The past few weeks I haven’t felt like I can enjoy anything because if I take time to enjoy myself, it feels as if I’m using my white privilege to ignore the problems of the world around me. Then you add on the fact that every other day someone is being cancelled for something they said that is offensive. I don’t have any issues with this in theory. You have a right to decide how you spend your time and money in life.  I stopped supporting one of my favorite authors Cassandra Clare a few years ago because she was accused of plagiarism, and it wasn’t the first allegation of plagiarism that I had heard about her at the time. 

Then once I did research on the case again. I thought about it and decided that it was okay for me to support her work again. Everyone has a line for what will cause them to stop supporting a project or a person.  I didn’t support Cassandra Clare for a few years because I felt that if her work was plagiarized, she didn’t respect the work that other fantasy authors did to create their own characters if hers were copies of someone else’s work. I didn’t go on Twitter and start a #cancelcassieclare campaign. I would explain my views if someone asked, but I always tried to say it was only my choice. I hate it when I  am talking to someone about something I love, and they start to tell me about every problematic aspect about the subject. 

The thing about cancel culture is it doesn’t allow people the room to acknowledge their mistakes and show how they have grown. It takes an entire career and boils it down to one incident. It’s a very nerve-wracking time as a creator because enough people may take offense to something you didn’t even know was offensive. 

It makes me nervous to put anything out there because I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone who enjoys my work with any comments I might make. I want to show various different ethnicities, and I’m willing to do the research to make sure I honor a specific culture or group of people properly. Will that be enough, or will I be another cancel culture casualty?