The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Case for Cancel Culture: How This Democratic Tool Works to Liberate Us All by Ernest Owens

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

The Case for Cancel Culture: How This Democratic Tool Works to Liberate Us All by Ernest Owens Refinery 29's Most Anticipated Books By Black & Latine Authors in 2023! Philadelphia Inquirer's Best New Books for February! "A necessary discourse about power and control, and who ultimately has a voice versus whose is often stifled." ―Preston D. Mitchum, LGBTQIA attorney, activist, and adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University The first major case for cancel culture as a fundamental means of democratic expression throughout history, and timely necessity aimed at combating systems of oppression. “___ is canceled.” Chances are, you’ve heard this a lot lately. What might’ve once been a niche digital term has been legitimized in the discourse of presidents, politicians, and lawmakers. But what really is cancel culture? Blacklisting celebrities? Censorship? Until now, this has been the general consensus in the media. But it’s time to raise the bar on our definition― to think of cancel culture less as scandal or suppression, and more as an essential means of democratic expression and accountability. The Case for Cancel Culture does just that. This cultural critique from 2023 Philly News Award-Winning journalist Ernest Owens offers a fresh progressive lens in favor of cancel culture as a tool for activism and change. Using examples from politics, pop culture, and his own personal experience, Owens helps readers reflect on and learn the long history of canceling (spoiler: the Boston Tea Party was cancel culture); how the left and right uniquely equip it as part of their political toolkits; how intersections of society wield it for justice; and ultimately how it levels the playing field for the everyday person’s voice to matter. Why should we care? Because in a world where protest and free speech are being challenged by the most powerful institutions, those without power deserve to understand the nuance and importance of this democratic tool available to them. Readers will walk away from this first-of-its-kind exploration not despising cancel culture but embracing it as a form of democratic expression that’s always been leading the charge in liberating us all. "Journalist Owens debuts with an incisive defense of cancel culture... his arguments are thought-provoking and well supported. The result is an invigorating survey of a hot-button political issue." ―Publishers Weekly "An important tool for all times, and for anyone looking to learn how to have the difficult but necessary conversations about race, injustice, inequality, and oppression." ―Dawn Ennis, award-winning journalist, advocate, and university professor

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. We certainly appreciate you. Remember, the Chris Voss Show is the only family.

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go to youtube.com for just christmas goodreads.com for chest crisp us the big linkedin groups and linkedin newsletter that we have over there as well today we have an amazing gentleman on the show his newest book came out on a topic that i'm always curious to talk about uh the case for cancel culture how this democratic tool works to liberate us all came out february 21st 2023 ernest owens is on the show with us today we're going to be talking about cancel culture what it means what it's about his research that went into it in insight and hopefully we'll get maybe some people to understand it better from both sides of the aisle uh ernest owens is an award-winning journalist and ceo of earnest media empire llc he is the editor-at-large for philadelphia magazine and winning journalist and CEO of Earnest Media Empire LLC.

He is the editor-at-large for Philadelphia Magazine and president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. He hosts the hit podcast, Earnestly Speaking, as an openly black gay journalist. He has made headlines for speaking frankly about intersectional issues in society regarding race, LGBTQ, and pop culture. In 2018, he launches a growing media company that specializes in multimedia production, consulting, and communications, and The Case for Canceled Culture is his newest and first book. Welcome to the show, Ernest. How are you? Thank you so much for having me on. It's a pleasure.

I'm a big fan of the Chris Voss Show, so to be on the show is exciting. Thank you. Well, it's an honor to have you as well, and congratulations on the launch of the new book. These are always fun. Give us your dot coms or wherever you want people to find you on the interwebages. Yeah, absolutely. So I am on Twitter, at Mr. Ernest Owens. That's the at sign, M-R-E-R-N-E-S-T-O-W-E-N-S. That's on Twitter and Instagram and my website, ErnestOwens.com. There you go. So Ernest, what motivated you want to write this book? You know, it was a moment of just frustration. I felt like a lot of people were misexplaining and misinforming people about what council culture really was. And I was just fascinated with the topic, just as a millennial, as someone who,

you know, really just felt like, you know, you know how they say parents don't understand. I felt like a lot of boomers and Gen Xers who were, you know, hijacking something that really was just a joke, essentially, just a pop cultural phrase within Black Twitter. People used it and blew it out of proportion. And then it became a phenomenon within itself. But initially, that's not how it started. And so I was passionate about informing people about, one, where did council culture as far as the term come from and what it morphed into and how that thing that it morphed into was something that was more familiar to us than what initially happened on twitter and trended there you go so you know cancel culture this is one of the reasons when i saw the book

i was like i really want to have this gentleman on uh i want to have him come and talk about you know what cancel culture is, because it gets kicked around. And like you mentioned before, some people don't fully understand it. Some people think it's something that only the left uses. Some people think it's only something the right tries to paint itself with. There's kind of a victimhood mentality in our culture and we'll get into that. But you, you stepped into some of this arena of what cancel culture is,

I think by accident and got, you know, you were calling out, I think Justin Timberlake and some other things. Take us down your kind of journey of your experience of it. So, yeah, I, you know, in my book, I define cancel culture as when a person, yeah, you know, in my book, I define cancel culture as when a person, OK, a person decides to cancel another person, place or thing that they believe to be detrimental to their way of life. And that's that's a very bold declaration, but it is something that matters. Everyone cancels. Everyone participates in cancel. I believe that everyone cancels, but not everyone is getting canceled. And so how I break this down is that I use what

