In the wake of the "Why I Hate Blacks" column

[madbaker]

I'm a big fan of the First Amendment. Kenneth Eng has the right to write what he wishes, regardless of how moronic.

But - as the Dixie Chicks learned a couple years back - it is worth remembering that "Free speech" does not mean "Free consequences".

Edited for clarification: Assume I'm an entertainer, or even an editorial writer. It is my free speech right to say publicly that, for example, I think blue jeans are stupid and anyone who wears them is a brain-dead fashion victim.

But it is not a violation of my free speech rights when jean-wearers stop buying my product, and Levi's pulls their sponsorship.

Comments

[wingedcorset.livejournal.com]

Huh? Link?

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

Here's what the Comical (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/02/27/MNGTCOBI921.DTL) has to say on the matter.

Ramble, ramble, sputter

[gaudete1066.livejournal.com]

"Contrary to media depictions, I would argue that blacks are weak-willed. They are the only race that has been enslaved for 300 years."

Has this fellow never heard of the Roman Empire? They enslaved EVERYBODY. African, Anglo, Asian... If we assume the earliest point at which everyone would agree on the Romans even possessing an empire would be after their victory in the second Punic war in 201 BC, and then adhering to the date traditionally used for the ousting of the last emperor, Romulus Augustus, in AD 476, I'd say that's a bit more than 300 years. For everybody.

Re: Ramble, ramble, sputter

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

Don't try to analyze it using logic and reason. You'll just make your brain hurt.

Re: Ramble, ramble, sputter

[gaudete1066.livejournal.com]

You're right. How silly of me. I'll go put my brain back in the box with the fluffy padding, fix myself some cocoa, and watch the wind shake the darling pre-buds of May. Hm. That *is* less stressful. Ahhh.

(but I'd still like to smack Mr. Eng upside the head with a clue-by-four. please??)

[wingedcorset.livejournal.com]

That's abhorrent.

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

Yup. Quite appalling, really.

[loup_noir]

I think the Dixie Chicks "won" in the long run. I adore "I'm not ready to make nice" from their last album.

The same would go for a band espousing anti-Democratic views.

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

They are entitled to their own opinions and to publicize same if they want. But if they piss off their fan base with their opinions and lose sales, they shouldn't whine about the right to free speech.

Again: take responsibility for the consequences of your free speech.

Re: The same would go for a band espousing anti-Democratic views.

[loup_noir]

Clearly you are more in tune with whatever.

I was under the opinion that they had suffered, if that's the correct term, a huge loss in income whilst upholding their convictions.

They took the responsibility of their convictions by losing money. Isn't that the ultimate penalty in today's America?

convictions

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

If they had done so in silence, yes. But claiming that they were being discriminated against, that people not buying was a violation of their free speech rights, and so forth? That's not taking responsibility, that's whining.

Re: convictions

[loup_noir]

But silence does nothing to attract attention, and attention is what show biz is all about. I'm just splitting hairs at this point.

Whining is one of our basic rights here. /sarcasm

Re: convictions

[albionwood.livejournal.com]

Did they actually do that? The stuff I read sounded like they remained quite defiant. "I'd rather have a smaller following of really cool people who get it, who will grow with us as we grow and are fans for life, than people that have us in their five-disc changer with Reba McEntire and Toby Keith. We don't want those kinds of fans. They limit what you can do."

Also: death threats. That's a whole other deal than just losing sales. I think you can legitimately whine about receiving death threats, which certainly are attempts to censor speech.

Harvey Weinstein did whine about free speech, cuz the meshbacks in Tay-hoss wouldn't air ads for his documentary. But, you know, Harvey Weinstein.

The Chicks didn't really suffer much economically, in the long haul; they are still mega-sellers.

Re: convictions

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

No argument that death threats are beyond the pale.

Their complaints that (former) fans boycotting them was a violation of their [Dixie Chicks'] free speech rights is what gets me. No, it's a valid reaction - I can vote with my pocketbook.

