(upbeat music) - Hey y'all, I'm Kiara Butler, and welcome to Generation Rising where we discuss hard hitting topics that our diverse communities face every day.

Today's topic is Cancel Culture.

And I'm really excited to have with me today Taliq Tillman and Court King.

Hey y'all.

- Hi.

- What's up?

- I'm really happy to be havin' this conversation with y'all today.

- Thank you, excited to be here.

- Grateful, very grateful.

- Cancel Culture, what is it?

- What is it?

I think that Cancel Culture is a bad marriage between our ethics and our systems that are set up to keep us safe.

But, I think like all marriages, it probably takes lots of tweakin' and workin' and workin' through and I think that that's where we are right now.

- Taliq, what you think?

- I was gonna say, get outta my Caucasian household.

So like, Cancel Culture is like from what I understand from like the internet, it's comin' from Joanne the Scammer who like canceled her espresso machine in a video and now it's morphed and taken form into what I think is an attempt to, to look out, you know, and to look out for people that folk care about.

And I think that's where it's at.

It's an attempt.

- Uh huh, do you think it's fair?

- I don't know what fair is anymore.

I don't know if fair is a word that I use anymore.

I don't think that there's anything fair about a system that requires you to stand and shout loudly from a mountain when there's 29 different systems that could help.

We have laws, we have law enforcement, we have community.

There's all these different ways that we could be pushing levers and if those levers worked we wouldn't have Cancel Culture in the same way.

I don't think it's there for people that are harmed the way that it currently exists.

- Yeah, that's real.

So there is harm coming from Cancel Culture.

Where do you think it originated from?

- The Cancel Culture?

- Yeah.

- I think Cancel Culture for me, when I think about how I know Cancel Culture I think about my blackness.

And I think about the Green Book, which essentially was a book that told black people where it was safe to be and to stay so that they could essentially stay out of sundown towns.

And so, for me, Cancel Culture existed as early as our communication.

We've always been invested in our safety and our community.

And so, I think it comes from a place of wanting to stay safe and wanting to keep people and things that aren't safe out of our spaces and lives.

And I think it continually morphs.

I think that we see Cancel Culture as it stands right now, because we have people like Joanne the Scammer.

We have social media, but you know, churches excommunicate people, people are shunned.

In school we have detention.

Cancel Culture is the way that we handle things.

We just have all these different names that feel safer and kinder than Cancel Culture.

But, it's existed for forever and will exist for forever.

- What about you, Taliq?

Where do you think it came from?

- I would definitely agree with the fact that it's always been here.

It's always been kind of through like he say, she say, and really within like interpersonal family units, knowing who to be like, stay away from this one.

I feel like that's what it originated out of.

And it's just kind of gotten a 2.0 with seein' what that looks like online without really even knowin' these people.

It's like, which I just kinda be aware of you know.

- And I can definitely like connect with the sundown towns and the Green Book, especially driving from Mississippi to Rhode Island, it's like a 24 hour drive.

And I tell people all the time, I know where to stop to get gas.

Like, once I pass Virginia, I'm just tryin' to make it there, okay.

'Cause I'm not stoppin' in Alabama and I think that comes from I guess you could call that Cancel Culture.

But then, also, family members saying like, Taliq, like you said, stay away from this family member or we don't mess with this family member or church members.

Yeah.

- It's a real thing.

I'm like Cancel Culture was the grapevine.

That's all Cancel Culture is is the grapevine.

It's runnin' your business and runnin' other people's business.

So the people that you know and you trust and I think that social media has made the people that you know a lot larger.

And so, I think Cancel Culture feels larger, but I think that we are a nosy and informed society.

We've always practiced runnin' the business.

It's a thing that people do.

- Cancel Culture, or cancel Cancel Culture?

- Yeah, I don't support it.

You know what.

I think Cancel Culture is just like 5% of people gassing it up.

Like, I don't think people care.

I don't think these people are real.

It's like remember when CNN they'll be Trump like everyday, like (growling) 'cause they know people don't like him and people who like him are gonna watch it.

I like going off of just reason and logic and not what my side is and I think that's what people do too often is like, especially Gen Zers, they just go off of like, what should I think?

- How do you think that Cancel Culture is impacting the person being canceled, especially recognizing that social media is like so large now?

- I honestly feel like that there isn't much of like a impact unless there's like a material consequence to the person was canceled.

I feel like socially, like yeah, there's different things that happen and different repercussions, but if those repercussions don't necessarily like are followed by like material consequences being lost or gained, or altered in some way, then like I feel like that's what makes it like effective in the attempt that Cancel Culture is trying to make.

