Don't Be A Hater

This picture (originally from DailyKos) is disgusting. I just want to get the obvious out there. Whoever made it should be shamed and humiliated, especially for the mockery it makes of Native Americans. But, how far would you be willing to go in your distaste and dislike for it? Far enough to call for censorship and regulation of hate speech? Far enough to support images like this, and vitriolic diatribes against racial, cultural and religious groups to be “not allowed”?

Austin Thompson of The A. Thompson Monitor (it's on my blogroll) and I are in the midst of an intra-liberal disagreement about this. Austin points to European countries, and argues that we should hold hate speech on the same level of censorship that we hold swearing and nudity on broadcast television. I must beg to differ. Censorship of speech is always an extremely dangerous subject, and one with a fine line. If anything, our standards are far too strict in this country. Austin points to Europe, but Europe has a much more reasonable tolerance for nudity and language on public broadcasts. So in one sense, yes, we should tilt more European in our censorship laws. But holding hate speech to the same standard as profanity, as desirable as that may seem, is a bad idea.

Why? Because who defines hate speech? The party currently in power in government? I’m sure rush Limbaugh and the Republican Party would have been thrilled to have defined anti-American, subversive sentiments as hate-speech during the Bush administration and wiped it from radio, television, newspapers, street corners, and the internet. Flag burning anyone? We might wish to stop someone’s vitriolic, hate filled diatribe towards Hispanics and immigrants, for example, but to actually do so would be to dig our own graves. Censorship of speech is a slippery, slippery, slope, and one that we would best avoid descending.

Let’s just stop and consider what we are really talking about here. Are we just talking about hate speech on public airwaves? What about hate speech in public spaces? Or hate speech on a private website, or in a book? Like it or not, racist tards have just as much of a right to assembly as I do. They have just as much right to express their opinions on race as Austin Thompson does. We have collectively decided to hold the right to assemble, to publish, and to verbally express oneself as separate from the material and language being expressed. And that’s a good thing.

In our verbal debate, Austin broached the topic of hate-crimes. Hate crimes occupy a different arena than speech, because they are intent and speech that has been acted on in a manner that violates the rights (life, safety, property) of another. Hate speech that actively incites others to violence and makes serious threats is also in a different realm, and one that I believe can be regulated. But some random racist’s blog that spews insults and stereotypes at minorities is completely different. As awful as it is, it's not something that a government, which is always one election away from the paranoid, xenophobic, militaristic, falsely patriotic whims of the voting populace, should be able to secretly delete all record of having ever existed, or prevent from being viewed.

We all pay a price for the rights and freedoms that we enjoy, and the Bush administration and post-911 hysteria that fed the Patriot Act are two very real, very frightening reminders of how easily those rights can be dissolved and erased. Ridding this nation of racist sentiment and hate may be a well intentioned idea, but one day we might wake up to find that “I hate Black people” has all of a sudden been equated with “I hate America.” And let’s face it; do you really trust Americans enough to distinguish between those two? I don’t, and I hold dear my right to say that on this website.

Let me know what you think, I'm hoping that this will spark some comments and discussion.