Canceling cancel culture with compassion

[Music]

[Applause]

i

am unabashedly a daddy’s girl

my daddy is the first person to have

told me that i was beautiful

he often told me that he loved me and he

was one of my favorite people in the

entire world

which was why it was really challenging

to discover that we had a deep

ideological divide

that was so sincere and so deep

that caused me to not talk to him for 10

years

before the term was coined

i cancelled my father

in the last few years cancel culture has

of course come into great prominence

it’s existed throughout time

but cancel culture in the bigger society

is when a person

in prominence says or does something

that we the people disagree with

and the decision is made to make them

persona non grata

they are done they are not to be revered

they are not to be

a part of our world anymore and that is

in the public

realm i’m going to talk to you today

about the private realm when we choose

to cancel the people

in our circle the people in our core

the people who love us and who we love

and it has been mutually beneficial but

due to a deep and sincere

ideological divide we make the decision

to cancel them out of our lives

i want to suggest that cancel

culture needs to change

and instead we need to move to

compassion culture

but before i go there let me tell you

two of the premises that exist when we

indulge in cancel culture

one we have to believe that we’re right

a hundred percent no possibility of

being wrong

and two the other person the person

we’re going to cancel

clearly does not have the ability to

change

to grow to develop

obviously both of these are problematic

because

sometimes we’re not right i don’t know

about you but there have been times in

my life when i knew beyond a shadow of a

doubt that i was right

only to discover that i was

wrong badly wrong

completely missed the mark so if it

could happen to me

and perhaps it’s happened to you perhaps

it could happen to others

the second is a little even more

challenging because

i know that i’ve changed over the years

haven’t we all though the core parts of

betty have pretty much stayed the same

there have been key elements that have

changed drastically

the betty of eight years old was not the

same as the betty of 18

which was not the same as 28 which was

not the same as 38.

i’ve changed and if i’m able to change

shouldn’t i extend grace to believe that

others can change too so

what should we do instead of canceling

people we should use the tool

called compassion i find the definition

of compassion

is a fascinating one and it’s not one

that i hear people talk about

compassion means to suffer

with someone to suffer

alongside them imagine

when someone say grandpa says that thing

that’s caused you to decide he’s no

longer invited to thanksgiving

what if instead we chose to suffer

alongside him we decided that our love

was so big so deep

so strong that we were willing to

suffer even when it could be potentially

painful

now let’s be clear i am not denying

anyone’s right

to cancel anyone else what i’m

suggesting

is that maybe that’s not the best way

when we think about the situation with

grandpa thanksgiving

if we choose to cancel him we are no

longer in proximity to him

not only do we not to get to hear his

point of view

we don’t get to share ours what if

we’re the only person because of our

deep connection

and love and affection for our

grandfather

and substitute anyone you choose what if

we’re the ones to plant seeds of change

seeds of influence seeds of difference

now to be fair i cannot promise you that

just because you plant the seed

that it will get water that it’ll get

any sunlight

or even a little fertilizer but what i

can tell you

is that if you don’t plant it who

will i find it interesting

this idea of suffering alongside someone

it means that we are choosing to value

the totality of the person

rather than one particular aspect

like a framework or a mindset or a

belief system

we’re choosing to believe that the

entire person is more valuable

than any of the individual parts

and i found an amazing duo who

demonstrated this

beautifully perhaps you’ve heard of them

the late justices ruth bader ginsburg

and antonine scalia were close

close friends and they

were completely divided in terms of

belief systems

in fact antonin scalia once said

what’s not to like other than her

thoughts on the law

he believed she was wrong she believed

he was wrong

they did not shift in that point of view

whatsoever

and yet they had tea together every week

and every new year’s eve they spent it

together with their families

they went on family vacations together

they chose to suffer with

each other rather than to cancel each

other

their love and respect for each other

continued to grow

even though they never saw eye to eye

i imagine that curiosity might be a part

of that

that if we choose to be curious about

that which is different

we might discover something along the

way

after all if we are who we are because

of our lived experiences

isn’t that true for someone else and

have we ever decided to use that tool of

empathy

of walking a mile or so in someone

else’s shoes

to really discover the context for why

they believe what they believe

now by now you’re probably saying yeah

okay betty this sounds good but what

about you

what about you and your dad

it’s a fair question after 10 years

of not talking to my dad i picked up the

phone one day

called him and said i bet

if it were up to you you’d probably go

back in time

and change some things i know i would

but since we can’t how about we start

again

and he said yes because i love you

i always have and i always will

i am so grateful that i made that call

because there was no way for me to know

that a few years later

my dad would develop alzheimer’s

and a few years after that he would die

and we never saw eye to eye

about the thing that divided us

ever but our love

continued it continued through those ten

years when we didn’t speak

and it continued in the six years after

so i am encouraging us to become a

society of people

that choose compassion over canceling

i’m asking us to consider that curiosity

might be a better practice that we might

choose

empathy that we might choose to have a

love that is so

deep so wide so strong

that it can surpass differences

why are we so scared of differences

anyway

i also want us to be a people that plant

seeds seeds of change seeds of

influence seeds of diversity

again i cannot promise to you

or anyone else that planting that seed

is going to make a difference but

what if it does i am the sum of who i

am because of everything that i’ve been

exposed to

my mind has changed over the years and

grown because of the people

in my life who planted seeds in me

some that i saw and some that i didn’t

so wouldn’t it be great if instead of

having a cancel culture

we create a compassion culture where we

are willing to suffer

alongside the ones we love because

we love them and can’t we become

a community that plants seeds

after all if we don’t

who will

thank you

[Music]

you