Personally, I'd rather that they remain defiant than flip and pander if those are their true beliefs. Just, again, recognize the consequences. Take responsiblity, fercryin'outloud. Why is this such a difficult concept for many people?

Re: convictions

[albionwood.livejournal.com]

Their complaints that (former) fans boycotting them was a violation of their [Dixie Chicks'] free speech rights is what gets me.

That's the part I'm asking about: Did they really make that complaint? Or did others make that claim, and it got attributed to the DCs by people anxious to make them look as bad as possible? All I have been able to find (with an exhaustive research effort consisting of at least 15 minutes of Googling) is defiant statements by the DCs and endless ranting about FS rights by thousands of clueless fans; and frothy rants by conservatives saying pretty much what you are saying.

I did actually find one instance of a clear governmental attempt to restrict free speech - some wingnut in the South Carolina State Legislature apparently introduced a resolution calling on the DCs to apologize.

Again, AFAICT, the DCs did indeed take responsibility and remained defiant. They continued to sell records and win awards. Attempts to restrict their freedom to speak were made, but failed miserably. In all, a pretty healthy-looking situation, from a First Amendment standpoint.

So while I agree with your point, I don't see that either the DC or the Kenneth Eng situations are relevant. I'm sure there are plenty of other cases that would better demonstrate the inability of people to accept the consequences of their freedoms.

[goldenstag.livejournal.com]

My father-in-law (if he had lived long enough, I guess) apparently was fond of saying "Your right to free speech ends at my fist." He used that a lot if someone was being offensive in his face ...

[albionwood.livejournal.com]

It looks like Eng hates everybody, and has a history of writing hate. So why does a paper offer him a forum? And what a lame-ass response: "any offense caused by the one opinion piece," there's some serious tone-deafness; and some blame for the victim: "What this controversy points out is the lack of community leadership in addressing the critical and difficult issues of race relations," WTF? What it points out is that your paper is edited by a brain-dead racist!

Jon Carroll, as usual, has some good insight.

So, what consequences are being served up? Is Kenneth Eng complaining about his free-speech rights?

[blkeagl.livejournal.com]

He lost his job with the paper. Personally, I think the paper did the RIGHT thing publishing this because I believe that we should KNOW about people's hate rather than sweep it under the carpet.

[albionwood.livejournal.com]

Malarkey. Bigoted idiots are a dime a dozen; what good does it do to give one of them a bullhorn? Some people will take that as validation, which is not helpful.

We already know racism is alive and well; don't need to see it in print. Should papers run columns titled "Why I like Kiddie Porn" so we don't forget that's a problem, too? Come on.

[blkeagl.livejournal.com]

Yes, we all know racism exists. However, if the paper hadn't published Eng's article, I certainly would have never known of his individual point of view, however sarcastic, and none of us would be having this discussion. That is the good thing the paper did and should have done.

You are welcome to express your opinion, which is my entire point.

Mine is that repressing free speech just because we hate it is a current American belief that also violates fundamental American values.

Yes, as expressions of free speech, papers SHOULD always run controversial articles, ESPECIALLY when there are people who want to suppress them for their content.

I would MUCH rather know who, explicitly is a hate-monger than force them underground, because it is much more difficult to have a sincere discussion about hate when it is underground.

Attempts to modify language use are actually excellent when done for reasons of trying to more precisely convey intent and meaning, but banning or changing words because they make people uncomfortable fall into the same misguided logical fallacy.

People need to learn how to confront racism and surpressing it is NOT facing it.

All, IMO, naturally. Please feel free to discuss. Or is discussion, malarkey?

[albionwood.livejournal.com]

It's certainly possible to discuss racism without actually espousing it. Nor is it necessary to print inflammatory, racist remarks in a newspaper in order to foster healthy debate on the subject - any more than it is necessary to print kiddie porn in order to get people to think about that. And now the discussion has to take a giant step backward; instead of talking about the more subtle, invidious forms of racism that are prevalent nowadays, we are back to yammering about the overt bigotry of yesteryear. That's not an improvement.

