Unpacking, Cancel Culture & Identity Politics during COVID-19
By Alexander Rodriguez
Wall Street: one of the most financially powerful places in the world was named after a wall that separated African Slave burial grounds and Indigenous Lenape Territory from the European industrialization occurring south of the borough. Columbus Circle: one of the busiest intersections in the entire city, named after the man who made the exploitation of Manhattan's own indigenous population possible. Tweed Courthouse: a building that now stands as the home of the New York City Department of Education, named after the politician responsible for embezzling millions from working class people. The courthouse’s rotunda might as well be symbolic of the continued abuse the NYCDOE leaves its children of color.
The novel Coronavirus pandemic has revealed more about America’s long standing social injustices than wide broadcast media has cared to let on. From food insecurity and access to affordable healthcare (lack thereof), to educational inequity, and police brutality, it is important to remember, though unprecedented, that these times have shown us the rigidity of the policies that compile the American Political system—and their shame. In the beginning of March, Mayor Bill DeBlasio and Education Chancellor Richard Carranza kept open the NYC schools for the purpose of not disparaging homeless and low-income youth—a demographic that 27,000+ students share in high school alone. We have all come to the consensus now that no matter the immediacy of the 2020 school shut-down, Black and Latinx youth—often low-income—will always be the most negatively impacted by the social and economic disparities that come with being in America.
One may argue that broad social issues like a pandemic, the climate crisis, and gun violence affect everyone--such arguments are often paralleled to those who may believe in the “All Lives Matter” movement. However, they don’t. In a world dominated by seemingly ancient oppressive systems like classism, racism, and the patriarchy, people of color—especially intersectional people of color—have devastatingly been the most negatively impacted by said systems. When all of these social structures are layered on top of one person they interact in more nuanced and complex ways. For example, a white women may face several challenges in her life because she is told to adhere to certain gender norms: ie. submissivity, marriage, bearing children, pay gap, etc. A queer women of color; however, may also experience such trauma, alongside trauma in terms of gender identity, sexual orientation and racism to say the least. From a statistical perspective, this looks like the following: median annual earnings for a white man are $52,000, where a black man’s are $37,500. Opposite of the gender spectrum we see that a white woman earns $40,000 and a black woman earns $34,000. To put things in a geographical perspective, a living salary in New York City is said to be roughly $40,000.
The ideology of intersectionality was crafted by American Lawyer Kimberlé Crenshaw, who famously said, “The intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism. Any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner in which black women are subordinated”. Though initially speaking on behalf of her experience as a black woman, such experiences mirror those of Gay Black Males and Trans Latinx people; with each different social identity comes a different social system—and its deficits.
What the All Lives Matter movement fails to recognize is that the Black Lives Matter Movement did not start in an effort to dehumanize any of those who do not identify as black, but rather, to affirm to the world that black lives are human lives too. The All Lives Movement fails to highlight that black lives are not even considered lives in the first place. I say so with the story of 25 year old Ahmaud Aubrey in the back of my mind. Ahmaud was simply jogging in his own neighborhood and was perceived as a threat. Gregory and Travis McMicheal were bearing weapons, and they’re perceived as what? Citizens causality exercising their right to bear arms?
When bringing up such content, many scholars have personally said to me, “Well, we are doing a lot better now” or, “Slavery ended a long time ago”. And while such affirmations aren’t completely false, they fail to acknowledge that despite the civic progress in America, there are groups of people—races of people—whose needs and rights are still not being met. Gay Sex was made legal in 2003. Lynching was just federally banned in 2020. And a few days ago Pennsylvania finally banned child marriage. In a country as luxurious as the United states, 14.3 million households are food insecure, with African-American households facing hunger at twice the rate of white and non-Hispanic households.
This is our modern-day reality. We cannot use landmark social changes of the past to make the social wrongdoings of today more palatable. And while some aforementioned legislation may be considered progress, the fact that these issues are just being brought up is something to be appalled by.
These conversations make me think about the current temperature of race and identity politics in the US today. Resurfaced tweets, problematic pictures, and non-PC interviews seem to make up the majority of reasons why a public figure is subjected to being or becoming “#cancelled”. While I believe that such public shaming can often lead to civic inaction, it can also inspire unprecedented conversations about race and identity that we’ve never seen in this country before. The sheer possibility that people are becoming more conscientious about the things they do or say shows that there is progress with how we are tackling America’s longest standing issues. I believe that people are starting to recognize, no matter the base following, how their participation in social media can perpetuate negative social stigmatization of others. It's this recognition of power and the possibility of being called out on a mis-action that can eventually lead to the same feedback-and-response behavior needed on The Hill today.