Chuka Umunna
: Ed's Google Speech and What It Means for Responsible Capitalism
Mehdi Hasan
: Woolwich Attack: Demonising Muslims Won't Help
Jamie Bartlett
: The Woolwich Attacks Are Not New
Martin Newman
: People of Woolwich Will Defy the Far-Right and Come Together Over Killing of a Soldier Son
B.J. Epstein
: Down With the Matriarchy? What Matriarchy?
One of the big news stories this week has been the Swansea University undergraduate who was jailed after sending racist tweets.
Liam Stacey showed extremely poor judgement when he tweeted offensive and thoughtless statements shortly after footballer Fabrice Muamba collapsed on the field, and the situation quickly escalated when Stacey mentioned picking cotton. Muamba, of course, was born in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Stacey's comments were clearly a reference to slavery. Hence, he was charged with inciting racial hatred.
Not surprisingly, some people have responded with the expected comments, such as "this is political correctness gone mad" or "this is the beginning of the end of free speech". Others have defended Stacey; he was drunk, they say, and was just being stupid, and some claim he wasn't actually a public menace in any way.
So was it right to jail Stacey? Is this a challenge to free speech?
Well, it depends on what kind of society we want to have. Do we want a society where anyone can say anything, no matter who it hurts or offends and no matter what effect such words can have? Or would we rather have a society where people can say almost anything they want, but with some limits in regard to decency, common sense, and respect, and where these limits are used to encourage education and tolerance?
If we choose the latter, we are protecting people's feelings (and this in turn could help some, especially young people, from learning to hate themselves and from becoming suicidal), but we are also doing more than that; indeed, we may potentially be preventing hatred - in the form of racism, sexism, homophobia/transpohobia/biphobia, anti-Semitism, classism, ageism, and so on - from spreading. In fact, in the long-term, we could even stop so many genocides from taking place.
Think about it this way. To take a rather extreme example, if Hitler had been prevented from making his racist and anti-Semitic remarks, would he have gotten as far as he did? Would his policies against Jews, Roma, the disabled, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and others have had such devastating and far-reaching effects if he had been put in jail for inciting racial hatred?
The answer is probably not. He would have been part of a very different society, one that respected all types of people no matter what their background. Isn't that something to strive for?
Is this all sounding rather idealistic? Possibly. But isn't it better to aim high and to try to help people get along? If we didn't "other" each other so frequently, through our words and actions, we could have many fewer problems in the world.
If we continue to forgive people for being 'thoughtless' or 'stupid' (one thinks here of Prince Harry's infamous Nazi costume) because we want to believe that everyone has the right to do or so anything she or he pleases, then we are saying that it doesn't matter if young gay children continue to kill themselves because they are heart-broken from being called "fags" or "dykes" and from not seeing the possibility of a better future, and it doesn't matter if Jewish children get bullied and beaten up, and it doesn't matter if blacks have a harder time getting job interviews or are repeatedly reminded of the shameful history of slavery.
But if we instead say that there are some common sense-based limits to free speech and if we work to educate people about different races, religions, sexualities, abilities, etc., we might end up with a much more tolerant, equitable world. Education is the key here, but adults can't be good role models for the next generation if they are busy calling one another names or putting down certain groups of people.
A positive example of this from the past month took place at my own workplace, the University of East Anglia. Members of the rugby team went to a 'bad taste' party, some dressed up as Ku Klux Klan extremists, among others. The student union responded by disbanding the team, an action the university has praised. One wonders exactly why those rugby players thought it was entertaining and amusing to dress up as racists. Luckily, the student union recognised that this could not go unchallenged or it would send out a worrying message about the university's beliefs and priorities.
So is this political correctness gone mad? I don't think so. On the contrary, it's political correctness gone sane.
(With many thanks to FW for suggesting this topic.)
Follow B.J. Epstein on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bjepstein
Carla Buzasi: The Week That Was: Racism Uncovered
Dr Rebecca Fraser: What We Might Learn From History...
Dorian de Wind: Some Personal Thoughts on President Obama's Same-Sex Marriage Decision
Todd Clayton: Katie Ricks Becomes First Out Lesbian To Be Ordained In PCUSA
Several leading Nazis were also convicted of anti-Semitism between the wars. They were proud of their convictions.
Speech laws drive racism underground.
Also, Liam Stacey was not convicted of inciting racial hatred.
He was convicted of a Public Order Offence. It is outrageous that he was sent to prison for such a minor offence.
It's also worrying that you cheer on his prison sentence without really knowing what "crime" he was prosecuted for.
You can't punish the racism out of a racist, you have to educate it out of them. It would have been far more proportional and constructive to send the guy off to the linguistics department of his uni and made to study the relevant lectures in sociolinguitics on prejudice language. Police, and rprisoner officers are 2 of many professions who send people on anti racism cases for saying racist things. and in my humble opinion, they are more worthy of a prison sentance than a lowly student being an idiot on Twitter.
Yes, because he would have acted to highlight instances in others, and use that to gain power. Why burn down the Reichstaag, or have Krystalnacht, when he could just have accused people of 'being a bit racist'.
