The idea of “cancel culture” often comes up during conversations about sexual assault. Should predators–especially high-profile predators–be “canceled” and prohibited from pursuing their careers? Kendra Sheets and Rich Gill, hosts of the enough! podcast join Karen Barth Menzies and Shawn Vincent to talk about whether there is a path forward for abusers who take responsibility for their actions, acknowledge the harm they have caused, and demonstrate that they have learned from their mistakes and adjusted their behavior.
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Shawn Vincent:
Thank you for joining the podcast. My name is Shawn Vincent. I am the producer and the moderator of Unsilenced Survivors. I'm honored to work with attorney Karen Barth Menzies. She's the creator of Unsilenced Survivors. She created this podcast to be a safe place for survivors, advocates, and allies to find a constructive way to talk about sexual assault and abuse. We're joined today by Kendra Sheets and Rich Gill. They founded an excellent podcast called enough! that was designed to shed light on sexual abuse, harassment, and assault in the music industry. Kendra tells us that when she became aware of the problem of sexual assault in the music industry, a lot of people were telling her that “Somebody needs to do something about it.” Her podcast was her solution for that. Some of those same people though, are still supporting problematic artists, and that's where we start our conversation today.
Kendra Sheets:
We've talked a lot about cancel culture. Is it real? Where's it going? No one's going anywhere. They're still around. It doesn't really exist. But I think that something that I think is very important is that people need to … when we're talking about abuse in regards to artists, musicians, actual artists like drawing, painting, et cetera, anything where someone is creating a product that is absorbed or offered to the public, we need to be educated consumers in what we're doing. There are plenty of artists out there who don't assault people. Why would you openly choose to continue to spend money to buy concert tickets or merch or vinyl records or whatever for someone who is going around abusing people? And it's very easy for a number of people to not listen to the podcast or to not engage in these conversations because they don't want to find out that their singer or their very favorite band turned out to be a lifelong rapist.
And then you have to figure out what to do with that, and that puts more responsibility on you. And then you have to act as an adult. Either you continue to go through life knowing that you're supporting a person or people who are doing something like this, and you're going to have that little birdie at the back of your head saying these things consistently, because we all know, or you're going to have to figure out how to disengage from something. That music, art, all of it means so much to so many people in so many different ways, and it touches you so very deeply. And the song about this guy's breakup was pretty much about my divorce or whatever the situation was. I've never been divorced, but you know how it goes …
Shawn Vincent:
Right? But if you relate to a piece of art …
Kendra Sheets:
Exactly, and you feel it so deeply, and I think that's why it's so tricky in situations like what Rich and I talk about on the podcast, because music is so very personal. It's written for one person, but it's written for us all, and we connect with it in such a deep way. You don't want to lose that connection by finding out the person who wrote it is actually a human and they've made a giant mistake, but it's all kind of part of the wave. If we find out, then we can hold 'em accountable. If they're held accountable, then they can go through the actions to try and make right their behavior. Maybe not what they did before, but maybe moving forward to make sure they don't do these things again. Maybe they weren't educated, maybe they didn't know that what they were doing in a case of not quite rape, but maybe a sexual assault, maybe they were drunk.
Not that these are excuses, but these are excuses people use. And once you hold them accountable and you draw that line, they can't keep going back to the I was drunk, excuse anymore. They've been held accountable. They need to move forward and we need to grow as a culture. And at the point where we're at right now with the people pushing back on all of us here, we're not able to grow. The people who are fighting back with us are the ones who, like Karen had mentioned, are scared of change, who are scared of the growth and don't want to move forward in that way because it's going to change the landscape of how we function as a society.
Shawn Vincent:
So I want to explore this if you don't mind, and Karen, if I tread on anything, and I need to edit this out, you let me know. But I know I talked to you and you were with a survivor when her case was settled, and then she told you that, “Oh, good, now I can listen to that artist again.” Am I right about that?
Karen Barth Menzies:
That did happen. And I liked what you were saying, Kendra too, is because you're right … rape is a different situation. But if there are mistakes made along the way, and really truly, we all know this, we talk to survivors enough to know that what the survivors really want is recognition that what they did caused harm, and they want accountability for that so that it won't happen to the next person. And in this situation, the individual took what the survivor felt like was fair accountability, and it allowed her to be able to close that door, find a little bit of closure, and move on to the healthier parts of memories she had when she was younger. The music is a huge part of that stuff that she wants to hold onto and can now without having it tainted in the way it had been for so many years without there being any kind of accountability. So I think we need to leave room for, I mean, there's some just full on predators that they're just
Shawn Vincent:
Irredeemable.
