Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King is defending Nick Cannon. The popular social justice leader has come forward to speak up for the Hollywood actor and rapper days after perceived anti-Semitic comments cost him his ViacomCBS job.
Shaun King x Defends Nick
This week, King went to his Instagram page to speak big facts on Cannon and the culture’s quick reaction to want to cancel him. Shaun also provided four reasons why people shouldn’t turn their back on Nick.
“I have to weigh in on this. Nick Cannon is a good man with a huge heart. He’s 39 years old. That means he has been on this Earth for over 14,200 days. What I refuse to do is to cancel this man’s 14,000 days because of something he said in 90 seconds. I’m not even debating whether or not you or anyone else sincerely found it offensive. I’m saying that the man apologized, lost huge parts of his career, and I refuse to pile on or “cancel” him. 1. For those of us who fight for actual redemption of human lives, we refuse to cancel people and throw them away like this. It violates the core ethic of what we fight for. It violates my faith as well. 2. It’s easy for you to “cancel” Nick Cannon when you never loved him or needed him in the first place. Black people cannot afford to cancel person after person after person deemed an enemy by the dominant power structure. We’d literally have nobody left. That doesn’t mean we can’t have accountability. It doesn’t mean we don’t ask people to atone for mistakes, but I’m not throwing this man away. I refuse.” -Shaun King’s Instagram
High-Key Details
King also talked about the importance of understanding social media. He specifically narrowed in on how the Internet’s biggest platforms could sometimes do more harm than good.
“3. As a principle, we have to be able to allow people who love us and fight for us to fail, grow, explore, even say dumb shit and make full fledged mistakes, and bounce back from it. It can be a process. But the process must exist. 4. Social media does some good, but it really chews people up and spits them out. It hails you then nails you. People are out here taking their own lives, being hospitalized, and contemplating suicide because words actually do hurt. They do. It’s easy for people who’ve never been the #1 trending topic in the world, and subjected to constant lies and scorn, to assume how they’d handle such pressure. You have no idea what that weight feels like. If not for all that I’ve been through in my own life that built into my soul a stubbornness and a deep sense of endurance, and the support system I have, and my faith, that pressure might’ve broken me a long time ago. ANYWAY. I love y’all. Hard times. All around. Let’s keep on pushing. Shaun” -Shaun King’s Instagram
Wait, There’s More
Last Friday, Cannon went to Twitter and spoke out on being done appeasing everyone. Nick also took things a step further and said he was ultimately done with the entire planet.
“I hurt an entire community and it pained me to my core, I thought it couldn’t get any worse. Then I watched my own community turn on me and call me a sell-out for apologizing. Goodnight. Enjoy Earth??? … Y’all can have this planet. I’m out!” -Nick Cannon’s Twitter
Before You Go
Prior to Nick airing out his frustrations, he went to social media with an open apology. He specifically apologized to the Jewish community for making what some people felt were anti-Semitic comments during a podcast.