The far left is taking a wrecking ball to cultural institutions
Radical leftists are determined to control the cultural narrative and no cultural institution, no matter how revered or long-standing, is safe, writes Miranda Devine.
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- ‘Exhausting’: Why my white ex called after BLM protests
- ABC reviews all content after Netflix strips Lilley shows
A new dark age of intolerance has descended on America, as corporations cave in to cancel culture in a desperate bid to appease far left activists.
Anything short of total capitulation to the demands of Black Lives Matter is ruthlessly punished.
No matter that BLM is a proxy for the socialist wing of the Democratic party, running on the fringe platform of defunding police.
MORE NEWS
Sam Armytage sued for ‘racist, vile’ comments on Sunrise
‘I never felt exploited’: Australian ‘70s sex symbol
Comedy icon’s condemning no laughing matter
Suddenly the public square is packed with guillotines.
What follows is a partial list of the cancelled:
Civil War epic ‘Gone With the Wind’ has been deleted from HBO-Max’s roster. Forget that it’s the most watched movie in American history, and earned Hattie McDaniel the first Oscar for an African-American, it must be shoved down the memory hole.
Paramount cancelled Cops, and next for the chopping block, no kidding, is the cartoon Paw Patrol, for the sin of depicting police in a positive way.
The cultural Taliban also is coming for your books.
National Public Radio advocates “decolonizing your bookshelf” by weeding out books by white authors. Goodreads jumped on the bandwagon with a list of “anti-racist books” to replace them.
Professional sport has taken a pounding, with Serbian soccer player Aleksandar Katai losing his job with Los Angeles Galaxy over Instagram comments – by his wife. He apologised and denounced his wife’s “insensitivity” for posting a photo of a looter in a shoe shop with the caption “Black Nikes Matter”.
But it wasn’t enough to save his skin.
New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees hasn’t stopped apologising since he made the grave error of defending the American flag last week.
Silence is not an option because social justice warriors will chase you down and demand a statement, and if the tone isn’t to their liking they’ll call for your head anyway.
The New York Knicks basketball team is heading for the guillotine after declaring: “Every one of us has a role to play in creating a more just and equal society, where there is no racism, bigotry, violence or hate.”
For committing the cardinal sin of not genuflecting to Black Lives Matter, “Defund the Knicks” has gone viral.
As the cultural revolution picks up pace, Twitter is under pressure to cancel its biggest customer, Donald Trump.
So far, boss @jack has resisted disabling the President’s account, but has taken to appending warnings to his tweets.
Left wing newspapers, too, are being hoist with their own petard.
New York Times editorial page editor James Bennet was forced to resign after running column by Republican Tom Cotton about using the military to quell riots. A snowflake generation of journalists claimed black employees were endangered and staged a revolt.
Philadelphia Inquirer editor Stan Wischnowski resigned over the headline “Buildings Matter, Too”.
In Florida, real estate agent Joseph Swedroe was sacked after using an image of an NYPD van on fire to lure traumatised New Yorkers to the Sunshine State.
Arizona State University revoked a job offer to its new dean of journalism after she posted a tweet describing some police officers as “good”.
Ivanka Trump, was cancelled by Wichita State University which disinvited her from giving a commencement speech.
But cancel culture is like all revolutions, which end up devouring their young. Now donors are calling for the university’s president to be cancelled.
You can never be woke enough when the jackboots come for you.