Should people be cancelled - or educated?

Alexi McCammond should be called out for what she said – but how long should she be punished?

When I was in college, I had a good friend named Amy. She had been the valedictorian of her high school. Very bright, and one of the kindest people I knew.

One day, a group of us were sitting around chatting before dinner, and Amy made a comment about an Asian student she really liked. But instead of referring to the person as Asian, Amy used the word ‘Oriental.’

One girl in the group jumped on her immediately. 

‘People aren’t Oriental, Amy,’ she said smugly. ‘Objects are.’

Amy’s eyes widened and her cheeks turned red. She was so embarrassed. She may have done well on the SATs, but she hadn’t had a lot of life experiences.

She didn’t say the word ‘Oriental’ because she was a terrible racist. She wasn’t intentionally being offensive or cruel. She said it because she was a 19-year-old college student who didn’t know not to. 

But she learned. 

I thought about Amy when I read in the news that Alexi McCammond, the new editor of Teen Vogue had parted ways with the publication – before she even began the job.

How do you lose a job before you begin?

The announcement of McCammond’s appointment was met with concern – from both staff and readers after it was revealed that she had made anti-Asian and homophobic tweets. She apologized for her tweets when they were first reported in 2019, calling them ‘deeply insensitive.’

But then advertiser Ulta announced it was going to ‘pause’ its campaign with Teen Vogue, and ‘evaluate the situation and determine next steps regarding our partnership.’

Uh-oh. Money talks.

McCammond and Teen Vogue went into damage control immediately after the backlash began. 

McCammond apologized internally and then publicly. She published an open letter to the Teen Vogue community, staff, and readers on March 11, apologizing for the ‘hurtful and inexcusable language’ she had used. 

She added that she had dedicated her career ‘giving a voice to the voiceless’ and signalled that she would be putting together a more comprehensive plan that would uplift and reflect the ‘true complexities and beauties of the AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) community.’ 

She signed off ‘to better days ahead.’ 

But a week later, Teen Vogue and McCammond determined that ‘better days’ at the publication don’t include McCammond. 

In a statement announcing the decision, McCammond said:

“My past tweets have overshadowed the work I’ve done to highlight the people and issues that I care about — issues that Teen Vogue has worked tirelessly to share with the world — and so Condé Nast and I have decided to part ways. I should not have tweeted what I did and I have taken full responsibility for that.”

So what did she say in those tweets that cost her the job?

Though she removed the tweets from her profile, journalist Diana Tsui shared a screenshot of them on instagram:

But look at the dates – the tweets were made nearly 10 years ago.

Alexi is 27 years old now. 

That means she made those tweets when she was a teenager. While young people today might be more informed or socially aware than past generations, they still have a limited amount of time on the planet. The 27-year-old McCammond has surely gathered more perspectives and information than she had at age 17. 

It’s fair to call McCammond out for these tweets. She now joins Yoshiro Mori, Bill Michael, Charles Veneable  and strangely, her boyfriend, TJ Ducklo as people whose words have cost them their jobs in 2021. The difference is that those four men made their offensive comments last month.

The decision to part ways may have been driven, in part, by the recent surge in violence against Asian-Americans. There is heightened awareness and sensitivity about racism against the AAPI community, and it’s an issue that should be highlighted and addressed.

But should Alexi McCammond have lost her job because of tweets she made a decade ago? I don’t know the whole story, but I’m more concerned about what people say and do today than what they said or did as children or young adults. 

As a society, we need to leave room for people to learn and evolve — because that’s what people do.  

Some people deserve to be cancelled — but others need to be educated.

Alexi needed to be educated.

She also needs the opportunity to demonstrate that she’s learned.