‘Doesn’t make a lot of sense’: Why we need to cancel woke culture

More and more celebrities are falling victim to “cancel culture”, but in society’s bid to be more progressive, we’ve gone too far.

It will be a year not only remembered for the coronavirus pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests but the rise of the social justice movement, cancel culture and being woke.

From big name celebrities such as Adele being accused of cultural appropriation after posting a photo from a festival to Australian influencers such as Sarah’s Day and her husband copping a barrage of criticism for the same issue, those with a public profile have started treading more carefully.

Popular kids cartoons such as Bluey have pulled episodes for “racist connotations” and Paw Patrol received backlash for portraying a good cop character.

As the list goes on and the waters become more murky, author Helen Pluckrose believes society needs to start pushing back - and hard.

Pluckrose, co-author of Cynical Theories, defines herself as a liberal humanist and fears that by pushing too far to the left without a foundation rooted in sound reasoning, the extreme right are finding a louder voice and threatening to roll back the advancements made for gender, racial and LGBT equality.

“I really want to try get people to understand this idea of wokeness,” she said.

“It’s very much becoming a norm. There’s this idea we’re all socialised into internalised racism, white supremacy and patriarchy.

“The temptation to see cultural appropriation everywhere and cancel people and find everything problematic is something we need to push back on quite hard.

“The majority of us are sensible people who know racism and bigotry still exist and despise them but don’t believe that white supremacy is permeating everything.”

RELATED: Other things we should actually cancel

Influencer Sarah Stevenson aka Sarah's Day and her husband Kurt both got accused of cultural appropriation this year.

Somebody emailed me asking how to tread the line between knee-jerk 'everything is racist' and 'any accusation of racism is just more evidence that political correctness has gone mad' responses to any given situation referencing one. I said this & it seemed worth sharing. pic.twitter.com/dOxBQVl8xc

— Helen Pluckrose (@HPluckrose) December 9, 2020

Pluckrose warned people not to fall into the trap of believing racism existed in everything and to avoid the pull of reacting to extreme views.

“Those on left are attempting to react those on the right by pushing back on everything the far right is saying,” she said.

“Liberals will argue we can look at a number of different ideas, we can evaluate them and we have the ability to reject them like racism.”

She said environmental issues were the messiest because activists used social justice methods to talk about climate justice.

“For example, a lot of people say to save the environment we need to go vegan,” she said.

“A social justice activist will say a lot of people can’t afford to go vegan and a lot of those people are black, so you care more about animals than African American people. It’s ridiculous.”

RELATED: Australia’s racist undercurrent highlighted

Aussie kids show Bluey pulled episodes for racist connotations. Picture: Supplied

In September singing superstar Adele was roasted online for wearing a bikini and Bantu knots to celebrate the Notting Hill Carnival.

Pluckrose said for the most part people were overreacting when it came to those kinds of cultural appropriation examples.

She said people had to consider that historically African American people were bullied by white people for their hair.

“People who are alive now who have never been critical of hairstyles of African American people so it doesn’t make a lot of sense,” she said.

Pluckrose said while it was impossible to get a lot of these issues right, “it really comes down to having some charity that most of us aren’t horrible racists and we’re doing the best we can to be decent”.

Netflix pulled four of Chris Lilley’s shows, including those where he portrayed a schoolboy from Tonga.

The Black Lives Matter movement dominated headlines this year. Picture: Allison Dinner/ AFP

Guest speaker for the Quillette and Think Inc. final Free Thought Live online live event this Saturday, Pluckrose will address why people often get painted with a brush they often don’t resonate with.

It’s the reason she’s developed Counterweight, an organisation to help people who are being disciplined, fired or cancelled for being “insufficiently woke or ideologically opposed to wokeness”

She said people also needed to be mindful of the language they were using to communicate their views.

“When you say ‘I’m not racist but’, it almost doesn’t matter what you say after that, you’re going to be accused of being racist,” she said.

“You could say something quite horribly racist or say something benign.

“We really need to broaden the acceptable ways we speak about things. I can keep up with the language but that’s because it’s my full time job. You can’t expect the average person to have internalised all this.”

The event will be held at 10am Saturday and people can register for free here.

Do you think cancel culture has gone too far? Share your thoughts below