I've been using throughout this book tour, throughout my conversations with people about cancel culture is what I will call the McDonald's reference. So let's say you're going to McDonald's reference. Let's say you go to McDonald's, and this is all hypothetical. Before I get into this, all hypothetical. I have no issues. I don't want you to get canceled by McDonald's. Well, it's all hypothetical, but let's say you go to McDonald's

and you don't like the way the burger tastes. You're like, I don't like this hamburger. It's not good. I don't want to go there anymore. That's not canceling McDonald's. You just have a matter of personal taste. So if you're a food critic, if you're someone who just simply don't like something based on the merits of its taste per se, or its actual personal opinion about it in a tasteful manner. So you see a movie and you say, the movie was boring. I fell asleep. You know, any of these insignificant types of aspects that shapes your opinion about it, that is, you know, pretty much harmless, that is not cancel culture. So when celebrities say

that my movie is getting thumbs down by the critics, they're trying to cancel my film. If they just didn't think you were funny, that's a matter of taste. It's a matter of opinion. It's not harmful. That's not cancel culture. Now let's talk about what is cancel culture. Let's say hypothetically, you go to that McDonald's and say, you know what? I can't go to this McDonald's because I do not support the inhumane acts of animal cruelty. And to slaughter an animal for food is an act of animal cruelty. And I will not support McDonald's for that. Or let's say you're not a vegetarian or vegan and you say, you know what? I can't support McDonald's because hypothetically, they don't give their workers a fair level wage. So I cannot support a place that does not give

people a fair level wage. That is cancel culture. Here's the thing. Cancel culture does not have to have a negative connotation. It does not have to necessarily be a bad thing, depending on who's looking at it, right? It's subjective. So it is about issues. And so throughout history, we've witnessed cancel culture. Right. We saw people, you know, in America during the American Revolution, dump gallons of tea down the Boston Harbor. They didn't dump the tea because the tea didn't taste good. They dumped the tea because they were took a stance against the Jim Crow South and segregation. Those Montgomery buses that were being boycotted weren't boycotted because the seats weren't good and the bus transportation was trash. It's because they were taking a stance against racial discrimination. So we have to understand that these levels of cancel culture

is based on a higher level of impact and engagement and sophistication. Simple matters of I don't like it just because, or I don't like it because it's stupid, or I don't like it because it just don't taste good. That is not cancel culture. So I don't believe that everything is being canceled. Now, I also say in my book, and this has been something that people have debated amongst themselves, but I declare in a book that I do not believe everyday working class people get canceled. I believe that cancel culture is a power struggle, a power dynamic between those with huge power and influence, institutions with high power against

the everyday man, against the everyday woman, the small guy per se. And in this reality, the reason why I don't believe that everyday people get canceled is because for starters, no one cares about everyday people enough to say, we're going to create a petition to stop this random person on the street. But you will do a petition against major corporations and CEOs and elected officials and superintendents and presidents of universities, people who hold immense power. Those influential people, I believe, are up for cancellation. And I also argue in my book that they're the ones who are the most against the most against council culture because they believe that this thing called accountability is what they're scared of. Can I offer you this as, cause you've, you've studied this and reached

this. Is it, is it possible that billionaires and-millionaires and giant companies that hire lobbyists to influence scotus rulings you know like citizens united different things like that they're actually engaging in some sort of cancel culture this is theory hypothetical i'm running this by you um but they're they're they're kind of actually trying to defeat the everyday man as you mentioned and take power to themselves. Is that cancel culture? Is that just power being power and abusing it? Yeah. So I think it will become cancel culture if you look at it on a larger scale of what they're doing to a population of people. But the resistance and what they're doing per se

is that there's a larger claim, right? They're trying to stop the policy. The tools in which they go about stopping that policy could impact everyday people. But essentially, they're trying to fight something bigger. And so the cancellation is driven by the policy, which holds the influence, right? So when I say I'm against the don't say gay bill or law like the Jim Crow South. Right. There might have been people in the South that were racist, everyday people that were in that, you know, in the segregation era of the 1950s and early 60s. Right. Those everyday people were not being the ones directly canceled. What they were canceling was those policies and those laws. So the means to which we get to that cancellation can impact people. People will become casualties, right?

But the reality is the focus is that those lobbyists are essentially trying to stop and block or influence the Supreme Court and the powers that be. And that's where cancel culture is there. And there's probably some people that are representative or leaders of those things that are being canceled. Like, for example, in Montgomery and Selma, there was the governor of the state, and then there was also, I forget the name of the sheriff in town. Yeah, Bull Connor. Bull Connor, yeah.

You know, and so those people would be after it would be canceled because they're the ones who back the policies. So I had that correct. Correct. Very much so. Correct. And also they did hold power. The governor hold power in that situation. Bull holded power and he was a very influential figure. So I would argue that that cancellation of him and his what he represented when he spearheaded is also a part of council culture as well. And his cancellation because he was the arbitrator of those policies. He held that power over black people in the South.

And I like how in the beginning of the book, you sat down, like kind of explaining what cancel culture is and how we've been doing this for millions of time. I imagine it's that thing that we've always done going back to tribes of cavemen where we determined that someone in the tribe was so toxic and so detrimental to the tribe we had to evict them and and send them off into the wilderness and say you know you're a danger to the tribe and the tribe is determined that we're progressing to you know something else whatever and and you are a person who, it's pretty much my dating life when it comes down to it.

