re: Students worried about being "cancelled." My take: It is good actually for ppl to be thinking about how they could be “cancelled (if we must to use that word). As a former educator, framing the context of what it actually is rather than what students think it is helps them!

In short, “By 'cancelled' you mean you’re thinking more before you’re speaking? Why is that bad? You’re anticipating, in a group setting the numerous ways your subjective experience may be understood by others? Good for you." That's freeing, not restraining.

Back in 2003, in an African-American Poetry class, me, a stupid white kid, not knowing what I was walking into, pushed against some aspects of Achebe’s critique of “Heart of Darkness” when it came up in a discussion. I was quickly and rightfully clowned by a Black student.

My critique came from a place of naïveté and privilege, clearly. I was acting in good faith and not on some “PC Culture bleh” stuff but I just wasn’t fully equipped to see how saying that very much had this very really serious, troubling baggage especially coming from a white guy

It was interpreted as me, a white guy, kvetching about the “canon”—which wasn’t my intention. I wandered into a broader, academic culture war that to me was clearly stupid because I’d made plenty of statements in that class and elsewhere that indicated I wasn’t reactionary.

I assumed it wouldn’t be read that way. But that was on me! I’m struck by how you see people on the left even suggesting there’s a culture of fear because students often better understand the contours of the discourse thanks to the internet and growing sophistication among youth.

An awareness of being "cancelled" (again if we gotta use that word) would have made me sharpen my opinion, maybe not offended a fellow student, and probably would have not wasted class time as this got unpacked the way it was in class because I was a white doofus thinking aloud.

Putting aside the reasons I threw this opinion out there (frustrating things like “participation is part of your grade,” for example), everyone including me would have been served better if I'd have thought through the implications of what I said. That's a good thing.