Karen Barth Menzies:
Yeah, they're serial, they're just habitual. But then there are others that … it's like a growing society. I like what Rich said, too. You need to listen to this because, on some level, we've all experienced this – I've certainly experienced it in my own industry – inappropriate behavior and unawareness that was inappropriate and how that might've made somebody else feel. And the more we talk about that, then those people who aren't evil to their core, but they're being ignorant or self-absorbed or whatever, might take some self-awareness and say, you know what? I can be better. I certainly feel that way about myself trying to understand a better understanding about what's going on with others who I might not have the same experiences they have. How do I understand from their point as much as I can, it's listening to them and improving and doing a better job myself. So I always want to leave room for that. And then the survivors want that too, at least in my experience.
Kendra Sheets (07:49):
Well, one thing I think we need to be cognizant of is that we are living in a culture right now with limited to no mental health care for the majority of the population. And as Rich had mentioned, I mean, we all know someone who's been a victim of sexual abuse or assault, and it happens in youth many times, not just with women, with men as well. They carry these things on. It is human nature to basically hurt people in the same way that you've been hurt. Whether you're cognizant of it or not, it becomes part of your actual brain wiring. So you're going to enact some of these same behaviors down the line. It's not every single person, but it's very, I mean, it's in many of the cases, and if we're not able to provide proper mental health care for the people who live within our society, they're not going to be able to overcome some of these traumas unless they're offered services.
We have to be able to let them take accountability and then see what we can do to assist them to get over these things. Because some of these, I think you had said it was, oh, no, you said it perfectly. It was basically a “cultural faux pas, right?” They weren't quite sure they made a mistake. They made a grave mistake. They didn't know. They didn't realize it as they were going through it, but in hindsight, they see that there was a mistake made and that they should change their actions. They need some sort of service to help them change their actions. And if we're not providing that in some way, they're going to probably be repeat offenders in these ways. So we have to not only let them not only listen to the survivors, not only hold the people accountable, but offer services to make the culture better as a whole or else we're not going to get there. We're going to be fragmented the entire time.
Rich Gill:
I just want to add, despite what a lot of our detractors want to believe about us, we're not purveyors of cancel culture for one thing …
Kendra Sheets :
You'll never convince …
Rich Gill:
Yeah. For one thing, cancel culture isn't actually a thing. But also we are not saying that put these people on an island, throw them away, get them out of society forever. That's not what we're about. I mean, for me personally, I can never listen to another Bill Cosby record just because he was a monster for however many years. But when it comes to a lot of these other people, I would love for these artists who have done terrible things to own that own the … I am not even going to say mistakes that they made, because in some cases it was like repeat …
Shawn Vincent:
Actual crimes.
Rich Gill:
But just own up to that, take responsibility, accept whatever consequence it is, whether it's monetary or criminal, or just having to not have a career in music because now victims are not accessible to you. I would love for that to happen so that these people can come back and be constructive members of society.
Shawn Vincent:
So it's not cancel culture, it's accountability.
Rich Gill:
Accountability culture. Exactly. Because …
Kendra Sheets:
With cancel culture, you just cast them out. They go out. They're no longer part of your orbit or anyone. We don't know where they are. There's no tabs on them anymore, and they're more than likely to offend in the exact same way in someone else's genre or group.
Shawn Vincent:
And the truth is, it'd be an important part of the conversation if they were allowed to be part of the conversation if they decided they wanted to take accountability. It's so funny you mentioned The Cosby Show, Rich. I was just talking with my son last night who's a junior in high school now. We actually said, “I'm glad I saw The Cosby Show before we knew about Bill because we can't watch it now. And Karen, I was really glad to hear the client absolve the artist because I listened to them today, and I felt okay about it because I felt if the client–if the survivor said it was okay and she listened to it again, then I said, “All right, I can listen to the music.” But no, it's so funny though. I don't hear the song … for a number of artists, frankly .. now without stopping and thinking about the context of it. And I think too, if there might be, what I'm looking for, Kendra, is I'm just desperately grubbing to be able to listen to some music that I love still and not abandon it forever because of what I know about the artist, but there's sort of an act contrition that has to … And I won't spend any more money than the Spotify royalties, and maybe I'll wait for them to be dead so that their …
Kendra Sheets:
Legacy, then it goes into their fund or whatever.
