person, or a straight person, or a settler, or neurotypical person, or a light skinned person, or an English speaker, or a wealthy, or an able-bodied person, or a thin person in the room, and it changes if they are desired or not in that space. It changes if they are deferred to as hierarchically superior, implicitly or explicitly. And so, I have the most difficult time defining power for myself. Knowing that as a queer dark-skinned femme I so often have the least amount of political and social power – and yet there are contexts in which I have an overwhelming amount of power. And contexts in which my identities can often blind me to the ways that I hold power. Power is inextricably tied up in discussions of cancellation and disposability. But I want to assert my initial claim, which is that power is both fixed and contextual. So, while it may be true that I may find myself in a situation where I hold more power than a white man because he is houseless or disabled – what remains fixed is the presence of white supremacy and capitalism. And these systems will always hold the most power in every situation. I do not think that it’s always about ensuring that every white man thrives (although that is an added benefit that white men have enjoyed for centuries). The vested interest of capitalism and white supremacy – and any system of oppression – is ensuring that these systems survive and thrive. And the power within these systems to ensure their own survival is (for the time being) fixed.

Origins and Collective Autonomy

To engage with the idea of cancellation, we have to engage with how much power was present in the space it was created. Cancellation is a collective effort to reclaim autonomy in a society that rewards abuse and exploitation. It is a shout into the internet void to share in outrage, betrayal, and hurt. It is a choice to withhold support and a melancholic acknowledgement that this is all most of us can do – particularly Black individuals who have long since grown accustomed to having our heroes and icons fall short in their politic. We know that the system will likely continue to perpetuate the wealth, privilege, and fame of the individual we wish to hold accountable.

We cancel, in hopes that those who we bolstered into positions of fame and influence will acknowledge the hurt they have caused the communities they have come from. And they stay cancelled, when they are unwilling to acknowledge that hurt and harm.

And so I think it is important to acknowledge that cancellation is a collective action. An individual cannot “cancel” another individual. An individual can call for accountability, and in more harmful instances an individual can spearhead actions of disposability. But we all take part in the collective action of cancellation or disposability. To cancel someone is to plainly say that you don’t fuck with them, and in the grand scheme of things one person’s decision not to fuck with someone is not a culture. We must recognize that the culture, if it exists, is when we all consent to that same action of withholding financial and social support (in the case of cancellation) and withholding resources, access, forgiveness, and emotional support (in the case of disposability).

Cancellation and Disposability

But sometimes we critique cancel culture, and we mean to critique disposability. And I think this is my main problem with cancel culture as an idea. Because I don’t know how invested I can be in the critique of a social process where people who have less wealth and social influence individually withhold support from the people with the most power. I would argue that disposability uses the mechanisms of cancellation amongst members of community when there is not a clear hierchy of power. Or when there are overlapping and intersecting areas of oppression that between the person calling out/in and the person being called out/in. So, the outcome of their “cancellation” is vastly different, because their access to resources, support and alternate audiences and communities are different. But, if cancellation needs to exist vertically, then maybe we should call its horizontal application what it is – disposability.

I don’t how, but what was supposed to be a short free flowing process of writing ideas, has turned into a longer essay on using the language of transformative justice and cancel culture to escape accountability. So, I will say that not everyone who critiques cancel culture does it from a place of community care. Not every critique of cancel culture means to acknowledge the fact that cancellation is rooted in Black internet communities trying to create joy and exercise autonomy. A critique of cancel culture without a strong belief in accountability upholds the existing systems of power.

Being disposed of by oppressive (or historically powerful) institutions is not cancellation – it’s much worse

Being mindful of existing systems of power brings me to my final thought. It’s a thing that has been churning in my belly for a while that I have only recently been able to find words for. It’s the more recent use of "cancel culture" to speak about people facing adverse consequences from expressing leftist political opinions or critiquing dominant institutions. This discomfort is largely based on my understanding that these occurrences aren't new. And people would be punished for going against powerful institutions whether or not cancel culture was a thing. People in power, those with control and influence have always used their power to silence those who critique them. Withholding opportunities and leveraging the threat of poverty over them is how the system was set up and how it maintains control. On one end of the spectrum, this mis-categorizing perverts the very notion of cancelling and punching up, and on the other end, it grossly minimizes an interconnected set of processes intent on upholding dominant power structures.

And so, I am left with the most unsettling feeling. Because something that was created by Black people will once again be used against them and hold negative connotations because it has been divorced from its initial purpose. We can and should be critical of all socio-political processes, but I think it's worth questioning what exactly we're critiquing.