It's not okay to call black people the 'N' word.
It's not okay to use racial and ethnic slurs, denigrate women, or mock people with disabilities.
We've learned not to celebrate slavery or slave owners.
We used to call this progress. We used to say we were learning to respect the dignity of every human, not just the dignity of people who look, act, and worship (or don't) like us.
Thanks to the immediacy of social media and culture wars spreading like a malignancy across the map, some people are calling moves towards decency "cancel culture".
"Do you know what cancel culture means?" I ask my 17-year-old. She says yes, that some YouTubers she used to follow aren't on the channel any more, thanks to past bad behaviour. They were discovered to have used racist and anti-Semitic language. Some wore blackface. These fallen small-screen stars have lost millions of dollars in promotional money.
I've been thinking about so-called cancel culture in light of news earlier this week that six Dr Seuss books won't be published any more because of racist and insensitive imagery.
In "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street," an Asian person wears a pointy-cone hat while holding chopsticks. Two African men in bare feet with hair tied above their heads wear grass skirts in "If I Ran the Zoo".
The announcement the books would cease publication immediately drew fire from those who called it another example of "cancel culture". I wonder how many people engage in serious thought before typing or saying their newly beloved, unoriginal phrase.
For one thing, it's not as if some outside agency or government started banning Dr Seuss books. The business charged with protecting and preserving his legacy, Dr Seuss Enterprises, decided to shelve the dirty half-dozen.
"Ceasing sales of these books is only part of our commitment and our broader plan to ensure Dr Seuss Enterprises' catalogue represents and supports all communities and families," it said.
Books shape how children see the world. It's hard to imagine anyone thinking an Asian or African child should look to an outdated caricature as a truthful representation of their culture.
Besides, plenty of Dr Seuss books do not contain these kinds of stereotyped images. It's not like the Seuss folks are erasing his entire collection.
Businesses often make decisions to change and pull products without being implicated in cancel culture. The original recipe for Coca-Cola contained cocaine. The drink was advertised as medicine.
Early versions of diet sodas contained saccharin, which many companies stopped using after the artificial sweetener was linked to cancer in lab rats in the 1970s.
In a complete turnabout, recent studies indicate saccharin can kill human cancer cells.
The only constant in life - including in science, medicine and history - is change. And people protesting change.
Consider those whose cultures are or were in danger of being cancelled:
Six million Jews died during the Holocaust.
More than 2000 Māori people were said to have died during the Land Wars of the 1800s, and Māori were forbidden from speaking their language in schools for much of the 20th century.
The world has been on high alert against terrorism committed in the name of Islam since the 9-11 terror attacks in America.
Yet New Zealand's deadliest mass shooting happened when an Australian white supremacist opened fire on two Christchurch mosques nearly two years ago.
The man, now convicted of murder, killed 51 people and injured 40 others.
In America, where right-wing politicians have sought to ban Muslims from entering the country, security officials reported zero jihadist attacks on US soil in 2020.
A report out late last year found white supremacist groups were responsible for nearly 70 per cent of terrorist plots and attacks.
The contrast is stark. On one hand are perceived injustices of removing books with racist images, monuments to colonialism, flags representing slavery, or for imposing financial penalties on people who speak ill of, or mock others because of their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or abilities.
On the other hand, are historic and present-day instances of racism and other -isms that can lead the unhinged among us to commit violent acts.
I'm not saying you can't criticise someone's work if it's not up to scratch. I'm not saying we must always bite our tongues and still our fingers lest we offend.
I am saying there's nothing precious or over-the-top with holding ourselves and other people to account when we persist in using words, images or actions hurtful to other humans.
When you know better, you do better. If you make a mistake, apologise - not to avoid consequences, but because you understand you've harmed someone.
It's only cancel culture when you don't like the change.
