The left’s dangerous embrace of cancel culture

An episode of VH1’s popular reality show, Love and Hip-Hop: New York , aired on 22 December 2014 to 2.17million viewers.

Oxford English Dictionary introduced a new, colloquial definition of the term cancel’ in March 2021 : To dismiss, reject or get rid of (a person or thing) In later use, especially in the context of social media: to publicly boycott, ostracise or withdraw support from a person, institution.

Alyssa Milano created the hashtag #MeToo to draw attention to sexual assault and harassment of women in Hollywood .

Her message was retweeted nearly a million times in 48 hours .

Yet the movement only went viral on 15 October 2017 , after a white American actress created the movement.

But nobody heard about it until a white woman with privilege and a large platform took over.

Umut Özkirimli is a senior research fellow at IBEI (Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals) and professor at Blanquerna , Ramon Llull University .

He is the author of Cancelled: The Left Way Back From Woke, Polity , 2023 .