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Thread: Since so many claim that cancel culture doesn't exist, I propose a challenge: For every additional 1,000 followers I get, I will present 10 examples of cancel culture. I'm willing to bet I can provide 150 examples before running out. Right now I'm at 2680 followers.
Here are the first 10 cases gratis. And in order to counter the false narrative that cancel culture only affects the rich, famous and powerful, and that it's just about "critique" these examples will all be about *regular* people whose actual *livelihoods* were targeted.
It's also worth noting that these cases are not about people doing deliberately offensive things. There are no neo-nazis here. They are simply normal people (some even avowedly progressive!) who have incurred the wrath of the mob because they violated the tenets of woke dogma.
1. NYU cafeteria employees fired after preparing a menu in honor of "Black History Month" that was deemed racially insensitive. https://www.dailywire.com/news/two-black-cooks-fired-nyu-making-racist-meal-paul-bois
2. A yoga studio that was so woke they had gender-neutral bathrooms and person-of-color yoga nights where “white friends and allies” were asked to “respectfully refrain from attending” has closed down due to racial accusations. https://coloradosun.com/2020/06/29/kindness-yoga-closure-during-black-lives-matter/
3. After woman posts a Facebook video explaining why she doesn’t support BLM, she not only lost her job due to a deliberate campaign to have her fired but continued to be targeted afterwards and ended up having her GoFundMe fundaiser removed too. https://reclaimthenet.org/tabitha-morris-cancel-culture/
4. This article details the case of a Palestinian business that is wrecked because of some very ugly tweets his *daughter* wrote seven years prior. Even after firing his daughter, they still kept punishing him. https://forward.com/news/national/448382/the-ceo-of-holy-land-hummus-i-know-doesnt-match-the-social-media-monster
5. High school teacher fired for admitting that he is against abortion. This admission was made not to promote his personal belief about abortion, but in the context of explaining the difference between people’s private morality and the law. https://nationalpost.com/opinion/christie-blatchford-b-c-teacher-fired-for-having-the-wrong-opinion
6. Kooks Burritos, a Portland-area pop-up food truck run by two white women was forced to close after hit with public outrage at what some called the restaurant’s “appropriation” of another culture’s “intellectual property.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/a-portland-burrito-cart-shutters-after-being-accused_b_59303570e4b042ffa289e7f3
7. Nick Buckley was dismissed by the trustees of Mancunian Way, a charity he founded nine years ago, after an online mob accused him of ‘inappropriate’ and ‘insensitive’ views over his criticism of BLM and demanded his removal. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8466913/Award-winning-charity-boss-SACKED-criticising-Black-Lives-Matters-neo-Marxist-agenda.html
You can express your support for him by signing this petition to have him reinstated. https://www.change.org/p/silent-majority-reinstate-nick-buckley-as-ceo-of-mancunian-way-charity
8. A progressive data analyst was fired after tweeting a study done by a black scholar which argued that violent protests are not as effective as non-violent ones. He was also kicked off a listserv of professional colleagues amidst charges of racism. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/white-fragility-racism-racism-progressive-progressphiles-david-shor.html
9. Mexican-American utility worker fired for unknowingly making a white supremacist hand gesture while driving his truck. He was photographed by a random stranger and then reported to his employer. https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/sdge-worker-fired-over-alleged-racist-gesture-says-he-was-cracking-knuckles/2347414/
10. A first person account by @EPoe187, a former tenure-track assistant professor at a small college, of his ordeal being fired for promoting scientifically accepted, but socially controversial, facts about human evolution. https://quillette.com/2020/03/06/ive-been-fired-if-you-value-academic-freedom-that-should-worry-you/
That's the first ten. There's lots more! Please show this to anyone who is skeptical about CC, anyone who claims it's just a right-wing trope that isn't relevant to everyday people. For every additional thousand people who follow me I will list another ten cases. Spread the word!
