A solid example was the incident that happened on Tuesday with internet blogs declaring that Kimmy Schmidt herself, Ellie Kemper, was somehow an old-school hater of black people because back when she was 19 she was crowned the 105th Queen of Love and Beauty by a group called the “Veiled Prophets,” an old money group in St. Louis that used to be racially exclusive all the way up to 1979. To be clear, Kemper was crowned in 1999, 20 years after the group dropped its segregative ways.

Also, Kemper is now 41.

Kemper went on to become a star on shows like “The Office” and the aforementioned “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” where she was best friends with a gay black man. At no point did any of her co-stars complain about Kemper’s attitude or drop any mention that she had something against anyone with black skin. In fact, looking at her social media feeds, it appears that we can conclude her attitudes are the exact opposite.

As my colleague, Kira Davis, notes on the subject, attempting to link Kemper to any racism is going to turn up bupkis. It’s all based on this one event in her life that had to do with a group then two decades removed from its racist past, a year before Kemper was even born. Moreover, if we’re going to hold every group accountable for its racist pasts, then why aren’t we looking at one of the most racist in history, Planned Parenthood?:

Let’s start with Planned Parenthood. It was established by a racist named Margaret Sanger. For years pro-lifers have used this fact as an argument against abortion but we were told we were making it up. Of course, we weren’t, and recently Planned Parenthood itself came out to say that indeed its past was rooted in the racism of Margaret Sanger. Last I checked, they’re still in operation. Someone hit me up when The Root does a searing expose on why Planned Parenthood should be cancelled for their problematic history.

It’s pretty clear Kemper is innocent of all the charges the mob is throwing against her and it wasn’t even that difficult to figure that out. It was a knee-jerk reaction by a few journalists that then triggered the trained seals that follow them to bork along, fully ignorant of the facts, fully devoid of any grace.

We probably get a story a day about just how ridiculous social justice advocacy is, but rarely does it become so high-profile. The attack on Kemper didn’t happen on the back of a larger conversation, nor did she deserve it. It was just the ridiculousness of cancel culture rearing its hideous head in full public view where everyone could see how hideous and ridiculous it is.

And this should be highlighted ad nauseum. The fact that no one is safe, at any time, for any reason from cancel culture really highlights the stupidity of adhering to it and it should really throw into question the social justice movement that fuels it. Not only should we want it dead purely out of self-preservation — you’ll never know if you’re next — but because the time and energy wasted by mainstream society going on these witch hunts could be better used actually attempting to solve real problems by seeking real solutions.

Attacking someone for having done something when they were a teenager with a group far removed from its racist past does not present us with any real solves for the problems we have as a society. It accomplishes nothing. Its only real purpose is to make the torch and pitchfork carrying mob feel good about themselves and for reasons completely delusional.

Kemper should be a poster child for the reason we as a society need to begin pushing back against the radicalism that’s infected mainstream culture and realize that the cancel culture zealots shouldn’t be listened to by any measure. They’re hateful, selfish, and too often wrong. They are far from the people who should be policing morality.

This should be the stone that triggered the avalanche of societal reform.

Will it be? Probably not. Mainstream culture is too afraid and there aren’t enough people in the media willing to question it yet, and because of that, it won’t end with Kemper. A lot of people are going to lose everything because the wrong people had the stage at the right time. But regardless, with every conversation about cancel culture, someone in the group should bring up Kemper as an example of just how stupid cancel culture can get.

At some point, the ultimate goal is to turn people against the modern concept of social justice, the source of so much racism, hatred, and bigotry in our society today.