The “Who Are We” series sparked deep conversations on cancel culture, personal growth, and community connection
By: Hal Reed
On Tuesday, Jan. 21, Grace A. Dow Memorial Library hosted Breaking Bread Village’s series called “Who Are We.” It is a five-part series of having open and deep conversations with host Erin Patrice along with six others.
Breaking Bread village, whose name stems from the saying “it takes a village,” is all about breaking division through open conversations, reconnecting humanity, and learning more diverse perspectives to help people grow within themselves and the community. They aim to create a safe environment for people’s growth.
Cancel culture can even be caused through personal connections. Christian, who is on the panel, says “the issue is that culture is not always right… too many people want to put their opinions on everyone else, and they want their culture to be an enforced opinion set, we’re all each individual.”
The series explores awareness, passion, legacy, grief and cancel culture. These conversations are to internalize for ourselves, share ideas, thoughts and other perspectives.
The other most recent series “including you,” expresses the need to be a part of the community and a part of projects and programs. This series still continued the idea of being able to share ideas, thoughts, and perspectives. This community is beneficial because it helps people grow with others and brainstorm on improvement.
Their message helps the community grow and learn from various different perspectives. On a usual basis, not enough people are having engaging conversations or have the time to learn new topics. Especially when it is not in the mainstream media.
The definition of cancel culture is “the practice of withdrawing support from someone or something due to an action or opinion that is considered objectionable.” Hearing that, it can be implied everywhere, not just through social media.
Patrice urged the audience to think about their experience with canceled culture. Going into this event I thought about many events where a celebrity or influencer has done something bad and they were “cancelled.” In other cases it is someone in our personal relations, whether it is based on an act they did or who they support.
Another discussion brought up was being the decider of who or what gets cancelled. Patrice went on to ask how it is decided when someone is canceled. A member on the panel thinks that not one person can control the thoughts of a certain situation and that is the curse of social media. At the end of the day they all agreed that canceling someone comes down to a personal preference.
Someone on the panel urged the audience to focus on the idea of limitation, since this society is very progressive. That means when something was “acceptable” in another time, it can be seen as off limits in cancel culture now.
Although the series is over, there are more exciting things to come. Look into more information on their website and social media platforms:
The Breaking Bread Village on Facebook