They go, hey, you need to leave because you're a danger to the rest of us. Well, democracy. I mean, essentially that's what cancel culture is about, right? It's about democracy. It's a democratic tool. And what I mean by that is just because it's a democratic tool

doesn't mean it's a tool that I might prefer, but that's how democracy works. You don't always agree on the left or the right about these matters, but you should give the right to dissent. You should have the right to speak truth to power. You should have the right to choose to cancel at your perusal if you are someone who's in a democracy. And in reality, I mean, as you mentioned before with the Boston Tea Party, the power to what you mentioned before about giving the power to the people was what this foundation of America, democracy, and republic was founded on, was to give power back to the people, that no one could be king. We saw this exercise yesterday when we saw Trump go in for his first uh indictments and arrest in new york uh to serve against that and it it it was a revisit of our constitutional a thing that no man is above the law that no president or it can be king and that people can still be held accountable

in accordance with the law regardless of their position of power. And it also sets a great precedent that presidents of the future may want to think a little bit harder about how they behave and what they do. And, you know, I think it was Carol Linnick who said to me one time, we've had her on the show, a great Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. She said, there will always be people in power, Chris, on the left and the right, who will seek to remain in power, who will seek to maintain it, who will seek to hide misdeeds so that they can stay in power. And that's what the fourth estate is about. So I think it's great you talk about this. One thing you talk about in the book is both sides. You have a chapter for when progressives

cancel and when conservatives cancel. Tell us a little bit more of that, if you would. Absolutely. That was one of the first two chapters that I wrote. I did not write my book in chronological order. The introduction came last. The two middle chapters were the first two that I was passionate about the most because I was so sick and tired of both sides pointing the finger. Everyone cancels. Conservatives do it. Progressives do it. We've all seen it. I don't know why everyone's acting like this is a political issue. It's a very nonpartisan issue. It's the one thing that they both do, even though they both hate it.

It's the irony of it all. They're both doing it. And so in this book, I'm very clear that I studied how progressives cancel through time. They come with a utilitarian sense of equality and virtue. They're driven by this idea of fairness and equity. And a lot of the things they cancel is driven by things that they believe to be unfair, discriminatory and offensive. Conservatives, however, oftentimes cancel with the type of determination as driven by their faith, by their religiosity. They're driven by their patriotism, their sense of preserving a culture, a society. They're driven by preserving a time in which, I mean, arguably the patriarch, you know, a lot of the conversations. And when I go into this route, some people get upset because they feel like I'm taking a political side here,

but I'm just stating what they're doing. They are invested in maintaining and preserving historical aspects of society that were more patriarchal, more predominantly white, more Christian, more isolationist. That's their driven. When you say something like make America great again, taking our country back, that speaks to that type of sentiment. And so they have been active on canceling ideals and individuals that are moving matters that include more inclusivity, more diversity, more dissent. And they're very aggressive. I mean, you look at the book bans that are happening right now. I mean, look at the books that are being banned. They're not banning Mein Kampf. They're banning books by black and queer authors. They're not banning, you know, they're they're more they're defending, you know, the insurrection on January 6th. But they're angry about Colin Kaepernick taking a knee against police brutality.

So they're cherry picking what free speech matters and what doesn't and oftentimes the free speech that they're invested in is supporting fuels ideals around white supremacies you know phobia sexism i would argue and traditional values that are driven by a judeo-christian mindset you know i i would you do you feel that both sides cherry pick maybe the left and the right oh absolutely as a black queer man i i have my gripe with with the with the democratic party um very much so right i think that they are very selective about what they choose to engage in i mean look i wrote an op-ed yesterday criticizing the first lady because i thought that you know she was having a double standard in asking the losing team, Iowa, to meet with LSU, the champions, at the White House. When have they ever done that? Why would you now choose to invite the losing team?

Yeah. I thought it was interesting. I haven't delved as much as you probably have into that argument. But I started seeing the tinges of it across the greatest news channel in the world tiktok not really folks that's a joke i'm serious but it is a good way to see what's you know trending and in popularity i don't so i don't understand the fullness of that that lsu thing but i i know normally we do invite winners the winners are always only the winners and and now she has walked back the statement because of the pushback.

But, you know, I do see situations where there can be some double standards, some, you know, just trying to, you know, create this sense of fairness, quote unquote. But then sometimes it's preferential treatment that oftentimes benefit people that don't look like me. And so I've seen hypocrisy. I've seen the pandering that happened. Some of the problematic behavior that we see on both sides. There is racism within both sides of political parties. Yeah. And pandering. And pandering. To try to be the people who aren't racist, but some of the stuff they still do is racist. Very much so. And so for where I stand, I don't have a dog in the fight of trying to defend either side. But I do call it as I see it.

And oftentimes, historically, in modern era, conservatives have definitely done things that have been detrimental to people that don't look like the leaders that they oftentimes elect. Yeah. You know, I'm a moderate Democrat, and I've gone from both sides. During the George Bush W era, beginning of that era, I was a Republican, and boy, that guy was an idiot. And I just left the party over that. And I'm not religious, so I could see the problems over that and i'm not religious so i i could see the you know the the problems over there and then i went to full liberal and then now i've moved to the middle because i i can really see the

fallacy about the extremes of both the left and right and i can look at them and i can i i'm kind of a person who can uh see both sides and go well you know i know, I see the good point of this and the bad point of this and the, you know, the thing. And to me, there is a progressive middle ground, you know, where we can evolve as a society, but there's, you know, the extremists on both sides. Yeah. And what's funny to me, you mentioned about the hypocrisy of the of both sides of the right especially it's funny you'll see the the right is always trying to paint the left as the cancel culture people but you'll see them try and like declare that they've been canceled to wear the badge of honor on the right and you're like no you didn't get canceled they just said you were stupid and they're

like running around on fox and go i got canceled today and you're like, no, you didn't get canceled. They just said you were stupid. And they're like running around on Fox News going, I got canceled today. And you're like, you're trying. That does protest too much. Well, I mean, it's high class grifting. It's high class. High class grifting. I like that. They're grifting.

