According to the latest poll on
the topic.
The majority of Americans,
regardless of their political
affiliation, believe that cancel
culture has gone too far.
Now, this poll was done by the Hill
and Harris and here are the
details, here's what they found.
71% of registered voters said that
they strongly or
somewhat believe that
cancel culture has gone too far.
By contrast,
only 29% of respondents said
that they believe a little or
not at all.
Now, I think that this is
a fascinating survey specifically
because of the fact that this is
a hotly contested topic, right?
You have one group that says cancel
culture is completely made up.
The opposing group says no
cancel culture is absolutely real.
I've been pretty clear about where
I stand on the issue.
I think that cancel culture is
certainly made up when it comes to
individuals like Barry White or
people who are public figures who
seem to get promoted the more
they complain about cancel culture.
But there are just normal ordinary
people who do end up being the
worst victims of cancel culture.
Right? So we had shared a story
about a video that had been
taken out of context and the video
was taken out of context to make it
seem as though two people were
mocking the murder of George Floyd.
But it turns out that that's not
what they were doing at all.
The longer video in context,
just show two individuals like play
fighting with each other.
And so the people involved in that
video got fired from their jobs.
They suffered some pretty serious
consequences.
So when you look at ordinary
people, I do think that there
is some truth to the issue of
cancel culture, right?
But if Dave Chappelle for
instance get some backlash,
but he's able to keep putting
out more specials on netflix.
No, I don't think that that's
an example of cancel culture.
Let me give you some more details.
If you break it down by party
lines, 76%
of Republicans unsurprisingly, but
also 70% of Democrats and 68% of
independents said that they either
strongly or somewhat agree that
cancel culture has gone too far.
Now, as you talk about this quite
a bit, I've seen you discuss it on
your twitch stream and
in other context and
I wanted you to weigh in on your
thoughts in response to this pole.
>> I mean,
all the shows is that and I hate to
both sides this, but like both
sides want to cancel people, right?
We want to cancel Dave because
he's saying mean things about
the genitals of trans people on
his comedy special and we want to
cancel my man Mark Lamont Hill for
being anti Israeli regime, right?
Like Auntie Bebe Netanyahu and
their policy towards
the Palestinians in the West Bank
and Gaza, right?
Both are true.
You know what I mean?
And then,
I remember the young lady from teen
vogue getting fired outright for
tweets that were 10 years old,
like it's true, it's rampant
on both ends of the spectrum,
and it's ridiculous again for
the 3 million times.
My general rule of thumb is that
people probably shouldn't be
fired from their jobs, just for
things that they say on
the internet, right?
Save for being like,
everybody go kill this person, or
everybody go harm this person and
causing bodily harm or
financial harm, or some type of
actual tangible harm to people.
I think it's ridiculous, and then
of course when right wingers try to
do it for the various reasons that
they do, it is equally ridiculous.
>> Yeah. I agree with you, and
I don't think it's both sizing it
when it's absolutely true, right?
So, we shared an example on
the show today of a principal in
Texas whose contract was
not renewed because the board of
trustees unanimously voted against
renewing his contract because
they're convinced that he's
teaching critical race theory or
allowing that curriculum
within the high school.
So in essence the right wing has
basically destroyed someone's
livelihood over a manufactured
culture war.
They have canceled him because
of this made up nonsense, right?
And then, on the other hand,
I shared that example earlier of
people who just immediately react
to a video they see online, that
purports to show one thing, but
then you come to find out that it
was taken out of context and people
suffered very serious consequences
because of that, right?
And I think part of the issue,
well there are a lot of different
things that play.
I don't know if this was always
true in America or if this is
a relatively new phenomenon, but
we need to be willing to have
difficult conversations and
we need to provide space for
people to make mistakes, but
also to progress and get better.
Right? I think that right now what
we're seeing is absolutely no
incentives to improve as a person
and recently I corrected errors
that I had made in reporting
the Kyle Rittenhouse story,
not because I'm looking to gain
favor toward anyone, but because I
actually care about the audience
knowing the truth about the trial.
And if I messed up, I'm going
to admit that I messed up.
That's what I did.
And the reaction that you get from
people, it's like, no, you're
worried about a lawsuit or I'm
not worried about a lawsuit at all.
I was going off of a reported art
like reported news that was
inaccurate.
We didn't do original reporting on
that story and I messed up and
I corrected the record, but it's
like this, there's this environment
that just really does not
incentivize people to do better,
to have difficult conversations or
to admit when they're wrong.
So people end up digging their
heels and
refusing to change because if you
ever admit guilt or if you ever
apologize instead of saying, hey,
it takes a big person to do that.
Everyone on the other side,
it's like you're a bad person and
you intentionally lied,
you should be fired.
That kind of stuff drives me nuts,
especially when it comes to
getting people fired.
I think there's some context
where it makes sense.
If we're talking about, let's say
a teacher who has a history of
saying awful racist things,
we're talking about an educator who
needs to educate students from all
different backgrounds, but
in other situations like what good
is it going to do for society?
If Dave chappelle is like
blacklisted completely, is your
life really going to get better?
I just don't think so.
>> Yeah. And you know,
there was another recent example
where a young white lady yelled at
this black dude at a dog park in
Williamsburg Brooklyn and she told
him to go back to his hood and
they took it as a racial thing and
all of this.
And then the dude got on twitter
and was like this white woman was
racist, let's tag her employer,
let's get her fired right now,
we shouldn't be rewarding that type
of look at me behavior, I'm sorry,
we shouldn't reward what that dude
was doing unacceptable.
Super freaking corny.
Nobody deserves to get fired
because they yelled at some guy at
a dog park on their day off.
I'm sorry bro.
I think this woman she worked in
like I forget PR or something, it's
not like she worked in some highly
vital job, it's like dude is gone
way too far and just the internet
lynch bob aspect of it all is
the part that's most annoying.
It's just like guys give it
a break.