Musings about 'Free' Speech
Prompted by discussions last week after the talk, I've been re-reading Words That Wound, and thinking a lot about racist hate speech, when it's "free" and who bares the cost of such expressions. This quote from Mari Matsuda sums up part of the argument:
“In calling for legal sanctions for racist speech, this chapter rejects an absolutist first amendment position. It calls for movement of the societal response to racist speech from the private to the public realm. The choice of public sanction, enforced by the state, is a significant one. …. The places where the law does not go to redress harm have tended to be the places where women, children, people of color, and poor people live. This absence of law is itself another story with a message, perhaps unintended, about the relative value of different human lives. A legal response to racist speech is a statement that victims of racism are valued members of our polity.”
“I conclude that an absolutist first amendment response to hate speech has the effect of perpetuating racism: Tolerance of hate speech is not tolerance borne by the community at large. Rather, it is a psychic tax imposed on those least able to pay.” (p.18)
I'm persuaded by this argument and believe that it's possible to create legislation that supports equality by outlawing racist speech and still have a free society. They've done this in Canada, the UK, a number of European countries.
And, now, I see that in the UK they are expanding current laws to make "expressions or behaviour intended or likely to stir up hatred" against Muslims a crime. Frank Dobson, former Labour MP cabinet minister, offers a defense of the law in this piece he wrote for the Guardian.
Still, the enforcement of such legislation in the era of a global, networked society is problematic, to say the very least.
“In calling for legal sanctions for racist speech, this chapter rejects an absolutist first amendment position. It calls for movement of the societal response to racist speech from the private to the public realm. The choice of public sanction, enforced by the state, is a significant one. …. The places where the law does not go to redress harm have tended to be the places where women, children, people of color, and poor people live. This absence of law is itself another story with a message, perhaps unintended, about the relative value of different human lives. A legal response to racist speech is a statement that victims of racism are valued members of our polity.”
“I conclude that an absolutist first amendment response to hate speech has the effect of perpetuating racism: Tolerance of hate speech is not tolerance borne by the community at large. Rather, it is a psychic tax imposed on those least able to pay.” (p.18)
I'm persuaded by this argument and believe that it's possible to create legislation that supports equality by outlawing racist speech and still have a free society. They've done this in Canada, the UK, a number of European countries.
And, now, I see that in the UK they are expanding current laws to make "expressions or behaviour intended or likely to stir up hatred" against Muslims a crime. Frank Dobson, former Labour MP cabinet minister, offers a defense of the law in this piece he wrote for the Guardian.
Still, the enforcement of such legislation in the era of a global, networked society is problematic, to say the very least.
posted by Jessie Daniels at
5:25 PM