And they're grifting. They're grifting. They've built careers. I mean, this is grifting. Like they're building careers off of false narratives that they've manufactured to get people to fund their campaigns, to support their content, and to build it. And they're predicating it off of vulnerable people, regardless of race. It's vulnerable people that think that there's going to be some watershed revelation that's going to provide them some level of prosperity.

And it's sad because whether you're white or black or whomever, they're feeding off of the misinformation and dis stroking outrageous claims, homophobia, transphobia to get people to buy into their ideology. And it's disgusting. And we've seen it happen. I mean, that's how Trump got elected in 2016. That's how he almost got elected in 2020. And that is why people still think he can be a possible candidate in 2024. Because there is now a built-in investment interest. And you know how we know this, is look at Fox News. Look at Tucker Carlson. Look at these individuals who got caught in emails joking and bashing and trashing the Republicans, including Trump. But then going on TV and legitimizing this stuff, because they knew that that's what the ratings were going to give. So they didn't believe it

themselves, but they knew that doing this was going to fuel revenue. So it's a grift. It's not legitimate journalism. It's not legitimate journalism, because when you're a journalist, you're a public servant. You are someone of the public, the fourth estate. You have an obligation, both morally and ethically, to inform the public with the fourth estate. You have an obligation, both morally and ethically, to inform the public with what you know and how you know it in a fair, concise way. If you choose to be selective and do what we consider alternative facts, then you're basically doing a disservice and you're invested in disinformation. And that's why they're having this major lawsuit because of the fact that it's obvious that they knew better, but they chose not

to do better. And that to me is the problem that we're seeing with those individuals is that they're capitalizing off of it. You know what's crazy? Dofthai protests too much. The biggest people that's complaining the most about cancel culture are the people who are so against cancel culture and aren't being canceled. It's like you're the ones hollering the most about it. You've taken something and you've made it a joke. And that's why I wrote this book to reclaim it, to take it back, to say this is what cancel culture is. And what you guys are doing is cosplaying as victims. see this is this is kind of something that i've seen over the arc of my life and it started you know i grew up in the in the 60s and

70s and the mantra back then was you know you were self-accountable you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps there was no participation trophy you were a winner or loser. And, um, and suddenly there became this culture of victimhood that started. And, you know, we started and I, I had never seen it before. You know, we started having to put signs on bridges that say, don't jump off the bridge. It'll kill you. We started to put things on plastic bags from the dry cleaners that said, you know, don't put this around the babies or they'll die. You know, stuff that usually Darwin and Darwinism would, would work out, you know, and, and certainly we don't want babies to die, but, you know, it's, it's kind of become to a

point where everything, you know, has to have a warning label that can kill you. Like I should know that there should be a logical reasoning that if I look at a bridge, that if I'm going to jump off it, I'm probably going to die. Or there's probably going to be some injury before me. So you know why that's the case. I have an interesting theory on that. Capitalism. I think that as the world got smarter in some ways, people began to create lawsuits and liability. And we became a country that began to just continue to further exploit each other in more sophisticated, elevated ways. I mean,

exploitation started in this country the moment we were on stolen land and bringing in enslaved people to plow that soil on stolen land that was taken from indigenous people and exploited by enslaved folks that are my ancestors. So what I've learned from this is that as we expanded on the exploitation of this country, you got legal folks and lawyers and folks that found a thousand different ways to exploit companies and businesses and organizations. And so, you know, once upon a time, common sense, right? Don't drop off the bridge. But then someone did. And they said, well, did the bridge say you shouldn't lawsuit?

And then you start seeing these stupid lawsuits. And I think that capitalism drove companies to be super uberly cautious to avoid any possible liability because there were people at every side of the corner being a vulture trying to exploit. And see, I've often thought that I'm like, this is coming from the rise of way too many attorneys going on. But you're right. But you're right also that it has been victimhood has been something to exploit and oppress and whatever i mean there are the early things that uh white people did to the native americans in this country when we took it over as you mentioned uh you know they had their own like well we're victims you know we're victimhoods of you know what they're trying to do we're just trying to borrow some land from them and then he's like no we think we know what you're trying to do that's right and uh you know i mean you can probably trace that back through eons of time through the roman empire and yada yada yada but it does seem to be that i mean it just it's like almost now and i don't know if

social media has has played into the amplification of victimhood um it you know you see people actively searching for i'm a victim of this you know i have ptsd i had a bad relationship with someone no you just were two people that were awful and shouldn't have been together you don't really have trauma and pts Well, I would say to a certain extent, there are some, we are in a society that too many things are happening all at once. Everything, everywhere, all at once. There is an awakening of people that are now breaking actual trauma in society around stigma. I would say stigma, breaking stigma around being comfortable and open about their actual concerns and fears and needs, right? So we're seeing people that are saying things like,

