It’s a modern waking ritual: make tea, go online and find major news outlets and the powerful bemoaning “cancellation” of another famous, well-established cultural figure. The cancellation then generates dozens, hundreds, even thousands of headlines, interviews and think pieces on ‘censorship by woke mobs.’What remains unmentioned is the powerful economic and political apparatus that not only disseminates these increasingly popular ‘cancellations tours’ but also creates, supports and elevates these people to their enormous national or even global fame.The most recent case is of the unfunny comic Jimmy Carr with the usual tendency of punching down at groups who do not have similar platforms or power and are endlessly hounded if they dare criticise him (women and children survivors of rape have long been a preferred target). This time, it’s a joke about the Nazi’s genocide of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) people, a varied group of people that continues to be one of the most discriminated against demographics in Europe.This is disgraceful and shameful. It seems like racism against the travelling communities and Roma people is one of the last forms of racism to outwardly be “okayed” by individuals like Jimmy Carr, reinforcing dangerous messaging. pic.twitter.com/DIqJBIaZuB— Iona Fyfe (@ionafyfe) February 5, 2022Carr made his joke on his Netflix special to loud audience laughter (canned or not, we don’t know). He is being rightly criticised (although only after a GRT elder spoke up). Given how comedy works, he’s likely told the joke before. He’s written it, workshopped it, practiced and rehearsed it, performed it before a public outing to smaller, more trusted audiences. Moreover, dozens and dozens of people are part of production, filming, post-production, marketing, the whole film and TV apparatus. The putative joke has also passed before his agent, manager, all the Netflix executives who greenlit the show and have seen its journey to screen.How did nobody notice the joke and recognise the harm to a historically persecuted minority that is still discriminated against and further being criminalised in multiple countries? Did nobody in production notice? Or were they too scared and disempowered to speak? Why did it take people who are from this community – already excluded and persecuted – to speak up in the face of great personal and collective risk and at enormous personal cost?We must recognise that criticism branded ‘cancellation’ or ‘cancel culture’ is never about individuals. It is about how our socio-economic-political structures and the powerful institutions not only tolerate punching down at minoritised, excluded, disempowered peoples but actively platform and amplify discriminatory and violent views, and continually profit from harming the most vulnerable amongst us.Moreover, they hide their violence under public rhetoric about free speech. We need not reach back to the Nazis as we have ample evidence on how mass violence is rationalised, legitimised, normalised. It’s NEVER just a joke, just a book, just a movie.Words spoken, supported, amplified and propagated by the powerful in any land are always reflective of, and connected to, real world actions the same powerful sections take. Under the cover provided by incessant disinformation by powerful press barons about how free speech – always of the powerful – is being suppressed, there is a global onslaught on human rights unseen since the end of the Second World War. Few of the powerful and famous who hold forth on free speech and complain about them or their mates being “cancelled” bother to speak about ongoing horrors being implemented by their friends, family, colleagues in government.This is also why those of us who care about equal humanity of all people cannot fall into the right wing rhetorical traps about free speech, “cancel culture”, etc. We can’t accept individuation of a vast, powerful, monied, global politico-corporate apparatus that thrives off preying and harming marginalised people for entertainment. That is why we must focus on the machine, not just the individuals (who benefit from it).Professor Sunny Singh is a London based writer. She has published three novels, a non-fiction book on lives of single women in India, numerous short stories and essays. Her latest book on the Indian film star, Amitabh Bachchan, is published by BFI/Palgrave Macmillan and available from Amazon.