What period of cancel culture was worse?

[wimp]

.

[VAR]

This question ultimately comes down to what was worse:

(a) The Dixie Chicks getting blacklisted by country radio and having their CDs trampled on because they spoke out against Dubya's catastrophic war in Iraq.

(b) A privileged white girl in Loudoun County being encouraged to withdraw from college for using a highly offensive racial slur.

I'd definitely say (a), but that's just me.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This question ultimately comes down to what was worse:

(a) The Dixie Chicks getting blacklisted by country radio and having their CDs trampled on because they spoke out against Dubya's catastrophic war in Iraq.

(b) A privileged white girl in Loudoun County being encouraged to withdraw from college for using a highly offensive racial slur.

I'd definitely say (a), but that's just me.

That's a pretty sugar-coated way of describing (b).

[VAR]

That's a pretty sugar-coated way of describing (b).

Are you saying she isn't privileged, or that the n word is not a highly offensive racial slur? And yes, the college only encouraged her to withdraw.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

That's a pretty sugar-coated way of describing (b).

Are you saying she isn't privileged, or that the n word is not a highly offensive racial slur? And yes, the college only encouraged her to withdraw.

Your wording is technically true but wildly misleading. There is more at play in this than "she said something offensive and the college asked her to withdraw". Generally things that make her very sympathetic.

[Geoffrey Howe]

This question ultimately comes down to what was worse:

(a) The Dixie Chicks getting blacklisted by country radio and having their CDs trampled on because they spoke out against Dubya's catastrophic war in Iraq.

(b) A privileged white girl in Loudoun County being encouraged to withdraw from college for using a highly offensive racial slur.

I'd definitely say (a), but that's just me.

That's a pretty sugar-coated way of describing (b).

What was this incident?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This question ultimately comes down to what was worse:

(a) The Dixie Chicks getting blacklisted by country radio and having their CDs trampled on because they spoke out against Dubya's catastrophic war in Iraq.

(b) A privileged white girl in Loudoun County being encouraged to withdraw from college for using a highly offensive racial slur.

I'd definitely say (a), but that's just me.

That's a pretty sugar-coated way of describing (b).

What was this incident?

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=420795.0

[Geoffrey Howe]

This question ultimately comes down to what was worse:

(a) The Dixie Chicks getting blacklisted by country radio and having their CDs trampled on because they spoke out against Dubya's catastrophic war in Iraq.

(b) A privileged white girl in Loudoun County being encouraged to withdraw from college for using a highly offensive racial slur.

I'd definitely say (a), but that's just me.

That's a pretty sugar-coated way of describing (b).

What was this incident?

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=420795.0

Always interesting to look at the NYT comments for these sorts of things. Quite mixed. The most upvoted:

I was the target of anti-black racial slurs as one of the only black kids in my nearly all-white high school in the 90’s. I wouldn’t wish my experiences on anyone, but I still think it serves no purpose to premeditatedly ruin a single kid’s future over isolated adolescent behavior. Particularly because in her case, her sin was a moment of ignorance and insensitivity - something all kids are guilt of - rather than intentional malice. She was flippantly and ignorantly mimicking the chatter of popular music and culture, not actually using the slur on someone. This was not truly handled as a useful teaching moment. It reflects a descent into a new puritanism. As evidence, other bad and anti-social behavior kids and young adults do - including outright criminal behavior (look up Justin Bieber or Donny Wahlberg) - does not ignite the entire social media mob against them. This all could have been done in private, but because the intent was to shame, brand, and destroy, the kid who posted deliberately waited for the most damaging time, and after knowing where she was going to college, to do this. I think one day he’ll regret acting out this way. And I think one day we’ll look at targets of the social network mob the way we look at Hester Prynne in a Scarlett Letter. We now think of the social opprobrium that went with adultery as ridiculous, but any form of social dynamic that centers around this sort of shaming and lifelong public branding is just as barbaric.

Not far behind though:

Emmett Till was 14. Tamir Rice was 12. Trayvon Martin was 17. But a 15-year-old white who used hate speech later had to change her college plans, and people are outraged. Go figure.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This question ultimately comes down to what was worse:

(a) The Dixie Chicks getting blacklisted by country radio and having their CDs trampled on because they spoke out against Dubya's catastrophic war in Iraq.