look, I'm going to therapy. I've had unresolved issues in my family life that needs to be addressed. So I'm going to therapy and there is some real respect and vulnerability happening. So these are real intimate, legitimate issues. But again, like we said earlier about bridges and lawyers, there are people watching this and they're saying to themselves, I want that attention. I want that sympathy. I want that support. So now I need to forge my own victimhood to get it. And what's sad is that we're in a society where so much of this is happening that we're actually ignoring legitimate real victims. We're actually ignoring people who are actually being vulnerable and transparent, and we're starting to conflate. And so for this situation around council culture, it's interesting that you're seeing these,

and this is a really good example, is that you see a lot of conservatives are talking about how they're not being allowed to speak in certain colleges and that, you know, people are not supporting what they're saying and doing as if people don't have a right to do that. The same people that are saying that this is a free market society or they're proud capitalists are the same people that don't understand how supply and demand works. So they're mad that people don't want what they're selling, but they want people to sell, but they only want to call it cancel culture when it's not what they're selling is selling. It's a baby entitlement. It's a sense of entitlement that we're seeing. And the real issue is the entitlement. The matter is that we're always going to have dissent. We're

always going to either like something or not like something. But the question I hit in this book and some of the themes in the court is, who do you think you are that makes you feel like you're above approach? How dare you assume that no one should give you feedback, that no one should critique what you're doing, and that if they do, you have the right to weaponize their legitimate critique and turn it into something ill-intentioned. That person has said to you, you know, I don't think your movie's good. I think it's offensive. Now it's you're a hater. You're trying to cancel me. I'm a creator.

I can do what I want. No, you can't. Not in a market in which you expect me as a consumer to engage. Or you ask for my money, right? Right. When you make a bad film. Consumer. What about consumer? What happened to consumer input? Isn't the customer's opinion given some validity? So are we supposed to dismiss customers, dismiss constituents,

dismiss voters? Why is it that the most powerful people and the most influential people are mad? They're mad because they don't like to be told they're wrong. Their egos are too inflated. They're not humble enough to just simply say, I didn't know this. I'm sorry. I was wrong. It's okay for you not to like this. They don't want to hear that. Wait, you want people to be self-accountable? Exactly. They don't want to be self-accountable. And that's why I look at council culture as a democratic tool because we, the people, step in when these people can't self-hold themselves. They can't be self-accountable. They can't check themselves. We check in. And even when they have lots of money and they pay off lawyers to cover the things they're doing,

we, the people, have the court of public opinion and we weigh in and we speak up when we think there are injustices. When we think about R. Kelly, who was this R&B artist who sexually abused women for years, decades. And he was getting away with it. For over a quarter of a century, no one was holding him accountable. The courts couldn't do it. He was paying off people. He had a criminal enterprise. It wasn't until a group of women, Black women specifically, led a campaign called hashtag New R. Kelly that they demanded for his music to be taken off a radio station. Now, people said, oh, that they demanded for his news to be taken off a radio station. Now, people said, oh, that's counsel culture, but this was their demand.

And as a result of them raising their voices, a criminal investigation has come, and this man has been found guilty. And this man may not see another walking day of freedom of rest of his life. He's canceled. And rightfully so. And i think there are times where we've seen council culture work effectively and we've seen times that council culture is not arguably you know just does his music still get played on r&b stations mostly not i mean most major mainstream some people you know independent stations might there's some people that you know listen one of the things i've made clear in the book is that council culture is not infinite. It's not a finalization. People will always say to me, well, you know, they want perfection in this, but just like our

criminal justice system, just like our court system, just like everything else, our healthcare system, none of these institutions are perfect. And just because they're not perfect don't necessarily mean that they shouldn't exist. Now, here's the funny thing I always tell conservatives. I have my own opinions about policing in America. But I always say to them, do you want, you know, you're so against council culture and the system of council culture and the process. You want it to be done. You want to cancel council culture. Cool. Do you think that, why do you want to do that?

I'll ask the conservative. And they'll say, because, I mean, I could tell you these examples of how this person was canceled. And I'm like, Roseanne Barr wasn't canceled in the way you think she was. I mean, she's on Fox News.

She's on Fox Nation when the comedy starts. She's going on podcasts. You know what I'm saying? She must be all right a little bit. But I said, okay, let's just say that, okay, you're naming Roseanne Barr, these people that are canceled. And so you think that because

of these anecdotal experiences, you think that the system should be completely done, right? You don't want cancel culture. It's so bad. All right. Do you support the abolition of policing in America? No, we can't kill. We can't abolish the police system. OK, well, I can name tons of unnamed black unarmed black people that were killed extra extra judiciously by the police. And the system was flawed and we saw that George Floyd police should be abolished based on your logic, based on these examples, I can make the case for that. Well, I don't understand. There's a couple of bad apples. There could be some bad actors and things, but overall, we should have it. And I say, and that is the rationale is how I feel about cancel culture. That yes, there are some bad actors, but essentially at the core of cancel culture is the core of accountability and the public's ability to dissent. And some people are not

going to dissent the way that we want them to. They're not going to sit on issues we agree on, but the right to do so, to have the tool and the choice to do so when everything else fails, we need to have it. And that has been my case for council culture. There you go. I love how you put it earlier. You put it really concise as, you know, we live in this world now where everybody's a brand you know every chick is a brand on instagram for dating every you know and and putting themselves out there everyone's trying to get their voice for this is what i believe and then there's that victimhood part of it and social media i think has really amplified it

because people are people are brand managing their social media. They're not human beings anymore just hanging out. They're like, I am a brand. You know, the Chris Foss show is a brand. We got canceled for using too much blue in this whole thing. I mean, there's the red. You know, both sides. Yeah, we're discriminating clearly against

the red. You know, it's showing. There's a red live up there we got red live up there but it was a little bit clearly we're we need to be more inclusive to the red um and i'm not i'm not i'm just making a fun of of the blue on our show um because i you know we've had lots of inclusive people on but you know it it almost seems and what i'm trying to say is there's this kind of rush to paint themselves as victims. It's like a competition of people falling all over themselves to be victims.

