In January of 2021, a National Post opinion piece exonerated one of Canada’s higher profile victims of cancel culture. This time the fearlessly outspoken cultural commentator and author Barbara Kay corrects the record on the very public “cancellation” of Jessica Mulroney.
Jessica Mulroney is a Canadian fashion stylist and business woman known for her work with Kleinfeld Bridal, past guest appearances on television shows Good Morning America and CityLine, and hosting I Do, Redo (A Canadian reality TV series in which Jessica helps couples who had negative wedding experiences, redo their marriage celebrations). She is married to Ben Mulroney (son of former prime minister Brian Mulroney).
Jessica was considered a successful influencer and “social medialite” until Sasha Exetor, a black woman with a similar dream career as an online influencer, incited an online mob pile-on resulting in Jessica’s career-wrecking cancellation.
Barbara Kay correctly points out that this was “a mobbing that took place last June in Toronto, at the height of the moral panic following the wholly awful Minnesota police killing of George Floyd.”
In May of that year, black Toronto influencer Sasha Exeter posted a call-to-action for her Instagram followers to post anti-racist content. Fine. So far so good.
The problem arose when Jessica Mulroney, who was under contractual obligation by one of the brands she represented to post brand-specific content to her Instagram followers that day, did not see Sasha’s call-to-action.
Barbara Kay’s National Post piece goes through the cringe-worthy text message exchanges between Jessica and Sasha. The aggressive use of unfair and highly manipulative woke tactics, and the level of gaslighting on the behalf of Sasha Exetor is apparent.
In one exchange, after Jessica points out that Sasha was also posting content related to one of her brand obligations on the same day as the call-to-action, Sasha (a wealthy woman busting with privilege) unfairly chastises Jessica saying:
“DO NOT MAKE YOURSELF THE VICTIM HERE! …Not one person that I called out for their poor judgment and behaviour was ‘disappointed’ or did make it about themselves. Nor did they have the balls to compare themselves to me as a black woman and what I’m (putting) on my feed.” You still have a lot of work to do moving forward. That is clear.”
Keep in mind Sasha’s problem with Jessica is not anything she did or said. It’s that she dared to be too busy (and contractually obligated for other purposes) on a particular day and unable to answer an instagram anti-racist call-to-action. When did these types of things become mandatory?
The thread of messages between the two women is very hard to read, but it makes clear that there was nothing in Jessica’s words or actions that justified the reprehensible treatment she received. Look into the case of Jessica’s cancellation and see for yourself the damage caused by Sasha Exetor’s blatant attack and incitement of Jessica Mulroney’s mob cancellation.
The publication of this message exchange effectively exonerates Jessica from the brutal witch hunt and cancellation she endured. But I can’t help but wonder what can now be done to salvage the wreckage of Jessica’s career? Will her show, personal appearances and brand affiliations be un-cancelled? Will Sasha Exetor face consequences for her actions? Will she apologize?
An unfortunate characteristic of the times we are suffering through is the lack of willingness to correct the record, or in redemption on the whole. The unruly mob demonstrates that the fun is in tearing down those that sit most high on the hierarchy of privilege. Many have put forward the idea, and I tend to agree, those who are the primary drivers of authoritarian woke-ness, while certainly loud, militant and increasingly violent, are mostly a minority of resentful mediocre people disenfranchised by a society that in many ways has let them down.
An important detail that Barbara Kay’s piece points out involves noticing the characteristics of “a classic mobbing, which usually involves a popular high achiever who is targeted by peers. (Mediocre performers tend not to arouse the eliminative impulse.) They form around the accuser as a unanimous hostile pack. The charges tend to be holistic in character — “racist,” “transphobe” — or fuzzy (“woman of privilege”). The rhetoric becomes melodramatic. Most important, the accused is not accorded due process.”
For almost 40 years, Wendy Mesley was a dedicated and well loved CBC journalist. She had a largely successful and non-controversial career, she was the first woman to cover the prime minister in CBC TV’s parliamentary bureau.
But in May 2020, in the wake of the George Floyd murder, Wendy unfortunately, but not entirely out of context, accidently let slip the N-word during an emotional interview she conducted with a Black CBC reporter (who had just repeatedly been called the N-word). Wendy was outraged over the hateful use of the racial slur and wanted to interview the reporter. In Wendy’s words:
“I was so upset over what our colleague experienced that I stupidly filled in the N-word. Why? I’ve asked myself that question a thousand times, and I have no good answer. I was mad that she faced this kind of abuse. I can be very blunt. And I didn’t understand how any use of that word could hurt, regardless of its context. It was thoughtless and wrong.”
Wendy was informed there would be an investigation due to her slip up. An incident that occurred during an editorial meeting months before in which she referred to Pierre Vallières Seminal 1968 Marxist analysis, Nègres blancs d’Amérique, was brought up. Wendy had referenced the title in English but didn’t think to substitute “White N-words of America.” Keep in mind this was an editorial meeting, not on air.
All of this made its way to the press and the inevitable pile-on, leading to eventual cancellation. Fully throwing her under the bus, the CBC made an example out of Wendy using her as a scapegoat to virtue-signal their “commitment to anti-racism,” despite hundreds of current and former CBC employees claims to the contrary.
Just like the Jessica Mulroney story, Wendy Mesley is, as Barbara Kay would put it, a “popular high achiever,” a “woman of privilege” and therefore a juicy target by the ugly cancel culture mob of Woke Canada. If Wendy and Jessica had been black women, things would have played out much differently, that much at least is obvious.
This is the eleventh installment of “The Woke West: The Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, Radical Activism And Forbidden Knowledge Dividing The West...And What You Can Do About It!” - A book by James Pew, published to The Turn Substack. Thanks for reading!
Next Up - When Immigrants Stand Up For Canada: The Woke Won’t Have It.