“Cancel culture” is the popular phrase of the times, with everything from Dr. Seuss books to cartoon characters being forced out of circulation. But cancel culture is simply the next logical point in the brain rot of social justice and identity politics and in its takeover of major institutions.
This was the biggest takeaway of Charles Blow’s column in the New York Times, in which he inadvertently admitted that he is unable to comprehend cartoons with his claim that cartoon skunk Pepe Le Pew “normalized rape culture.” Blow begins that column by claiming that “as a child, I was led to believe that Blackness was inferior.” Blow says that this messaging was “in the air,” perpetuated through toys and cartoons.
His opposition to Pepe Le Pew is getting the most attention, which is understandable given that Blow appears to be the only person who doesn’t understand that the very point of the character is that his behavior is inappropriate and wrong. But Blow also listed Tarzan, Speedy Gonzales, and the Little Rascals as racist entertainment. And so-called cancel culture is the natural next step, as he makes clear when he concludes that “racism must be exorcised from culture.”
It doesn’t matter how unintelligent or misguided Blow’s criticisms are. Speedy Gonzales, for example, was literally canceled in the late 1990s, only to be brought back to Cartoon Network following an outcry from Hispanic fans. Blow’s race-obsessed worldview allows no room for nuance or gray areas: Everything, ironically, is black and white.
This has predictably jumped from culture to politics. After a year in which social justice activists targeted white voice actors voicing nonwhite characters, syrup bottles, and sports mascots, the Democratic Party has fully embraced the brain rot. President Biden has prioritized race and gender over anything else, including qualifications, in selecting his Cabinet, running mate, and potential Supreme Court justices.
Congressional Democrats are trying to pass a police reform bill that would put effectively racial and gender quotas on traffic stops and police interviews. California Democrats, the model of national progressives, are now considering a bill that would ban gendered signs in toy and child care aisles in retail stores. The American Civil Liberties Union has been reduced to a husk of its former self, propping up fictional accusations of racism and demanding that Title IX bend to the will of gender identity politics.
This toxic obsession with identity, whether based on race or gender, has taken over every major cultural institution. Universities, Hollywood and the entertainment industry, sports leagues, and the media, such as the “paper of record” that employs Blow, have all fallen, committed to basing their existence around identity-based grievances, whether they are real, exaggerated, or completely fabricated.
Opposing “cancel culture” is good, but it is essentially playing defense. It is social justice that feeds cancel culture, and it is working its way through our political institutions as it has our cultural ones. The toxic worldview of liberals, between the racialization of everything and the confused world of gender politics, is what needs to be the focus of cancel culture opponents.
