Why It’s Time to Abolish Celebrity

You don’t have to be a celebrity to act like one. Unfortunately, “celebrity” has transcended the elite class. Anyone who puts social climbing over community has internalized a celebrity mindset. These people rationalize that a certain fallback of money, or fame, would put them in a separate category from common peasants, so they wouldn’t be beholden to the accountability common peasants have to take to keep people around them.

America continues to grow in the direction of serfdom, leaving most of its wealth with an elite class that represents 1% of the population. It’s hard not to dream of becoming this one percent as celebrity affects all of us, even those victimized by the corruption coming from this very culture.

We’re trained to scale down our integrity to fit into hierarchal structures that only invite brutality to the table. In these hierarchies, victims of discriminatory violence become gatekeepers themselves as a means of self-preservation, and build cliques based on approximation to money and power.

Celebrities of color are at the forefront of efforts to bring realistic portrayals of marginalized people to the page and screen. Diverse representation, in theory, dismantles racism by appointing diverse creators to speak on behalf of their communities in the art they create.