(b) A privileged white girl in Loudoun County being encouraged to withdraw from college for using a highly offensive racial slur.

I'd definitely say (a), but that's just me.

That's a pretty sugar-coated way of describing (b).

What was this incident?

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=420795.0

Always interesting to look at the NYT comments for these sorts of things. Quite mixed. The most upvoted:

I was the target of anti-black racial slurs as one of the only black kids in my nearly all-white high school in the 90’s. I wouldn’t wish my experiences on anyone, but I still think it serves no purpose to premeditatedly ruin a single kid’s future over isolated adolescent behavior. Particularly because in her case, her sin was a moment of ignorance and insensitivity - something all kids are guilt of - rather than intentional malice. She was flippantly and ignorantly mimicking the chatter of popular music and culture, not actually using the slur on someone. This was not truly handled as a useful teaching moment. It reflects a descent into a new puritanism. As evidence, other bad and anti-social behavior kids and young adults do - including outright criminal behavior (look up Justin Bieber or Donny Wahlberg) - does not ignite the entire social media mob against them. This all could have been done in private, but because the intent was to shame, brand, and destroy, the kid who posted deliberately waited for the most damaging time, and after knowing where she was going to college, to do this. I think one day he’ll regret acting out this way. And I think one day we’ll look at targets of the social network mob the way we look at Hester Prynne in a Scarlett Letter. We now think of the social opprobrium that went with adultery as ridiculous, but any form of social dynamic that centers around this sort of shaming and lifelong public branding is just as barbaric.

Not far behind though:

Emmett Till was 14. Tamir Rice was 12. Trayvon Martin was 17. But a 15-year-old white who used hate speech later had to change her college plans, and people are outraged. Go figure.

Indeed, NYT comment sections are time capsules encapsulating the times they are in.

[Tartarus Sauce]

The worst form of cancel culture America has implemented within the past half-century is the one where we decided we would "cancel" decades of people's lives as punishment for petty crimes so that quotas could be fulfilled for politicking imperatives. Anybody who argues with a straight face that American society's punitive impulses have since exceeded this configuration into a more damaging manifestation for its intended targets has massive blinkers attached to their eyes.

[Chips]

Both were awful.

[The Mikado]

Write in: McCarthyite/HUAC cancel culture of the late 40s/50s.

[HisGrace]

This question ultimately comes down to what was worse:

(a) The Dixie Chicks getting blacklisted by country radio and having their CDs trampled on because they spoke out against Dubya's catastrophic war in Iraq.

(b) A privileged white girl in Loudoun County being encouraged to withdraw from college for using a highly offensive racial slur.

I'd definitely say (a), but that's just me.

The Dixie Chicks were millionaires and their next album after the controversy still went multi-platinum and won Album of the Year at the GRAMMYs. It was a dumb controversy but it didn't really cause that much actual harm.

Blocking an average person's ability to get an education because of one use of a racial slur is far more unjust.

[Terlylane]

I don’t remember any right wing cancel culture after 9/11.

[Never Made it to Graceland]

This question ultimately comes down to what was worse:

(a) The Dixie Chicks getting blacklisted by country radio and having their CDs trampled on because they spoke out against Dubya's catastrophic war in Iraq.

(b) A privileged white girl in Loudoun County being encouraged to withdraw from college for using a highly offensive racial slur.

I'd definitely say (a), but that's just me.

The Dixie Chicks were millionaires and their next album after the controversy still went multi-platinum and won Album of the Year at the GRAMMYs. It was a dumb controversy but it didn't really cause that much actual harm.

Blocking an average person's ability to get an education because of one use of a racial slur is far more unjust.

She wasn't average, she was of very good means, and she went to another college, so her life was fine. It would have been fine had she not been able to get an education.

[Cory]

This question ultimately comes down to what was worse:

(a) The Dixie Chicks getting blacklisted by country radio and having their CDs trampled on because they spoke out against Dubya's catastrophic war in Iraq.

(b) A privileged white girl in Loudoun County being encouraged to withdraw from college for using a highly offensive racial slur.

I'd definitely say (a), but that's just me.

You spelled "some normie getting fired from their working class job because they said something on Facebook some 19 year old girl with cat ears didn't like" wrong.

[Schiff for Senate]

Very tough choice, but...the post George Floyd cancel culture.