And, you know, why I have a theory on that is because nobody wants to be the leader. Right. Which makes them accountable. And they're the victim. Who's the problem? Ah, who's the problem? like think about that like no one wants the accountability so everybody divorcing sells the account it's like a hot potato oh i don't have it you got it no no no i got it i got and everyone's like fighting and hustling to to take on the to run from the problem and so i think that's the issue like when we talk about racism in America,

when white supremacy strikes, there's someone who says, well, I was an Irish American. Well, you know, that's true. And you've experienced your, your, your, your ancestors might've experienced that, but that's not the same experience that is happening in America today. That's impacting black and brown people. That's true. But they want to be able to align themselves with some sense of marginalization. I'll give you an example. I'm black and I'm gay. So in the queer community, LGBTQ community, I've done a lot of journalism and reporting on racism in the LGBTQ community. There are a lot of white gay men in the community that even though they're gay, they are benefiting from all types of other privileges. And that even though we're both, we may have the same sexual orientation, our lived experiences are different. right? You can put a white man alongside another, a white woman. Her experiences in America is going to be different from yours. You all have the same racial identity, but your gender identity

means different things for you in society. And what I noticed from these experiences is that when I would have conversations about racism in the LGBTQ community, I would encounter white gay men who would quickly go, well, you know, I'm gay. I've experienced discrimination too. Well, yes, but you're also perpetuating it. And there's a hard conversation to be had because I think what happens is every time someone is being put in the hot seat to have to address a problem or a thing they do, rather than simply sit in that accountability, they deflect. And so we see the right deflect, like Trump deflects all of the time. So yesterday, he decides that it's okay for Marjorie Taylor Greene to come to New York, gets run out of her own protest. And the narrative was, remember Hillary, lock her up, lock her up.

He wants to lock Hillary up. She's a criminal. She's bad. Why is Marjorie Taylor Greene saying Trump is going to be around so many innocent people that's been persecuted, like Nelson Mandela? Oh, that was rich. Nelson Mandela and Jesus Christ. So now being indicted and locked up is a badge of honor now. But it wasn't a badge of honor for Hillary a couple of years ago.

Republicans talk a lot about moral decency and respectability. And the evangelicals spoke against porn and Hustler magazine. I talk about some of that in my book. Jerry Farwell, all these people but the funny thing is is that all of a sudden when trump runs for office his sins are forgiven we don't talk about stormy daniels we don't talk about the grabber by the you know in the conversations we don't talk about his long-standing history of being around adult entertainers and all of his ratchet boy bad boy ways All of a sudden we ignore all of

those principles. And so there's a double standard and there's a hypocrisy. And to your point about victimhood, victimhood is weaponized to divorce people from accountability. I love it. We got to be adults. We got to be adults. We have to be adults and own up when we're wrong. Yeah. And this is about being grown adults. It's time for adults to be responsible and accountable. And that's what we're missing in society is people that simply can say, I was wrong. Not I'm a victim, not me playing the blame game, not me blaming. You know, Andrew Cuomo, the former governor, the former governor the disgrace governor in my book he says he was canceled a democrat saying you know i won't get in i won't stand for this council culture and it's like so you adopted the same ideology of the right when you're in some hot trouble now you're acting like a Republican. Yeah.

And that's disgraceful. That's disgraceful. Instead of just being self-accountable. I mean, even after Me Too, I'm like, what is he doing running around hugging people? Like, you know, come on, man. I grew up with, you know, sexual harassment starting in the 90s.

And I'm just like, why are you running around hugging people and touching them like one fun fact i was born in 1971 i'm 31 october 12th 1991 do you remember what was going on during october of 1991 no i don't you're gonna know quickly My mother had a contraction when she heard a famous hearing of what I would say was a moment of counsel culture or divorce of accountability. OJ Simpson? Anita Hill. Anita Hill. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. October 91, when the conversation about pubic hair on a can was discussed, she had a contraction.

I was born October 12th, that weekend, that Saturday, when the hearings were going on, because it was so much intensity. I talk about Anita Hill and what happened to her in my book. And here you have this man, Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, describing what was happening to him as a high-tech lynching. Wow. Council culture. We didn't call it that, but those were the words. He was making himself a victim of something that he most likely did. There you go.

I should do that with, I don't think there's a taxation joke I want to make about it, but I should claim the taxes or council culture. No, I'm just kidding. They're not. You pay for stuff but uh you know i like i like how you've addressed this in the book and and i i believe your argument too is maybe we should be more responsible with cancel culture and what we're using it for and how we're weaponizing it and really you know balance it sometime between like am i just trying to play the victim here and

get some participation trophy you know get attention and validation that I'm a victim. What selfish means, you know, selfishness of it. And I'm thinking about, you know, what's the next book. Hmm. But I'm thinking, but one of the things I've been thinking about going on this book tour, you know, this, this conversation has evolved since the first time I started writing it during the pandemic.