- We love a punishment.

And if someone's not being punished for something we feel like nothing happened.

And so, if you're not losing money, you're not losing job, you're not losing work, it feels like there's no consequences.

And so, I think that social media gives people a way to see those consequences.

I can come back in three months and see this consequence on Google.

I can see and keep track of these things.

But, the news cycle itself is minutes long.

And so, three months in social media is three decades.

I have no idea what happened yesterday morning in social media.

And I think that that's why people hold on so tightly to Cancel Culture because it is the way that people can stay on track.

But I think it makes us hyper vigilant in a way that's not good for our bodies and our spirits.

- So, what about Kanye?

'Cause I feel like we've been canceling Kanye for a long time.

Is he bein' punished?

- You know, I have to admit that for a really long time Kanye was one of my problematic faves and I just was like Kanye to the death of me.

And now I'm watching Kanye and have for the last few years just really not be well.

- Yeah.

- And I think that it's a dangerous thing for us to watch people not be well and still give their words the weight that we would give to wellness.

And I'm like, if we're being honest, Kanye hasn't been well in a very long time.

And my friends that aren't well, I don't let them give me advice about much of anything until they can focus on themselves and I wish that we could give ourselves that space in Kanye.

I'm like, Kanye needs a nap and to check in with some people and we're not the people he should be checkin' in with.

I shouldn't know Kanye and Chris are fighting every day.

- I think that it's, it's a lame culture.

But there are, there's good intent behind it.

The only thing is it gets outta hand, because it's like you're, there's people who in the same breath standing up for some people also bring people down and cause fear and anxiety and that where it's not needed.

I don't think that people need to be bashed over the head a million times about something I think it's about talking about the issue and educating people on the issue instead of trying to make them hate themselves.

Why is, why is that the solution?

- Do you think that Cancel Culture is different for a celebrity versus people that aren't celebrities?

Like, how we're being impacted or how we're being canceled?

- I think it's like the same thing, but on a macro scale.

Like you have, it's spectatorship.

It's celebrity culture and celebrity culture happens like through localities as well.

It's a mindset.

It's a mindset that says, I can sit here and watch you and not have any effect or any impact.

There's no give and take to my life, I get to just watch you.

And that's a colonial idea.

That's spectatorship is this idea like that comes from research that we can just sit there and watch someone, you know, when colonizers will come into our places they were just sitting there recording us, just watching us, documenting us, and we were just living life.

Like, we're watching someone go through a mental health crisis and everyone is just talking to each other about it rather than being like yo, Kanye.

His DM should be filled with mental health research and different therapies.

He got the resources for it.

And I feel like in that way it's like something that really disturbs the spirit of like how people are so okay with being bystanders, but it becomes even more pervasive because it's like an active bystander and seein' the degradation of another human life.

And that's, that's on necropolitics.

That's on necropolitics.

- Yeah.

- And I think that we're watching each other, right, like the, the grace that I can give Kanye is as much grace as I can give myself and the people that I know.

And so, when I hear people I don't wanna say kindly, 'cause I don't think that I'm offering Kanye a kindness.

I think that I am offering Kanye and other people that aren't doing well a space to reset.

And so, when I see people online having these really big emotions about Kanye, I'm like, there's a cousin or a sibling that you could direct that energy.

I know that you have somebody in your space that you could be givin' that information to.

But, it's easier, right, like you said, like it's easier to be a bystander and have those opinions than to be a person who has to have some responsibility and friction in your actual network.

So I think for me, it's harder communally and locally because I know you, I know you, right.

Like I have to run into you at the supermarket.

I have to run into you at meetings.

And so, one of us getting canceled changes the sphere of our community in a way that Kanye's not effecting me, other celebrities are not effecting me.

So, I stay connected to my community and my community not doing well means that I'm not doing well.

And I have lots of feelings about that.

- Yeah, I say all the time we tend to try to solve problems outside of ourselves instead of looking at ourselves and see how we're projecting onto other people as well.

When would you say that Cancel Culture has actually worked?

Has it worked?

- I think if Cancel Culture worked we'd be much safer, because we've spent the entirety of our existence trying to figure out how to stay safe.

And I find society to be very unsafe, so I don't think that it's working.

I think that what people want is accountability and they want to know that there is a way to make it not happen again.

And I think for me, the more that I get honest about who I am and the way society is, I don't think that that's a thing that we can ask.

Like, I think that what's happening is people are saying like, you won't have these opportunities, you won't have this money, but we're gonna come back to you.

