Freedom of Screech 0

Amitai Etzioni grapples with freedom of speech. Here’s a bit:

A crucial difference exists between the right to say the most awful things—to use the N-word, deny the Holocaust, advocate for the Islamic State—and the rightness of saying these things. It is the difference between a constitutional right to free speech and what we consider morally appropriate speech. All of us are not only citizens, with a whole array of rights, but also members of various communities made up of people with whom we reside, work, play, pray, take civic action, and socialize. These communities, in effect, tell us that if we must engage in offensive speech—which, granted, is our right—we must understand that one or more of these communities to which we belong might in turn express its dismay. Members of these communities might even decide to have nothing more to do with us, much less lend a hand in a time of need. Nothing in the First Amendment promises that free speech will be cost free.

The entire piece is worth your while.

I must say, though, that I do not agree wholeheartedly with his position. In particular, I think he cavalierly dismisses the concept of “microaggressions.” He says, in part:

Likewise, scrutinizing a 30-something woman’s hand for a wedding band is interpreted as a microaggression communicating that women should be married during their child-bearing years because that is their primary purpose. And asking a nonwhite person where he is from is interpreted as microaggressively suggesting he is exotic or not a “true American.” A guide to “Interrupting Microaggressions” recommends responding to such questions by asking, “I’m wondering what message this is sending […] Do you think you would have said this to a white male?” or “How might we examine our implicit bias to ensure that gender plays no part in this?”

When I young ‘un in the the Jim Crow South, white folks addressed black folks by their first names. For example, I never knew the last time of old Jesse, who lived and died in a house–a shack, really–on the edge of Pine View Farm and who sometimes helped my father on the farm. The lady who took care of me while my brother was born was not “Mrs. Collins”; she was “Bertha.” Her husband was not “Mr. Collins”; he was “George.”

Denying the courtesy titles of “Mr.,” “Mrs., or “Miss” (there was no such thing as a “Ms.” back in the olden days, when I was a young ‘un) would be rightly classified in today’s lingo as a “microaggression,” a tiny act of disrespect designed to remind black folks in every transaction with whites that they were not equal.

Some persons cry “microaggression” when referring to “an unpleasantness that I would rather ignore” or “a reality that I don’t want to confront.” Those are not complaints of “microaggressions”; those are whines couched in the fashionable language of the day. Such whines comprise Etzioni’s examples of “microaggressions.”

Etzioni fails to discriminate between those whines and references to the daily little disrespectful and, yes, aggressive behaviors intended to dehumanize or demean their targets, true microaggessions.

The failure to recognize the difference detracts from the post.