  Following 9/11, people's lives/careers were ruined for protesting unnecessary government involvement in Iraq, for excercising their First Amendment right. True, Iraq was bad, and punishing its opponents is unnecessary and terrible - but Iraq did have some good consequences, such as deposing a brutal dictator and restoring democracy. The Dixie Chicks were ruined and attacked because one of their members criticized Iraq.

  Following George Floyd's brutal murder at the hands of police, people's lives/careers were ruined for protesting violent protests which involved arson and looting (not the protests themselves, the violent part). I would say this is marginally worse because people's lives were ruined for opposing crime and violence which, while for an important cause (police reform), was not justified (the solution to ending police racism is not to burn/loot government buildings - protesting peacefully is better). They were protesting the arson, looting, violence/murder - not the cause of police reform itself, but they were depicted as racist, insensitive people, and the public backlash cost them their careers. A left-of-centre music composer in Nashville wrote on social media that while the protests were for a good cause, arson and looting was not the solution to the problem: https://nypost.com/2021/06/16/musician-canceled-for-speaking-out-against-arson/. He faced a hailstorm of criticism on social media (for criticizing violent crime and arson!) and was fired from his job with some music publishers.

 While both are certainly terrible, I say George Floyd was slightly worse, for this reason: they were opposing military action by the government they felt was unncessary, while others were protesting violence and arson. The violence and arson has no good consequence (burning buildings and violence doesn't end racism, it just inflicts terror on civilians) while Iraq had one good result (deposing a dictator).

[Schiff for Senate]

This question ultimately comes down to what was worse:

(a) The Dixie Chicks getting blacklisted by country radio and having their CDs trampled on because they spoke out against Dubya's catastrophic war in Iraq.

(b) A privileged white girl in Loudoun County being encouraged to withdraw from college for using a highly offensive racial slur.

I'd definitely say (a), but that's just me.

The Dixie Chicks were millionaires and their next album after the controversy still went multi-platinum and won Album of the Year at the GRAMMYs. It was a dumb controversy but it didn't really cause that much actual harm.

Blocking an average person's ability to get an education because of one use of a racial slur is far more unjust.

She wasn't average, she was of very good means, and she went to another college, so her life was fine. It would have been fine had she not been able to get an education.

From attending the University of Tennessee she had to attend a community college. Yes, she still got to attend college, but graduates of the University of Tennessee have much better lives than graduates of community college. Not all colleges are equal in terms of what jobs they can help you secure later in life. It's like saying someone who attended a private school and someone who attended a poorly funded Washington, DC, public school both received similar education.

[Never Made it to Graceland]

This question ultimately comes down to what was worse:

(a) The Dixie Chicks getting blacklisted by country radio and having their CDs trampled on because they spoke out against Dubya's catastrophic war in Iraq.

(b) A privileged white girl in Loudoun County being encouraged to withdraw from college for using a highly offensive racial slur.

I'd definitely say (a), but that's just me.

The Dixie Chicks were millionaires and their next album after the controversy still went multi-platinum and won Album of the Year at the GRAMMYs. It was a dumb controversy but it didn't really cause that much actual harm.

Blocking an average person's ability to get an education because of one use of a racial slur is far more unjust.

She wasn't average, she was of very good means, and she went to another college, so her life was fine. It would have been fine had she not been able to get an education.

From attending the University of Tennessee she had to attend a community college. Yes, she still got to attend college, but graduates of the University of Tennessee have much better lives than graduates of community college. Not all colleges are equal in terms of what jobs they can help you secure later in life. It's like saying someone who attended a private school and someone who attended a poorly funded Washington, DC, public school both received similar education.

She was likely going to transfer after two years. She probably had to attend a CC because the deadlines had already passed for most universities. And again, cry me a frickin' river.

[All Along The Watchtower]

I think the gag rule on debating slavery and the violence or threat of violence by Southern Senators and Congressmen was the worst period of Cancel Culture.

[Benjamin Frank]

This question ultimately comes down to what was worse:

(a) The Dixie Chicks getting blacklisted by country radio and having their CDs trampled on because they spoke out against Dubya's catastrophic war in Iraq.

(b) A privileged white girl in Loudoun County being encouraged to withdraw from college for using a highly offensive racial slur.

I'd definitely say (a), but that's just me.

The Dixie Chicks were millionaires and their next album after the controversy still went multi-platinum and won Album of the Year at the GRAMMYs. It was a dumb controversy but it didn't really cause that much actual harm.