Newspapers are responsible for their content. By running the column, without any disclaimers or context, Asian Weekly implicitly endorsed the idea that Eng's repulsive opinions are worth considering. (By the way, I didn't get the impression that they were "sarcastic" - do you think that was his intent?)

Racist hatred isn't "controversial," it's stupid and destructive. Free speech isn't free from responsibility, nor is it an unlimited freedom. We are not, for example, free to threaten violence against another person, or to incite others to violence. Racist hate speech, which this came pretty close to, has a long association with racist violence - the one feeds on the other.

I don't know how old you are, but when I was a kid, this kind of speech was commonplace. And it fostered the idea that it was OK to hate black people (still often called "niggers" then), because we all knew they were lazy/promiscuous/dishonest/whatever. (Even though hardly anyone of my acquaintance actually knew any black people.) The reason this kind of speech is usually suppressed is that society has generally come around to the idea that it is simply wrong, and there is much to be gained by fostering the idea that these opinions are unacceptable. Suppressing this kind of speech is, in fact, one way of confronting racism.

[blkeagl.livejournal.com]

Newspapers are responsible for their content. By running the column, without any disclaimers or context, Asian Weekly implicitly endorsed the idea that Eng's repulsive opinions are worth considering.

They published his opinion as an editorial. An editorial is not and has never been an endorsement by anyone other than the person who wrote it.

(By the way, I didn't get the impression that they were "sarcastic" - do you think that was his intent?)

You don't find an editorial column titled "God of the Universe" sarcastic? His opinions are clearly not sarcastic, despite his childish attempts to use the tool.

Take a look at his web sites and you will see an individual who is clearly an emotionally damaged, self-deluding intellectual.

Racist hatred isn't "controversial," it's stupid and destructive.

No. _Actual_ freedom of speech is controversial.

Free speech isn't free from responsibility, nor is it an unlimited freedom. We are not, for example, free to threaten violence against another person, or to incite others to violence. Racist hate speech, which this came pretty close to, has a long association with racist violence - the one feeds on the other.

"Close to" does not make it an incitement of violence. An incitement of violence IS illegal and I don't see any arrests or lawsuits taking place.

I did not and do not make the claim that he should be free from being responsible for his viewpoints or from the consequences of his viewpoints. Quite the opposite.

I don't know how old you are, but when I was a kid, this kind of speech was commonplace.

How is my age a factor? We can talk about anecdotal experiences of racism for a long time without addressing the actual point.

The reason this kind of speech is usually suppressed is that society has generally come around to the idea that it is simply wrong, and there is much to be gained by fostering the idea that these opinions are unacceptable. Suppressing this kind of speech is, in fact, one way of confronting racism.

I agree that it is wrong and I agree that society, on average, _believes_ that suppressing this is a way of confronting racism.

However, I disagree that it really is a way of confronting racism; it is merely a way to drive it underground and not have to face it. That is not confrontation, that is passive aggressive avoidance of the problem and allows many pundits to claim that racism is no longer an issue in todays society.

I recognize that today's society prefers this approach to dealing with many problems, but I hardly agree with it.

In point of fact, there are those in the Asian-American community who also agree:

From sfgate.com (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/02/27/MNGTCOBI921.DTL):

David Lee of the Chinese American Voters Education Committee said Eng's statement echoes the feelings of some Asian Americans. He said that rather than condemning the paper, black and Asian people should participate in a town hall-style meeting to address tension he said exists between the two communities.

"There is a segment that feels the way Eng does, but the sentiment is underground and not brought to the surface," Lee said. "If you don't have a discussion, then I think it allows these types of views to fester and turn into something much more negative. Rather than refute and bury this, we should be calling for a community dialogue to address this."