okay, this is a very very sensitive topic and i would like to disclose before saying anything else that i am fully in support of palestine. i do not condone in any way what israel is doing and am not trying to support them. this chapter is mainly about cancel culture, using palestine as an example because it's very prevalent in today's society. 

that being said, let's get into the chapter. 

i've seen a lot of people on all kinds of social media platforms (tiktok and twitter specifically) who make videos or tweets saying something along the lines of 'if you don't support palestine you are a sick, sick person and deserve to die' or 'if you're not speaking up about this conflict you are a terrible person.' let me give you some reasoning for these.

for the first one, people have opinions. i have a whole opinion book! there are many reasons a person would be supporting israel. they could be uneducated on the whole matter, they could js not be sure, or, most importantly, they could be jewish. 

have we not thought abt this? judaism began in israel, and is a lot about heritage and matriarchy and everything. would you not support your home country in a war? it's often very hard to break that loyalty between person and homeland. (prominent example: noah schnapp, who is jewish and supports israel)

the second one now! there are many, many reasons a person would not be speaking up about the conflict between palestine and israel. i'll use taylor swift's silence on the matter as my first example. she is a very prevalent person in the world right now (TIME person of the year 2023). people go crazy when she brings her friend (who was featured on midnights; lana del rey) up on stage with her to win aoty when lana didn't win anything, and say it was in spite. her every move is watched, and judged. when she made her first move in politics a few years ago, it was very heavily scrutinized and judged, and she was called a white feminist who didn't deserve to have an opinion on politics--she's just a blonde popstar! 

taylor swift can't speak up on palestine, and that's okay. she is not obligated to just because she is famous. she is allowed to have reasons. the everyday person does not have to talk about palestine, either. what if a person has trauma from a war in the past? what if they simply don't feel comfortable talking abt such things? there are exemptions. 

cancel culture is also doing a lot here. ex: the starbucks and mcdonalds boycott. no one is posting starbucks on social media, and if they do the comments are full of 'girl we're boycotting starbucks.' celebrities are getting canceled and ignored and having their fame taken away from them and losing friends and respect. 

it's not normal. cancel culture, i mean. it's a product of society's recent follow-the-herd mentality--if the world hates noah schnapp right now, i should too!--and it's not good.

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