An Abolitionist Perspective on Cancel Culture

Illustrated by Kimi Moana (she/her)

In the first lockdown, you would have watched as your Instagram feed filled up with tirades of abolitionist rhetoric, and never ending posts showing plain black squares.

You would have watched all the Instagram girls posting ACAB in their captions, screaming ‘defund the police’ and seemingly rising to abolitionist thought. It felt hopeful, for a second, until capitalism roared its ugly head and reminded you of the way social causes become commodified to enhance people’s brand.

As everybody’s eyes were on the Black Lives Matter movement, there was a moment that hinted towards a wider public understanding of the need for abolition. As people started calls to defund the police, the goals of prison abolition felt more achievable, more obtainable.

As time has passed though, it’s apparent that the collective thinking has become warped from the original message of abolition.

The same girls seen posting ACAB in their captions are simultaneously encouraging their followers to send hateful messages to individuals that have disagreed or wronged them online.

While it is true, that in absolutely no situation should individuals who perpetrate harm not be held accountable, it is also true that exiling individuals from their community only further entrenches negative behaviours through isolation and loss of support.

We are seeing cancel culture going down a dangerous path, where there is no room for nuance, or healing, or transformation.

We need to be able to move towards solutions that look to solve the root cause of harm while still ensuring restoration and accountability. It is possible for those perpetrating harm to be held accountable in ways that also provides for their transformation and education.

While call-out culture can be functional for those committing harm in positions of hierarchical power, such as politicians or influential white supremacists, this is not productive in situations of your own echo chamber and group chat.

We can’t buy into a culture of shaming people online when they disagree with our opinions. This only further entrenches an ethos of punishment that leaves no room for individuals to understand their wrongdoings or even remedy them.

True accountability stems from acknowledging the harm that you’ve caused through an understanding of the root cause of the behaviour and a further desire to repair the harm that has been caused.

Cancelling people, much like incarceration, does not look at the root cause of harm but rather isolates and punishes people without deeper considerations.

Accountability is not synonymous with punishment.

It is possible to strive for restorative forms of justice that hold individuals accountable.

Realistically, the majority of those who perpetrate harm do not receive life sentences, meaning that at some point after serving time they will leave their prison cells. It is therefore likely that these people will return home to the same communities in which they’ve perpetrated harm, and often to live with the same people they’ve hurt.

Therefore, it is not productive to rely on solutions that only ostracise and shame individuals. This only further entrenches their negative perceptions of the world and offers no support to remedy their harms and behaviour.

Abolitionist thought strongly believes that all individuals have the capacity for change and should be given the chance to remedy their wrongs.

We need to find ways to hold people accountable while enabling the perpetrator the time and resources needed to hold accountability and heal themselves. These things do have the ability to coincide together.

As most issues are, this is largely caused by a lack of resources and support from the government to support criminal justice interventions that don’t rely purely on incarceration.

It shouldn’t be up to the close friends and family of those committing harm, who will not be professionals, to be the sole support system or foundation for change in this individuals life. There needs to be avenues available that show perpetrators of harm the ways in which their behaviour is affecting others and ways they can change this.

As individuals, our part to play is to put forward belief that every single human being deserves the opportunity for change. Cancel culture does not afford that simple tenant; rather rendering individuals incapable of taking accountability and transforming their mindset.

We need to look towards different and better solutions for justice.