Looks like I already almost got 100 people to follow me so here's another one:
11. @li88yinc recounts how she got kicked out of the theater company that she herself started for writing about transgender issues in a way her peers deemed unacceptable. https://quillette.com/2018/11/20/writing-for-quillette-ended-my-theater-project/
11. @li88yinc recounts how she got kicked out of the theater company that she herself started for writing about transgender issues in a way her peers deemed unacceptable. https://quillette.com/2018/11/20/writing-for-quillette-ended-my-theater-project/
12. In response to a student complaint, Doane University in Nebraska suspended a librarian for showcasing an exhibit that included photos of students from a 1926 Halloween party wearing blackface. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/05/06/doane-u-suspends-library-director-over-exhibit-included-1920s-era-students-blackface
13. Within hours of the gallery's email announcement promoting the exhibit, there was a backlash, with people alleging that PL had appropriated Indigenous culture and art. The gallery owners felt they had no choice but to cancel the exhibit. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-gallery-indigenous-art-cancels-amandapl-1.4091529
Follow-up to #10: Bo Winegard elaborates a bit on the sorry state of academia and the difficulties so many well-meaning truth-seekers struggle with being a part of that dysfunctional system. https://twitter.com/EPoe187/status/1282045742383857664
14. One the most progressive performances ever conceived has been cancelled because it is now considered "not inclusive enough". As hard as this may be to believe, this has actually occurred on multiple campuses, as the next few tweets show. https://temple-news.com/vagina-monologues-canceled-due-inclusivity-issues/
15. Mount Holyoke College, an all-women’s university in Massachusetts, also cancelled their traditional performance of the play over concerns that the play — long championed for its political correctness — is not politically correct enough. https://www.thedailybeast.com/holyoke-is-too-pc-for-vagina-monologues
16. American University is changing the name (and presumably performance) of its annual Vagina Monologues performance because referencing the female anatomy implies “that in order to be a woman you must have a vagina.” https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=8290
17. EMU's Women's Resource Center also decided that it is cancelling their yearly performance of "The Vagina Monologues," noting that the play's version of feminism excludes some women. The WRC made this decision based on responses from a survey. https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2018/11/emu_group_ends_the_vagina_mono.html
18. WaPo reports on a 2-year-old incident where someone with no platform or influence wore blackface (under the guise of mocking Megyn Kelly), resulting in her getting fired. “We blew up this woman’s life for no reason.” Cancel culture is the reason. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/why-did-the-washington-post-get-this-woman-fired.html
19. This first person account by @SwipeWright of his academic cancelling is worth paying attention to. Reputational smears, job market sabotage, lies, etc. Brutal. Follow him for thoughtful insights and smart analysis of scientific subjects. https://twitter.com/SwipeWright/status/1281793002986336256
While on the subject, I also recommend reading this thread from @SwipeWright on the topic of cancel culture and academia. https://twitter.com/SwipeWright/status/1282151716369002497
Also figured I'd link to one of his articles: https://quillette.com/2018/11/30/the-new-evolution-deniers/
20. A prominent composer's performances were cancelled from a music festival (and her merch removed) bec she gave a talk that referred to certain musical compositions by their actual names - compositions which deliberately had the 'n-word' in the title. https://quillette.com/2019/06/27/publicly-shaming-a-musician-for-calling-a-composition-by-its-name/
Also worth linking to this first-person account of the incident in the previous tweet. Thanks to @SecularSaulsa for bringing it to my attention. https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/julius-eastman-incendiary-titles-13168/
21. If you looked at the details of #19, Colin Wright mentions that he got in trouble for tweeting about Lisa Littman's work. This article explores about the controversy around Dr. Littman's paper, and the unfair treatment she was subjected to. https://quillette.com/2018/08/31/as-a-former-dean-of-harvard-medical-school-i-question-browns-failure-to-defend-lisa-littman/
22. A Vermont principal was promptly fired for expressing disagreement with aspects of Black Lives Matter. https://vtdigger.org/2020/06/14/windsor-principal-on-leave-after-black-lives-matter-comments-stir-controversy/
23. Guy posts a playful ad for a new cafeteria worker full of sarcastic jokes, and one of his lines is "I need a new slave to boss around." Cue the outrage in 1, 2, 3......Fired!
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/head-of-ontario-university-cafe-fired-over-joke-help-wanted-ad-seeking-slave/
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/head-of-ontario-university-cafe-fired-over-joke-help-wanted-ad-seeking-slave/
Related to #21, this book excerpt was just published. "Activists denounced her to her employer claiming she had written a paper "harmful" to transgender youth. They demanded that her employer, the DOH, terminate its relationship with Littman immediately.” https://quillette.com/2020/07/08/discovering-the-link-between-gender-identity-and-peer-contagion/
24. The group “Friends of Ascend” initiated a petition titled “Hold the CEO of Ascend Public Charter Schools Accountable for White Supremacist Rhetoric.” More than 500 signed it, and out Wilson went from the school he founded 10 years ago. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/ascend-charter-school-petition/601696/
25. An NYU prof crusading against political correctness was booted from his classroom after his colleagues complained about his “incivility.” He chose to be anonymous, he explained, "because he was afraid the PC Gestapo would ruin me..." https://nypost.com/2016/10/30/nyu-professor-who-opposed-pc-culture-gets-booted-from-classroom/
26. Another professor out. What was the offense? She made the mistake of using the n-word—during a discussion in which she was admitting her own shortcomings about race. She didn’t use the word maliciously: She was, quite literally, checking her privilege. https://www.thedailybeast.com/pc-hysteria-claims-another-professor
27. "In most respects, Schwarz was a model RA. But according to her review, her zeal for wide-ranging debate on subjects like diversity and social justice called into question whether she could be trusted to behave like a good social justice advocate." https://reason.com/2017/02/08/residential-advisor-loses-job-because-sh/
28. Well before "cancel culture" was a commonly used term, in 2013 this poor woman's life was turned upside down over an "offensive" joke that wasn't even being interpreted in good faith. Back then I think it was known as "outrage culture". https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html
This was the incident that crystallized for me that this social justice movement, which was ostensibly about making the world a better place, was really actually about something else entirely. So many social justice call-outs since then have only reinforced that feeling.
29. Another oldie,from 2015: Gay people were never discriminated at their shop. But bec she said they wouldn't cater a *hypothetical* gay wedding (that would never actually happen in real life) the mob hit them with such an onslaught they had to shut down. https://reason.com/2015/04/02/burn-her-she-would-act-like-a-witch-in-a/
Follow-up: It was pointed out to me that #25 is not an accurate story. He was not put on leave for the reasons stated in the article. However, it's not inaccurate that he was indeed censured by a diversity committee for his views. See here: https://nyunews.com/2016/10/26/letter-to-the-editor-liberal-studies-rejects-antipcnyuprofs-faulty-claims/ @JeffreyASachs
