cancel culture

How John Henry Faulk Ended Cancel Culture

R. Horton

Well, I guess John Henry knew about as much about what they’re calling “cancel culture” these days as just about anyone. Now, John Henry was a story-teller, and most folks liked the stories he told all right. He was a good Methodist boy from outside of Austin, and he knew how to get people interested in a story, even if it never really had any point to it at all, because he just had a nice way of talking that people could relate to.

Not everyone liked everything he said, though. For instance, I guess some people were a little peeved when he said he thought maybe Cuba wasn’t so much worse off under Castro than it had been before, and, if truth be told, maybe most people were doing a smidge better than they had been, and maybe it would be okay if the government did a little more to help people out. After all, he said, the government was sort of like a bus driver, and the people were paying for a smooth ride. If the bus started swerving off in the ditches and everything, well, the people should probably take over and get things back on solid ground.

Well don’t you know that was enough to get people up in arms against poor old John Henry, and they started to call him a communist, and being called a communist was just about enough destroy a person in those days. I can tell you John Henry knew it. He knew people who had taken their own lives after being called a communist and being put on a blacklist. 

John Henry was on that same ol’ blacklist, you know. The folks calling themselves AWARE made a blacklist of entertainers they said were communists, and no one on that list could work anymore. These AWARE folks were mean. They were the types who’d put rats in the outhouse just to attract more snakes, and that’s downright unpleasant. Like a lot of people, John Henry lost just about everything, but he didn’t lose his life, because that’s not the kind of person he was. John Henry was a quiet man, but he knew how to fight, yes sir, and he was gonna fight till his last breath. 

Thanks to that blacklist, John Henry didn’t have a whole lot of money, anymore, but he found himself a pretty good lawyer by the name of Louis Nizer, and they just sued the pants off those blacklisters for libel. Once the jury heard what those people were doing to honest and hard-working folks like John Henry, they were pretty hot under the collar and didn’t take too long to find that John Henry had done nothing wrong. John Henry won a million dollars in that lawsuit, and those people had to pay two and a half million more just as punishment. At that time, that was the most anyone had ever had to pay for libel, and John Henry and Louis Nizer stopped those blacklisters in their tracks. 

So I just wanted to tell y’all about John Henry and how he canceled what was an honest-to-God cancel-culture. Thanks to Mr. Faulk, people can go on telling their stories on the TV and radio and even on the Zoom, you know.  

Cancelling Cancel Culture for Beginners

R. Horton

I’m not old enough to remember a time before cancel culture existed. In the 1950s in the US, anyone suspected of being a socialist was labeled a communist and blacklisted. Anyone who was gay or suspected of being gay (or otherwise queer) was forced to marry opposite sex partners for appearances in order to appear in any media. 

Atheists kept their religious beliefs secret if they wanted to hold any kind of community leadership position or even be accepted. Muslims were simply not seen or heard in the public arena. Many Jewish people in the public eye adopted names that would conceal their Jewishness. 

Non-white performers might try to “pass” as white in order to work, and those who could not were often prevented from even entering venues that would be appropriate. Many black performers watched in poverty as white performers gained wealth and fame off the art they stole. 

People were less offended? Lenny Bruce, who was taken off to jail for offending community standards, would have been surprised to hear it. People could criticise the government? The Smothers Brothers were fired and blacklisted from TV for daring political satire. 

Of course, cancel culture began long before the examples I gave, and it will continue long after. The difference at the moment is that people who are accustomed to censoring, and censuring, others are now finding that non-white, non-Christian, non-heterosexual, non-cis people have found their voices and have a thing or two to say. People aren’t now losing their voices. People are now finding their voices.