And I think that that brings us to like restorative justice, which I still very much am still working through what that means to be in community with people that have harmed me or harmed people that I know intimately.

- Yeah, can you tell our viewers more, like in your own words, what is restorative justice?

- So, for me restorative justice is essentially there's a harm that's happened and how do we make it so that both the person that's harmed and the person that did the harm can come back into community.

And whether that's limitations or restrictions or meetings or monetary, it gives us a chance to, I don't wanna say restore, but I think that that's, it's right in the name, right.

- Yeah.

- But, I don't always think it's restored healed.

I think it's a start.

I think restorative justice is a start.

- And just thinkin' bodily how it replicates that idea of like chasin' people away.

You know what I'm thinkin' about the incarceration system.

I know it's not the same thing as being incarcerated, however feeling psychologically of isolation, feelings of being ostracized, feelings of being shunned, that don't help no one.

- Yeah.

- Like we all know what stress can do to the body, what stress can do to the mind and I, I like bein' in that field a little bit more.

So like, I've also like tried to like take my own steps away from like certain language that I know is rooted in that idea of chasing people away.

And tending more to like those things of like, how do we be less stressed, even though I feel like if Cancel Culture included some type of analysis of like the stressor or what caused the incident of aggression or harm, then it would be more fruitful.

- Hey, do you support the LGBTQ community?

- Oh yeah, 100%.

- Uh huh.

What about that tweet?

- What tweet?

- The one from 2012.

- I don't know, I was 11.

- Yeah, you tweeted that gay people are weird.

- I don't doubt that I did.

I was raised religious so I kinda was always taught that it was wrong.

But, I apologize, I don't, I don't think that anymore.

- Yeah, we should've been educated then.

You need to be canceled.

- I mean, I was later on.

It was kinda hard to be educated at that point when like everyone around me kinda thought the same thing.

But, I don't think that anymore.

I totally support it, 100%.

I stand up for it.

- Why didn't you stand up for it in 2012?

- I don't know, but I support you now.

I stand up for you against all my family, a lotta my friends.

Like, I support you.

I support the LGBTQ community.

- It's LGBTQ Plus, so you're not educated.

You're homophobic.

Yeah, you need to be canceled.

- Okay.

- We've really gotta create a culture where we we're gonna rid him of his livelihood for some stupid tweets when he was a teenager?

'Cause I tell you what, I don't know a single human being that's not cracked a slightly inappropriate either, slash, partly racist joke in their lifetime.

And this idea that publicly we're all angels, perfect angels, you're here to judge others to the same standard of false perfection that we portray, is just like deeply toxic.

And then also, on the idea of like free speech, we're now stopping the best ideas because we're judging them based on whether they fit or not.

And this is, again, we talked about divergent thinking and having more diverse thoughts and accepting them and welcoming them and interrogating them for their merit.

- What about if a friend of yours or a person in your life had a different view than you do?

Is that difficult for you to navigate?

Is it okay for your friends to have different views, especially when we're thinking about Cancel Culture?

- I have lots of opinions about lots of things and so, I expect that people will have differences of opinions.

- Are you canceling them?

- You know, I'm not canceling people, but the thing that I have learned is that I can just get up and leave.

Like, I can literally just stop talking to people, stop engaging.

And I think the older that I get and the more honest that I get with myself the more that I'm like, I don't need to change everybody that I meet and I don't need to change everybody that I disagree with.

Some people just are not for me.

And we can have lots of differences of opinions, but there's a couple things like the safety of our community, safety of kids, safety of our spaces that make it so that I can't engage with some people.

- For me it's always like if that person could explain the why and the why is like in line with my why, then it makes sense.

If their why is different than my why, I'm gonna see myself out as well.

And that's something that I think is just learning and maturity.

What I've found is because of systems of operating in like social dynamics, a lot of places in my own experience replicate the same types of harm.

And it could be from the person that I love the deepest.

It could be from the person that I'm coolest with, that I've known for the longest.

But because oh, you're trained like this at this job then this person who I'm really cool in who I really mess with, is replicating the same harm because of a job training.

- Right.

- And then, I'm like sitting there like, is this a battle that I wanna pick today or you know, do I just.

And that's specifically, personally I've realized more in my gender identity, like, and how I've like masked those things away before and how that has been like just like, like a way of trying to put a Band-Aid on those systemic issues.

- Yeah.

- And I wish that in those relationships with people, they could just say their why and we could just talk about it.

- Yeah, I think we've talked about Cancel Culture today a lot on the macro level, but Taliq, I think you're really taking us to the micro.

