Abdul-Hakim Shabazz: The ‘cancel culture’ is getting ridiculous

A couple of decades or so ago, I was home for Thanksgiving, and my mother asked me to go to the store to pick up a few things. So, my brother and I decided to go.

Now please note, at the time, my brother was as about as militant as I am not. When we got to the store, everything became a Black Lives Matter movement. He wondered aloud why the green olives were in a jar, but the black olives were in a can. A few aisles later, he asked me why the white rice was called “enriched,” but the brown rice was called “wild.” And don’t even get me started on the dessert section. The white cake was called angel food cake, but the black (or brown) cake was called devil’s food cake.

After that, we took my nephew to the local rec center to teach him to play pool—eight-ball, to be exact. That was a mistake. Because pool, as my brother explained to my nephew, was the epitome of the white man’s racism. In pool, the object was for the white ball to knock all the balls of color off the green table, which represented the world by the way, and the last ball to get knocked in the hole was the black ball.

At that point, I had enough and asked my brother about the game of bowling. He looked at me, somewhat confused. I reminded him that, in bowling, everything evened out because the object of the game was for the black ball to knock over the white pins with red necks.

Fast forward to today, and the cancel culture is alive and well. Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, “Gone with the Wind,”—anything that is considered to be an “offensive” stereotype—is on its way out of society. Heck, even in the Chicago real estate market, some real estate agents are dropping the term “master” bedroom, because it’s too closely associated with slavery. I am not making this stuff up.

The cancel culture is getting ridiculous.

Don’t get me wrong. I get the need to have some discussions as we rethink race in this country. But that doesn’t mean canceling everything that might have a negative consequence in our history.

For example, I am the first one to say Confederate monuments don’t belong in the public square. However, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t exist. I say they should be put in a museum and be part of a bigger and broader discussion on race and our past. But saying “The Dukes of Hazzard” should never be seen again on television because the Dukes drove the General Lee, which had the Confederate flag on its roof, is just silly. The last time I checked, Bo and Luke Duke were not racists.

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. That’s a fact. That doesn’t take away from their greatness as presidents. Even Ulysses S. Grant, the commander of the Union Army, whom Abraham Lincoln handpicked to win the Civil War, owned slaves. That doesn’t take anything away from these men. It merely shows that Grant, Washington and Jefferson, like nine other presidents who owned slaves, were only human.

As I said, we can have a discussion about race, and we should. But to cancel anything and everything that someone finds offensive is ridiculous. If anything should be canceled, it is the “outrage,” because—if I may quote my favorite line from “Gone with the Wind”—frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.•

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Shabazz is an attorney, radio talk show host and political commentator, college professor and stand-up comedian. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.

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