Cancel this cancel culture

There is a lot of talk these days about cancel culture, from the NFL to Netflix to Spotify to Emmy-winning daytime talk show “The View.” I know it all too well.

I had a horrible cancel-culture experience last fall on my college campus at Christopher Newport University in Virginia. I tweeted a question to which some in the LGBTQ+ community on my campus took offense.

In an instant, my fledgling career as an adjunct professor and first-time Black female scholar in residence at the university came to a screeching halt in the wake of anger, recriminations, protests and demands to silence me. I will not be returning to teach after this spring.

My experience is one that we see commonly on our nation’s college campuses, where students get outraged and have hurt feelings over something that a faculty member or fellow student has tweeted, posted online or said. They go into angry protest mode, and all bets are off.

The most recent incident occurred at Georgetown University when incoming law center director IIyla Shapiro was put on suspension after he referred to a potential Black woman Supreme Court nominee as a “lesser choice” over a man of color that he considered a better choice. I don’t like his words, but he should be free to tweet them.

I think we should all just admit out loud what we all say privately: Sharing our opinions online is not only increasingly unwise, but also can be a career-ending experience that could destroy a person’s reputation, life and ability to earn a living.

Some will argue that “consequence” culture should be the new rule. I disagree. Who gets to decide what consequences I or anyone else should suffer because you don’t like my point of view, my political affiliations, or my religious expression?

That is not America. We are in a very dangerous place when we start to shut people down, shut them out, demand they be removed, demand they not be allowed to speak, be seen or be heard because something they said or tweeted angers us. That is not the values upon which our great nation was founded.

Facts are what we must consider when talking about firing people, investigating them, or removing them from our great American community of ideals, discussions and debate.

We find ourselves here in 2022, in the commonwealth of Virginia, with hotlines to tell on teachers who might dare to teach accurate racial history in our classrooms. We are banning books and curriculums and, in Florida, trying to enact laws limiting what and how gay kids can talk about themselves. It’s surreal. This is not the America I know and love.

I do not want Black Lives Matter protests silenced. I do not want white nationalists silenced. I do not want to be silenced when I want to ask a civil question on my Twitter feed and have my colleagues come after me to ruin my professional career with smears and attacks on who I am as a person. That is neither fair nor right.

Here is my point: None of us should be defined by a tweet or post. None of us should lose our right to work, provide for our families, or to be treated as a full member of the American family.

We have got to stop canceling people because of social media posts. Instead, let’s start a call-out culture that corrects, heals and grows us all into better human beings.