Shawn Vincent:
I won't go to their show and I'm not wearing the T-shirt. It's, it's a difficult thing because there's separation of the art and artists, but we also, and there's also when you're clearly supporting what they're doing economically and another thing where you're acknowledging the role that they maybe had in your adolescence …
Kendra Sheets:
Very much.
Shawn Vincent:
So in the world that you've built, it's a complicated thing that you have to deal with.
Karen Barth Menzies:
It's up to, I mean, honestly, I know and lawyers are to blame, I guess to some degree too, but I'm trying to think as we're talking of any artist out there who has been called out for inappropriate behavior and has just stepped up and said, damn, I was stupid. I was an idiot. I was self-absorbed in my world of fame, and I really wish I didn't do that because I see now that it caused harm, and if that happened, we can't force people to do that, right? It's on them to do it, but they can do it. We're not trying to cancel anybody on that, but it's on you if you want to say, okay, I'm going to acknowledge what I did and what I did caused harm and I really regret it. Okay, great.
Kendra Sheets:
Rich and I talked about, but it is up to you to do it … exactly where we're like, we're not trying to, again, make a joke or make light of the situation by any means, but a lot of these things would become way less culturally severe if they just owned up to what they did, and instead of doing what we like to call the Facebook Mad Libs, where it's like they plug and play certain words into the same PR written legalese quote, that's all about how I don't remember doing any of these things, however, I was told that I did, and perhaps if I did, then maybe these things happened, and also it's just a bunch of BS. Just say, look, like you had mentioned Karen, I've never heard anyone say anything about it was the fame of it all. Maybe because dealing with a little bit lower tier, less fame, we're looking at four to 10,000 followers on Facebook, maybe around the people that we kind of circle around, but it's usually like, oh, I was just really drunk. I had a whole time, oh, I was doing a lot of drugs then. I don't really remember what I was doing. It comes off more as an excuse, I think, in that way than at least in the kind of mad libs that we've seen. It's always some sort of excuse, I'm not going to do it again. There's usually not any sort of commentary about how they're going to learn not to do it again. It's just going to be like, “I'm good. Don't worry about me. Also, she's probably lying.”
Karen Barth Menzies:
Right? And if you would just actually listen to the survivor, what the survivor wants is that accountability of recognition that you messed up and you realize it caused harm, and that's what survivors want. They don't care about the 15 minutes of fame. The last thing they want is notoriety or attention coming forward, and that's easy to give. Just acknowledge you screwed up.
Kendra Sheets:
I mean, “15 minutes of fame.” Name five of the women besides Stormy Daniels who have accused Donald Trump … go, we can't. There is no fame. These are not household names. They're not becoming multimillionaires. I mean, it's not really like that. It's, they're looking for something very specific, very for themselves for the healing process. It's not, “Oh, I can't wait to get a million bucks. That'll fix all my problems.” It's not going to continue to live with that. They're looking for exactly like you said, just something to kind of put back the pieces, some accountability, someone to actually nod at them and say, “Yeah, that did happen to you. Your reality was real, and it's okay that you had that, and we're going to be here to assist in some way.” Or this person also agrees that this happened and they were in the wrong. It's so few and far between that they get any of that though,
Karen Barth Menzies:
Oh, yeah, I did this to you. This wasn't you.
Rich Gill:
Right?
Karen Barth Menzies:
Imagine what that would mean to a survivor,
Rich Gill:
How powerful that would be to just hear that from, yeah, that'd be great. I would love to see someone …
Kendra Sheets:
It would turn off at least 50 of the thousand switches of the gaslighting that they're going to deal with for the rest of their life in every situation,
Karen Barth Menzies:
And everybody in this society hears it too and is like, you know what? Okay,
Shawn Vincent:
So you admit when you're wrong. That sounds crazy.
Karen Barth Menzies:
Admit you made a mistake!
Rich Gill:
In this economy? In this day and age? Come on!
Shawn Vincent:
All right, everybody, that's our podcast for today. I do appreciate you listening through to the end. We recorded this podcast with Rich and Kendra long before the presidential election. They've just released a podcast on enough!, their episode number 70, where they talk about their feelings about a man who has been accused of sexual assault by multiple accusers, who's even been found liable in a sexual assault case in the civil court system, now becoming president of the United States. We're going to explore that issue in more detail as our podcast grows. We'll be back soon with more conversations. I want to thank you again for listening. Just being an active listener and being willing to participate in this conversation is some of the work that needs to be done towards changing the culture that allows for sexual assault to be so pervasive. Thank you for being part of the solution. We'll see you next time.