(no subject)

[zadok-allen.livejournal.com]

Comments

[liliaeth]

Why is it that free speech in this kind of definition always comes down to the ability to be racist, homophobic and a complete asshole to anyone who isn't a white cis straight male?

[moonshaz.livejournal.com]

The cartoon is well done, but I don't agree with what it's sayig. There's been a lot of scare mongering about the issue addressed here, but I think been it's blown wildly out of proportion.

Furthermore, the use of imagery from jim crow racism in this context seems highly inappropriate to me.

THIS is what the image is really about:



The cartoonist has taken an image that symbolizes the systematic oppression of an entire race of people and applied it to an unrelated issue in a way that is not only inaccurate but runs the risk of trivializing the original issue.

[blackdwarv.livejournal.com]

This. And the art of cartooning is getting your thought across, so this is a bigger fail. What is it they are saying?

[immemor.livejournal.com]

The best and most benefit-of-the-doubt meaning I can come up with is that many people only want to defend speech they like and thus free speech has become somehow segregated. But I'm not really sure either.

[immemor.livejournal.com]

I think you’re right about why this falls flat. The metaphor, whatever the artist was attempting, can’t overpower the racism imagery.

[moonshaz.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it's not just me!

[ponitacupcake.livejournal.com]

Basically this.

[zadok-allen.livejournal.com]

This cartoon came out not long after Professor Click had her 15 minutes. A group of people protesting racism deciding that they needed a segregated "safe space" due to triggers or privilege or cultural appropriation or some other thumb-sucking nonsense. I don't think a more appropriate image could have been found.

[not-hothead-yet.livejournal.com]

could you be more specific? I really don't get it. Is it saying that safe spaces are for the privileged and free speech is treated like "less than" (which I'm not even sure what THAT means) or is it saying that free speech is perceived as the "dirty cousin" of safe space? Or that safe space idea gets all the attention? or... what?

[phildegrave]

Please explain to us exactly how your free speech has been violated.

[zadok-allen.livejournal.com]

Mine hasn't. Someone at MU tried recently, though, with the "safe space" nonsense.

[phildegrave]

So exactly whose free speech is being violated at MU?

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Free speech is over-rated. It's freedom of assembly and political expression that's necessary to keep the tyrants at bay.

[mudryikot.livejournal.com]

IMO all three you have named are essential. Otherwise "technicalities" arise that allow government-controlled judiciary to quash protest movements.
Plus you have forgotten the right to own and carry firearms.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I can't think of any way that free speech fights dictators that's not in assembly and political expression. And I totally disagree with the gun thing, but I'm Australian, I don't think the police should have guns.

[moonshaz.livejournal.com]

The right to own and carry firearms is not necessary at all to maintain a free society. We in the US are stuck with it for now, but many of us would be happy to strike that provision from out constitution, if it was within our power.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

But free speech has value beyond keeping tyrants at bay. I would think it invaluable, for instance, for the sake of art.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Best response i've ever had to that statement. I'll have to think on this. Does it need to be protected as a fundamental right for this purpose?

It's also worth noting that nowhere has free speech; everywhere at least has defamation laws.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

According to some scholars I'd be happy to name if pressed, when it came to "freedom of speech" it was the freedom of the press to print that was more the focus of the founders. Without a free media keeping check on government and large group abuses, one cannot have assembly or political expression.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I believe you're correct.

However, what does "free press" mean, if not the freedom of political expression. Is it something different to independent media?

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Its the same water?

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

On The Media had a bit on that protest; from what I've heard (and I fully appreciate that, being sick recently, that hasn't been much), the reporters got a bit pushy about their right to intrude on the gathering without considering what implication such an insistence on participation might trigger with the group.

Which means the signs over the fountains should be reversed.

[moonshaz.livejournal.com]

All of this.

[zadok-allen.livejournal.com]

If you watch the video in the link above you'll see that what you described is precisely the opposite of what happened. The protestors were pushing the student journalists around. And screw "triggers" - they're adults participating in a campus protest. If the presence of an Asian-American sports journalist is a "trigger" for them, they need to go the hell back to their parents' house. You don't get to create a "safe space" in the middle of a park for the purpose of excluding other students.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

It was this rally that was discussed in the OTM piece.

Lately, the African-American community has not been served well by the mainstream media. Not well at all.

For the rally participants to exclude media personnel who probably had nothing to do with the coverage of Ferguson, etc. simply reflects the frustration the participants had with the media in general.

Much the same way sufferers of sexual assault might lash out at all who resemble their attackers.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not reflexively defending the participants. I do think, though, that there are a lot of nuances being excluded from the coverage that deserve better examination.