Blocking an average person's ability to get an education because of one use of a racial slur is far more unjust.

It wasn't just aimed at the Dixie Chicks though, it was an attempt to silence all opposition to the Iraqi War in the United States.  All sorts of patriotic fervor was raised and anybody who opposed the war was called unpatriotic or a traitor.  

There is limited direct evidence, but there is some evidence that Clear Channel (now named I Heart Radio) was in contact with the Bush Administration and that the cancelling of the Dixie Chicks was coordinated.


And this was from before the start of the Iraqi War when Bill Maher ultimately got fired for his politically incorrect comments:

Q As Commander-In-Chief, what was the President's reaction to television's Bill Maher, in his announcement that members of our Armed Forces who deal with missiles are cowards, while the armed terrorists who killed 6,000 unarmed are not cowards, for which Maher was briefly moved off a Washington television station?

MR. FLEISCHER: I have not discussed it with the President, one. I have --

Q Surely, as a --

MR. FLEISCHER: I'm getting there.

Q Surely as Commander, he was enraged at that, wasn't he?

MR. FLEISCHER: I'm getting there, Les.

Q Okay.

MR. FLEISCHER: I'm aware of the press reports about what he said. I have not seen the actual transcript of the show itself. But assuming the press reports are right, it's a terrible thing to say, and it unfortunate. And that's why -- there was an earlier question about has the President said anything to people in his own party -- they're reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do. This is not a time for remarks like that; there never is.
<snip>

[Benjamin Frank]

Very tough choice, but...the post George Floyd cancel culture.


  Following 9/11, people's lives/careers were ruined for protesting unnecessary government involvement in Iraq, for excercising their First Amendment right. True, Iraq was bad, and punishing its opponents is unnecessary and terrible - but Iraq did have some good consequences, such as deposing a brutal dictator and restoring democracy. The Dixie Chicks were ruined and attacked because one of their members criticized Iraq.

  Following George Floyd's brutal murder at the hands of police, people's lives/careers were ruined for protesting violent protests which involved arson and looting (not the protests themselves, the violent part). I would say this is marginally worse because people's lives were ruined for opposing crime and violence which, while for an important cause (police reform), was not justified (the solution to ending police racism is not to burn/loot government buildings - protesting peacefully is better). They were protesting the arson, looting, violence/murder - not the cause of police reform itself, but they were depicted as racist, insensitive people, and the public backlash cost them their careers. A left-of-centre music composer in Nashville wrote on social media that while the protests were for a good cause, arson and looting was not the solution to the problem: https://nypost.com/2021/06/16/musician-canceled-for-speaking-out-against-arson/. He faced a hailstorm of criticism on social media (for criticizing violent crime and arson!) and was fired from his job with some music publishers.

 While both are certainly terrible, I say George Floyd was slightly worse, for this reason: they were opposing military action by the government they felt was unncessary, while others were protesting violence and arson. The violence and arson has no good consequence (burning buildings and violence doesn't end racism, it just inflicts terror on civilians) while Iraq had one good result (deposing a dictator).

Democracy was restored in Iraq?  That's a stretch.

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/the-truth-about-iraq-s-democracy/

[Schiff for Senate]

This question ultimately comes down to what was worse:

(a) The Dixie Chicks getting blacklisted by country radio and having their CDs trampled on because they spoke out against Dubya's catastrophic war in Iraq.

(b) A privileged white girl in Loudoun County being encouraged to withdraw from college for using a highly offensive racial slur.

I'd definitely say (a), but that's just me.

The Dixie Chicks were millionaires and their next album after the controversy still went multi-platinum and won Album of the Year at the GRAMMYs. It was a dumb controversy but it didn't really cause that much actual harm.

Blocking an average person's ability to get an education because of one use of a racial slur is far more unjust.

It wasn't just aimed at the Dixie Chicks though, it was an attempt to silence all opposition to the Iraqi War in the United States.  All sorts of patriotic fervor was raised and anybody who opposed the war was called unpatriotic or a traitor.  

It's true - Senator Max Cleland (D-GA) lost reelection in 2002, partly because of allegations by the GOP / conservatives that Cleland was 'unpatriotic' for his opposition to Iraq, even though Cleland lost both his legs and one of his arms while serving his nation in the Vietnam War (another similarly botched war).