But one of the things that I have developed and thought about since the book's been released is the fact that in some ways we have to acknowledge that humans are imperfect. And there are some people that are weaponizing cancel culture for their own selfish needs. We've seen it. And let's be clear, it can be times where, let's be real, the issue and the cause they're fighting for is legitimate, but the ways that they're going about it might be self-serving for other things outside of the cause they're fighting for. And we've seen that manipulation. And my journalism, man, I've covered progressive hypocrites, people that I think are grifters, people that I think are exploiting communities. I wrote a very big bombshell story about Campaign Zero, which was

led by DeRay McKesson, criticizing his leadership, his ego, his arrogance, while he was pursuing the pursuit to advocate for justice for Black lives. He was also, I think, explaining aspects of the movement to fill his own personal coffers. And so I did investigate a story for New York Magazine that just recently won, it was a part of a package, a group, a team of us. We won a magazine, the National Magazine Award covering what happened after Black Lives Matter for 10 years. And so to be clear to people listening to this podcast and read the book, the way the book has been framed for folks, of course, those on the right, I've been on Pierce Morgan, I've been on the shows, they frame it like, oh, this is progressive that's taking a punch at

conservatives and he's narrow-minded and he's only going at that. But honestly, I'm looking at this in the totality because as someone who is a part of these various communities, I don't like how my community is being represented by some people. And I see the harms of that. I don't like the way the Democratic Party is going in some regards. You know, there are wins that we can win and the way that we win, the way that progressives can win, the movement, you know, I think the real progressives were my grandparents, were my ancestors, were the people that understood that this issue was bigger than them. They were selfless people. They were people driven by faith in their values, and there was nothing wrong by that. They had a moral inclination, but they also had self-determination. And I think we're missing some of these values of leadership in this country within Democrats and Republicans.

We're missing conviction. We're missing maturity. We're missing the virtues that made this country something that people were once proud of. And I think everyone needs to take a step back. And this book is doing that to say, let's be kinder. Let's be more considerate. Let's be civil. Civility is missing. You mean I have to like people? You don't. You don't have to. And the reality is, there was a time I felt at one point, and I wrote about this in previous pieces, but when I was in, I went to the University of Pennsylvania, I went to college at Penn,

and everyone calls it a liberal college, but listen, you have the Trumps went there, Elon Musk went there. You got a very interesting bag of people. Joe Biden's granddaughter went there. I went there. It's a mix of various views. When people say liberal, I'm like, I don't know about that. We were very mixed back.

And what I tell people was that when I was in college, it was 2012 was the year I got the vote in my first presidential election. I was just one year shy in 08 to vote for Obama. But I voted for college, it was 2012 was the year I got to vote in my first presidential election. I was just one year shy in 08 to vote for Obama. But I voted for Obama, of course. My first president I voted for was in 2012. Conversations back then when I was in student government, you could debate with Republicans. There are people that like Mitt Romney. You could say, you know what? Even though Mitt Romney's not my guy, I never had this fear that the country would be completely devastated if he was president compared to what the options are. Now I go to the polls as a jaded millennial and I'm like, I'll vote between life or death. I can't even have fun anymore.

Like I miss the days of retail shopping. We can say this sweater is nice. This sweater got to me strikes. Now it's if I don't wear this sweater there won't be a sweater you know like i don't have an option it's either being naked or wearing a sweater now it's like and then the sweater you get even though it is a sweater you're like it's itchy it's scratchy but you can't even complain yeah i feel right now with politics that there's only one reasonable option but the reasonable option is, let's say, the best option, we're stuck.

Yeah, and people get frustrated and they lose hope or interest in that because, to me, you know, I love what Obama said once and it really stuck with me and, in fact, it carried me through the Trump years. You know, we're a country that zigs and zags. We don't always progress, you know, in a straight line. We have to find and wind our way there. And part of this comes from cancel culture or protests or boycotts or whatever it's been called through the ages. And it's important we recognize that, but also that, you know, we have to kind of move as a society forward. You know, a lot of people didn't approve of gay marriage. Now it's very popular.

A lot of people didn't, you know, approve of things. You know, it takes some time to come into the consciousness of humanity. You know, one thing I like that you address, you know, you talked about Me Too in the book, the Me Too thing. And I saw the great benefits of Me Too. I mean, it brought up people who I love. Bill Cosby was the first comedian I was ever exposed to. I loved his work.

It made a difference. It probably made me want to be funny and a comedian. And I still have a hard time with the fact of what it was. And, I mean, to me, he was my first comedian, really. And I remember 12, 11 years old listening to the Ark, Noah and the Ark bits. And, you know, I grew up with, hey, hey, hey, Fat Albert. I mean, and his work was seminal. And I think his work is.

But, you know, there's the private side of that, man. But then I also saw Me Too start really morphing into something very toxic where I saw women sitting around going, hey, I had a bad date. You know, we saw the Zeke, I forget his name. Yeah, where, you know, suddenly bad dates were becoming me too things i had friends that were canceled in that whose lives were destroyed whose incomes were destroyed because there were there was private people behind them that uh you couldn't break up their marriages and they were using it as a wedge and i saw the people in that sitting around going well i don't understand how come i i i didn't get rich off this this kind of sucks and then later you know they were they were they were called out to be uh nazi you know nazi lovers

um who uh were being put on the new york times uh opinion editorial thing um and so you you know the hypocrisy of some of it and really getting it out of control where people were just searching for victimhood to a point that it really wasn't benefiting what the core value of it really was, getting the monsters to be put away. And so I think it's something that's important we think about. What do you think about that? I mean, I think what I try to tell people is this always comes up in these conversations. And I will make the same case I make for this as I will make for what the argument is for why some people defend policing. It's not a fair system always. It's not judicious. No system is. No system is perfect. And again, anytime you see a movement get momentum and it starts off virtuous, there's always going to be bad actors that are going to try to hijack that movement.

