Brothers and Sisters Podcast: Whatever Will We Do About Cancel Culture?
Aja Romano notes how within the past few years, the idea that a person can be “canceled” — in other words, culturally blocked from having a prominent public platform or career — has become a polarizing topic of debate. The rise of “cancel culture” and the idea of canceling someone coincides with a familiar pattern: A celebrity or other public figure does or says something offensive. A public backlash, often fueled by politically progressive social media, ensues.
Then come the calls to cancel the person — that is, to effectively end their career or revoke their cultural cachet, whether through boycotts of their work or disciplinary action from an employer.
To many people, this process of publicly calling for accountability, and boycotting if nothing else seems to work, has become an important tool of social justice — a way of combatting, through collective action, some of the huge power imbalances that often exist between public figures with far-reaching platforms and audiences, and the people and communities their words and actions may harm.
But conservative politicians and pundits have increasingly embraced the argument that cancel culture, rather than being a way of speaking truth to power, has spun out of control and become a senseless form of social media mob rule.
Kwaisi France is CEO and co-Founder of KTB Media LLC, an educational media strategy firm. He is a 1999 graduate of the Gilman School, and a 2003 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania earning his B.A in philosophy, politics, and economics with a concentration in political science. Kwaisi obtained his JD/MBA from the University of Baltimore Merrick School of Business concentrating in public sector economics. He has just under a decade of professional experience in asset management and commercial negotiations at firms including T. Rowe Price, Legg Mason, Scottrade and Boatti PLLC. Kwaisi is currently obtaining his Masters in both Emerging Media and Data Science with a concentration in Data Analytics at Loyola University.
Nicole Matthew is a Baltimore-based writer and spiritual healer with a B.A. in Psychology from UNC-Chapel Hill, class of 2005. She also currently works as a General Manager of an optometry office/ retailer and is completing her book, Dissonance, set for release summer of 2021.
Walter Sellers is currently serving as President of SFE Inc. He is the son of military parents and that experience growing up around the world helped shape his world view. He was educated at Elon College obtaining a BS in Mathematics. He is Six Sigma certified and has aided multiple corporations in sales, process, and development.
Lindsay Wilson is a native West Baltimorean who’s breathed fashion, culinary arts, and math from a young age. By the age of 5, she was an avid coffee drinker and balancing her grandmother’s checkbooks. She believes this early start was instrumental in propelling her matriculation at University of Maryland, Baltimore County as a Meyerhof Scholar and subsequent work in real estate accounting. Currently, Lindsay is pursuing her Master’s in Finance at the University of Baltimore, and plans to cross over into portfolio management in the near future.
Autumn Woodland is a graduate of Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University earning a B.S. in business administration in 2002; and a graduate of the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University earning a JD in 2005. Autumn is also a voice actress, visual artist and works as a compliance professional in the energy industry.
Shaun Woodland is a Baltimore based actor and writer whose credits include The Wire, Golden Boy (2013), The Meek (2017), The First Purge (2018), Big Time Adolescence (2019), and Unarmed Man (2019). He is currently starring in a film co-starred by Jasmine Guy of a Different World and Harlem Nights along with T.C. Carson of Living Single.
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