When you make speech a crime based on perception, controlling the perception gives you a license to imprison for no reason. I could claim that as a woman, you are perjudiced against men, and thus your comments here on Liam Stacey are sexist in nature. You implied alcoholism, sub-standard intelligence, etc. So are you willing to spend a month in prison because of this article? Because it contains wording that, like his, can be 'offensive', and that's justification for imprisonment.
Can I not live in your world, as it seems a might oppressive.
As originally conceived, it was of course quite brilliant.
But we’ve mixed the religion of idiots, football, with the most serious thing in the world, race, and added some unhealthy grief tourism, so suddenly you have to stretch the law to catch and punish him. You talk about what sort of society we want. I don’t want a society where laws are made up for passing hysteria, to ruin someone else’s life. I want one were laws are debated and considered before enactment, with at least some democratic validation, and then calmly, transparently and predictably applied.
Let’s widen this out, see how your ideas would work. The majority of people in the UK want the current levels of immigration cut. Some advocating cuts have faced a ‘no platform’ response, and are shouted down as racist. Do you think being anti-immigration is racist? Offensive? Would you criminalise anti-immigration expressions? Or what about multi-culturalism? I bet you’re in favour of that. Would contrary opinions offend you? Enough to jail people, or ruin their future prospects?
Do you really think that chipping away at free speech, which dissatisfied people will see as shutting down debate, will make for a more harmonious society? Quite the reverse; don’t underestimate how resentful this is making some people, and how it is polarising the country. Some will vote for the BNP just to preserve their right to vote for the BNP.
It's a nightmare of a balancing act!
So I'm quite prepared to say we should protect people from being tipped into despair and suicide by concerted campaigns of harassment and bullying, whether by race or anything else. Inciting others to commit offences, okay, I can see that too. Things liable to lead to immediate violence or a riot, no problem.
But there are so many things that might offend people, and so many different viewpoints, I fear curtailment of expression will follow. And there are other better ways to respond; the use of argument, shaming people, simply ignoring them (which would have been the best response in this case). Or, as your reply to my rather belligerent post shows, charm and politeness is often very disarming.
Homosexuality offends some religious people, but we don't legislate their views because we don't think that someone else's offense is enough to legislate against a behavior.
So who draws the lines between what is offensive and acceptable? What if society shifts and something that you think is acceptable is now banned?
You don't have to agree with someone to accept they have a right to speak, if they say something racist or otherwise then let their own ignorance condemn them, and let the free speech of the rest of us be their judge.
And since you broke Godwin's law - Hitler banned freedom of speech for people who disagreed with him, so are you siding with Hitler, or just using a trite analogy?
I understand what you're saying, but unless a homosexual person starts actually insulting you for being hetero, then you haven't got a case for being the victim of hateful speech.
But in general I agree with you, our idea of what is considered acceptable shifts all the time and sometimes it seems less fuss to simply let people's own ignorance condemn them.
I believe in freedom of speech because the alternative is too restrictive, but I think that we need to look at comments made in context. I've had racist things said to me and yet the context wasn't particularly abusive nor harmful e.g. a stranger online making a lone comment or two. But if the situation were different, say someone was shouting racist abuse at me every day and making me feel intimidated, then I'd like the authorities to be on my side when I go to them and ask for help.
The reaction to this kid who made the cotton picking statement does seem excessive.
I think that harassment, the kind of abuse that can come consistently from one person to another, is something that should be illegal, and I imagine it already is, but this is different to posting something on twitter, however vile it is.
My underlying feeling is that I am simply not comfortable granting the state the right to determine what I (or anyone else) can, or cannot say. Freedom of speech is the most precious thing, it is worth having to put up with a few morons if it means the right is protected. Handing the role of arbiter over to the state means we all run the risk of our own viewpoint(s) being legislated against.
Even causes that are quite rightly championed now, such as gay rights, were probably very unpopular in years past. By allowing the state to ban things simply because a majority find them offensive or wrong would have allowed these voices to be silenced.
The cost of this is people being able to say things that the vast majority of us think unconscionable, but the alternative is much, much worse.
I've just looked at the appeal judgement. Stacey posted his initial 'F*** Muamba, he's dead LOL' post. People spot it and respond. One person says 'You, my friend, are a Grade A C***'. (The asterisks are mine not theirs!) This prompted one of Stacey's worst tweets.
Really, I don't think anyone should go around calling strangers C***, even if they've said something really stupid. But again, most people would consider that our freedom of speech, particularly on a forum like twitter.
And who gets to pick? What words can one and can't one use? Awfully grey area. "Go kill the XXX" very clear incitement, but "The XXX is a YYY"? What words can one get away with using for YYY? What words can't one? Can one say "Religion is complete bunkum?" Or "Catholics are a bunch of poodleheads for saying gay marriage is like slavery" What if they said "Nazi's" or "Evil" instead of poodleheads?
And the idea that somehow by saying a person can say any damnfool thing they like is somehow the same as saying we're fine with gay youth killing themselves, is just a logic train derailment. Can we only be nice to one group by being nasty to another?