You look at the civil rights movement, you know, the people who started that, that led that, they led with the purest intentions and they had a goal in mind, had an agenda. And you've seen people come and use that movement and weaponize that movement to do horrible things. And what I have done is I've said to people, that person doing that thing, that's not civil rights movement. Van Jones, he's not a social justice activist. He doesn't hold those views. He's a joke. He's a joke. He's a joke. And he's someone that is benefiting off of the exposure for his own personal brand. And he does not reflect the real legitimate activists that are doing the real on the ground grassroots work. And I think we have to be as a people. We have to have discernment. And so what I don't want to do is conflate the Me Too movement with these bad actors.

Yeah. See that stuff. We know that's not the same work of Tarana Burke, who was a creator of the Me Too hashtag movement. You know, that's not the work of those countless women who shared their stories in vulnerable. They're not the same. And so we have to be able to recognize that and distinguish that. You know, for example, I don't have any actual respect for any of the so-called work of Sean King. I don't believe him. I don't trust him. I don't think that the way in which he's going about social justice per se is the right way. I think that it's toxic. I think that it's alienating. I think that he has done a lot of

things of harm to people I know in the movement. And I don't consider that social justice. I don't consider what he's doing social justice. I find it to be vanity fair. Broke his ego into giving himself access to inflate his various brands and things that he's trying to sell. And a lot of this stuff is money that does not go to support actual movements per se. But he's yielded this power, wielded this power for his own self-interest, in my opinion. I think there are people that we see

out there, when we see these bad actors in these different spaces, don't bring up the movement to those people. Just say, those are some crazy people that's out here saying some stupid things and they're dumb and there's always going to be crooks, there's always going to be grifters, there's always going to be crooks there's always going to be you know uh grifters there's always gonna be people like that but let's not put them in the same conversation with people that are actually doing the work and this is why i think it was important because i wanted to have you on the show for the book is to really identify what cancel culture is and how we need to be self-accountable to recognizing the bad actors you know um when i used to go in the gym i would see

the fox news thing and you know you catch a blurb because you're you know you're in the locker room and so you've got to hear and and i live in utah and so they think that's uh news um and you know you'd hear whatever they were going on and it was always like black lives matter and and some of the funding around sean king and Black Lives Matter and stuff. And basically utilizing the bad actors to call out, well, this paints the whole movement of what's trying to go on in America. And so I think it's important that we're self-accountable and we recognize those bad actors, as you say, and we identify, okay, here's the purity of why this is important and the impurity of why we need to move progressively forward and become better people and a better nation. But then there's also, you know, that dark side where people are just maybe trying to make too much money and do whatever. Right, right.

Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love it. Get back to the of of the values of it and you know people will get dismissive and stuff i will say with the marjorie terry green comment that uh donald trump is nelson mandela um nelson mandela was in jail for uh what was it i pulled up here 27 years so what i think we should do is we should experiment with this, put Trump in jail for 27 years and let's just see if at the end of 27 years, he is the Nelson. Nelson became president

of South Africa. So there you go. So, uh, let's, let's go ahead and experiment with that and see if it really is what it is. Put him in jail for 27. I mean, he's in his mid-70s, I believe. 76, I believe, yeah. Yeah, so then he'll be 100. Yeah, plus. Yeah, 100 plus years. Yeah, let's crucify him like Jesus Christ. We shouldn't do that. I don't want to condone political violence.

It's such a joke, people. Let's crucify him like Jesus, like MTG said. I just think the comparisons are ridiculous. These are ridiculous comparisons. Yeah, well, I'll lock him up. Anyway, it's been wonderful to have you on the show. I just think the comparisons are ridiculous. These are ridiculous comparisons. Yeah. Well, I'll lock him up. Anyway, it's been wonderful to have you on the show. We really appreciate it.

And I wanted you to come on and share this knowledge so that we can learn more about what's going on and we cannot default to these. You know, people just are so lazy nowadays that they just they see something or something or they they form a five second opinion off a meme they see on tiktok and they decide that that's political gospel or whatever it is uh give me give me your dot coms ernest uh so people can find you on the interwebs get to know you better yeah ernest owens.com is my website and as far as the book go i just want to be clear it's hardback and audiobook and the audiobook is in my voice so if you like how I talk and you want to hear me read the book to you, I'm the voice. I'm the narrator of my book. So it's there. There you go. Thank you very much for

coming on. We certainly appreciate it, sir. No, thank you so much. This is great. Thank you. And thanks to Moniz for tuning in. Order up the book where refined books are sold. Remember, stay out of those alleyway bookstores. I had to get a tetanus shot and I got mugged in one the other day. I don't know. Are there bookstores in one the other day. I don't know. Are there bookstores in alleyways, Chris?

I don't know. That's the joke, folks. Go to wherever fine bookstores are available and order up the book, The Case for Cancel Culture, How This Democratic Tool Works to Liberate Us All, February 21, 2023, by Ernest Owens. Thanks, Madness, for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, 4ChestChristmas, YouTube.com, 4ChestChristmas, and all those crazy places on the

internet those kids are at today, or wherever that tomorrow, you know, there'll probably be something else tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time. And that should have us out.