The Locker Room Playbook

6Canceling the Cancel Culture

For Everyone

Core Lessons

• You must know where you are before you can get to where you want to go.
• Having a tough conversation with others requires humility and grace.
• If you're grippin' you're trippin'. Let go of your pride, so you can listen.
• It's easy to “cancel” someone. It's hard to give them grace.

Chapter Summary

Coach Washington asks: Where are we? Together, Coach Washington and Coach Smitty determine that the only way to answer this question is to listen to the team. Coach Smitty worries that this will be a heated discussion, but they agree that as long as they show authentic vulnerability and lead with humility, things will be okay. Coach Smitty confesses that part of the reason he handled the situation so poorly was his fear that either he or Davey would be “canceled” as a result of Davey's actions. The coaches agree that the Cancel Culture hurts much more than it helps, as people are too quick to dismiss others and not quick enough to give grace.

Deep Dive Teaching

The Cancel Culture is about gripping onto hate and offense. Participants in the Cancel Culture grip tightly to the hurtful things that have been said or the harm that has been done, not to make things better for everyone but to make sure that others are hurt, too. The Cancel Culture says: you hurt me, so I'm going to write you off. But as we say in the locker room, if you're grippin' you're trippin'.

Imagine this situation. One day a monkey finds a banana that he ...