“Cancel culture” begins in K-12 classrooms, and if we, as conservatives and moderates, do not start having a presence in these classrooms, it will never end. 

First, they came after the national anthem. Then, they came after the Founding Fathers. Now, they are coming after Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head. Conservatives, Republicans and moderate Democrats are all in agreement that the “cancel culture” is destroying our nation. There are countless pundits and organizations that are highlighting the absurdity of this movement. Some pundits now claim that the end of “cancel culture” is in sight, citing that soon they will run out of people to cancel. Unfortunately, those who claim this are wrong. If “cancel culture” and radical leftism is a threat to our society, we must find the source of it, and not just bring awareness, but actually stop it from gaining more ground.

The sources of “cancel culture” are the countless classrooms across the nation. While many focus on the radical ideas that are readily on display on college campuses, the real problem is much larger. Just like with an iceberg, what you see is a tiny fraction of the real issue that will cause the most damage. The typical student who attends college and earns a Bachelor’s Degree will attend college for 5 years. As of 2019, 36% of Americans over the age of 25 earned a Bachelor’s Degree. If a large majority of the population is not being initiated into the “cancel culture” through college, there are only two other places it is occurring. The first, and most obvious, is within the culture. To this, some conservatives and moderates have now begun to create alternatives, including creating new social media, video streaming, and entertainment companies. Still, the more dangerous place where “cancel culture” is taking root is in the K-12 classrooms across the country where children are listening to several authority figures “teach” them what they don’t yet know, and then test them on it.

The radical left begins to corrupt children starting from birth with their radical “cancel culture” leftist agenda. First, it starts on children’s television shows, including Nickelodeon and Disney Junior. When they start attending pre-K and kindergarten, it reaches a new level. While many parents are aware of and control what their children watch in their homes, they cannot be aware of, nor control, every single word a teacher says in the classroom.

Learning for Justice (formerly known as Teaching Tolerance) has embraced “cancel culture” as a great addition to their anti-American platform and resource list. They finally realized that they didn’t actually teach tolerance, which brought about the recent name change, but what will they do when they realize they are voices of injustice and intolerance? Cancel themselves?

Days before Dr. Seuss’s cancellation was trending, Learning for Justice called for his cancellation. They criticize Geisel biographers and historians for being white, and focus not on his years of writing children’s books, but on his years of “early public bigotry.” Learning for Justice has made the case that Dr. Seuss is much like themselves in that both are apparently guilty of perpetuating racial stereotypes in their literature, but it is not likely that Learning for Justice will acknowledge their own guilt.

With a substantial following and hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, it would not be surprising if Learning for Justice influenced the decision to stop using some of these books. 

Learning for Justice’s list of reasons for calling someone a racist, and calling for their cancellation is growing every day. With their recent claim that anyone who wants to design a building in the style of ancient Greek architecture is a “white supremacist,” Learning for Justice is preparing a demolition project greater than any before. Asserting that people who study the classics without a critical eye for their “toxic whiteness” are equivalent to Hitler and Mussolini, Learning for Justice has released one of their most racist articles to date. 

Learning for Justice aims to inform students that they do not have to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Asserting that it is actually more patriotic to disrespect the American flag, and that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is a “nativist” and “nationalist” ill, leaves us to wonder if Learning for Justice should be characterized as an educational organization at all when they have trouble defining words such as patriotic. 

Learning for Justice does believe in having children make a pledge, but to their own organization, not to their country. This leads us to question, what are children’s rights in refusing this pledge? 

As students continue their education, they will meet Howard Zinn, Angela Davis, Bill Ayers, and get to know corrupt celebrities like Colin Kaepernick who advocate for canceling American symbols, pride, and honor. You may be thinking these celebrities are only influential on television, but think again. Facing History, a popular and well-funded educational organization that is growing their influence, has a lesson in honor of Kaepernick, as does the Zinn Education Project

Even outside of the classroom, youth can’t escape the radical left’s cultural stronghold. If one simply reads teenVogue, they will learn to be inspired by radical Marxist Angela Davis. 

Still, the largest obstacle to ending “cancel culture” is the obsession with what is occurring on college campuses, ignoring the K-12 learning experience. As previously stated, the typical student who graduates college attends it for approximately 5 years; K-12 schooling is 13 years of exposure to the radical left’s ideas. Teachers in K-12 schools have something professors do not; they are teaching young minds who are learning so many things for the first time. John Locke described it as, “[Children] are Travellers newly arrived in a strange Country, of which they know nothing,” and they can easily be misled. Around 97% of children under the age of 18 attend a K-12 public, private, or charter school, none of which are safe from the radical left (this excludes homeschool). Their minds are strongly molded by the daily lessons taught by their teachers, many of whom have become politically charged with the incessant push to be facilitators of change and to turn their students into activists for the radical left.

With “cancel culture” becoming more and more commonplace, and with its success in infiltrating the minds of youth, we must be in the same arena where this is happening or there will be no voice of reason. This movement has not only affected America’s culture, but it has threatened our history. When American history, including our Patriots and Founders, is cancelled, what will our future generations have to learn from other than a false revisionist history? Could America survive as a land of the free when those who established it and their ideals are erased from history?