If either of you don't mind sharing, have you been canceled in your personal lives?

If so, do you mind sharing what that feels like or what that situation was?

- I don't know if I've been, so, I'm sure that there are people that are not fans of me or have issues with things that I've done in the past.

I am a human and I am flawed and I am also really intent on being good to myself.

And so, I'm sure that through the grapevine there have been things that I've missed out on or things that I haven't been asked to or haven't been asked back to, because of the way that I've behaved and whether that behavior came from a place of wanting to keep my safety or not, people are, people can make whatever decisions that they want.

So, I think that I'm sure that I have.

I'm sure that there's been times where people have been like, absolutely not, Court King.

And I mostly respect people's decision to move that way.

People that don't wanna be around me shouldn't be around me.

It's not good for them or for me.

So, I'm gonna say probably, yes.

- Yeah.

Havin' that ability to know when something is done, right, and that you should walk away or it's no longer healthy or it's no longer working for the benefit of both people.

What about you, Taliq?

Do you feel you've ever been canceled before?

- So, we doin' a soft yes on this one.

Like, I'm definitely not for everybody.

I never wanna be for everybody because that would only drain all I got in me.

And I know that there are certain spaces that like just because of the way that I talk, they probably would think that I have a attitude and wouldn't want me there.

- Look.

- If you don't want me there why would I be there?

- I don't wanna be there, yeah.

- So, that's like something that like especially like in maturing, I've like come to like realize and there's like a lot of peace with accepting that.

And even more guidance towards like what is for me, you know.

So, I think that's where I'm at with that, yeah.

- I think that you talked about identity, too, which I think that we haven't spent a lotta time on and I think it's really important.

Like, I am black and I'm binary and queer and I'm fat and I'm loud and I'm passionate and that's like seven things into people bein' like maybe not Court King, and I'm also the happiest that I've ever been.

And I know myself well and I know my limits and I know expansiveness of what I want to happen in my life.

And so, it doesn't feel like a loss to say that I can't hang out with some people.

It feels like sometimes that is, that is the step and I'm willing to do hard things so I can have it easier like with myself.

- Yeah.

- Can I add something?

- Yeah.

- I feel like growing up too, it's like there's in social dynamics, like amongst same age group in groups, there's always people cracking on each other, you know.

And it's like, I feel like when you have certain, or the identities that I've carried, like I was used to being the butt at the end of the joke all the time, no matter what racial group I was around, no matter what you know like because of gender, like the he/she is kind of always the first one you laugh at, you know.

I feel like sometimes it's really interesting to see what the discourse is.

It emulates those moments.

- I think the intersectionality piece is really important, because often times you're chippin' away at your identity and you're trying to hide the parts of yourself that has been canceled.

And then, a couple of years later you're no longer whole.

- Right.

- And you're no longer who, like who you're destined to be or who you're supposed to be or who your soul is saying that you're supposed to be.

So, I'm happy y'all brought that back up 'cause that's, that's real.

I think I navigated the world a lot canceling the parts of myself that weren't accepted.

- Yeah.

And I'm pickin' 'em up now.

- Now I'm pickin' 'em back up.

- I was scurrying to find out who I was in 5th grade because she was onto something.

- Look, my therapist is like, who is your inner child?

Like, if you looked inside of you who is that child and what does she need?

And I'm like, oh, I gotta go get her.

- Yeah.

- 'Cause I actually don't even know 'cause I've lost that part of me.

And so, I guess that's one of the dangers.

But, can you all think of any other dangers from Cancel Culture?

- I think we lose out on the space to be human.

The more afraid I am to make a mistake the more afraid I am to do anything and that is dangerous in lots of ways for me.

- I would say yes, like the loss of humanity.

I'm just repeatin' what you sayin' at this point.

The loss of humanity, however, I think it's also like those losses of moments of healing and thinking about liberation, right.

I'm just like, dang, you know, like there's so much lost opportunity when things I just ignored, especially when like the culture people usually return to is the thing they're complainin' about.

So, I'm just like, it's, I'm yearning on that journey to pick up the younger version of me and bring them here, him/her, whoever it is, he/she, I'm yearning for those moments of like I, nothin's new under the sun, but it's like, when are we gonna start doin' things you know, with care?

When are we gonna start using the word healing and not laughing, not thinking that that's corny, you know.

Like, I'm lookin' for those moments and that culture and that's where I wanna be.

I wanna be there.

- Yes.

- Well, let's end it on that note, y'all, 'cause we have run out of time.

And so, I wanna thank you all for being here today and for our viewers, thank you all for tuning in.

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