Opinion | A message to white allies: educate, don’t just cancel

Luca Evans, Managing Editor

In the digital age, it feels like half of our generation’s identity comes from using social media applications. We derive friends, a large percentage of our conversations and even aspects to our personalities through our virtual profiles. Most prominently, with the rise of “cancel culture,” we aren’t afraid to call out perceived injustices from the comfort of being behind a screen, targeting others that use hateful rhetoric or questionable vernacular.

Here’s the issue: when we take aim at those people, firing comments or hashtags at them, their profiles aren’t deleted. Their existence isn’t erased. They can close Twitter or Instagram or TikTok and rejoin the real world like nothing happened.

White allies have to be committed to dismantling racism; it has to be our job, not the job of Black individuals, to educate others on the history of white curricula that created the foundation of America. But there’s a strong difference between “cancelling” someone for an offensive joke and being anti-racist. And in some cases, if we aren’t careful and deliberate with our actions on social media, we only open the door to deeper issues.

About a year ago, I had a conversation for a class project with Pete Simi, a Chapman sociology professor and expert on extremist groups, about the prevalence of organizations such as Patriot Front on Chapman’s campus. He explained to me that, in his experience working with white supremacists, they display early tendencies towards extremism through identifiers such as hate speech or edgy jokes. These types of people are often lonely and isolated, and that’s exactly how supremacy groups recruit their members. They prey on those “outsiders,” offering a supportive community where “dark humor” is accepted – leading members down the path to accept their racist or threatening rhetoric.

A younger generation, during the pandemic, has become extremely involved in exposing the racist or problematic activity of their classmates across social media. While it’s fantastic to see people so wholeheartedly trying to be anti-racist, I think back to my conversation with Simi. If we’re only isolating and pushing those types of people away, are we really being anti-racist?

Say a video of a white teenager saying the n-word surfaces and explodes on TikTok. Someone leaks their name and where they go to school; all of a sudden there’s thousands of likes and comments, all personally attacking them. 

This teenager’s entire brain chemistry, their transition into adulthood, is being shaped during this very moment in time. So if they’re completely isolated without a true attempt to educate – if their social infrastructure is removed because of a hateful ideology they promoted – they’ll only gravitate further toward that ideology in their adulthood. For a generation that’s trying to slowly eradicate hundreds upon hundreds of years of racial injustice, embracing the “doxing” of friends or classmates on social media could end up only pushing them to the alt-right. 

There are, of course, plenty of exceptions; someone showing a pattern of abuse or threatening violence needs more serious action taken against them. But Simi told me he’s seen white supremacists whose views have progressively changed over time, as they’ve become more educated and removed from a prejudiced environment. It’s much easier to positively influence the thinking of teenagers rather than adults, and instead of trying to destroy their social media presence, we should try to reach out in non-dangerous situations.

It may not be as flashy as outing someone on an Instagram story, but speak to a sociology professor and they’ll probably tell you that conversation and education are some of the most productive tools in the fight for justice. Call people out on their mistakes – but make sure they understand why. That, ultimately, is a much more beneficial and anti-racist action.